Quote:
Originally Posted by Smalls
But if they were leaving too many fish, which sounds like the reason for the change, couldn't that be a reason for insufficient forage? What is easier to do, directly increase forage by releasing 1000s of minnows and other bait fish? Or removing the slot limit and allowing any fish to be kept?
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Right. One scientific requirement for slot limits to be effective is that there needs to be sufficient forage (relative to the population) for individuals to maintain fast growth rates.
If growth rates are limited by lack of forage, slots don't work because most of the population can end up stunted.
Another scientific requirement for slots to be effective is that mortality within the population needs to be dominated by harvest. If non-harvest factors dominate mortality, restrictive slot limits don't preserve individuals to breed or be harvested later at a larger size, but to die of some non-harvest cause instead of being enjoyed on the table.