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Old 04-16-2014, 01:42 PM
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keakar keakar is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MathGeek View Post
We keep most of the legal fish we catch, though one that is barely legal (16") might be thrown back so that ice chest shrinkage does not cause a problem for us. There's just not much meat on most 14-16" reds.

I don't think allowing folks to keep 14-16" reds will hurt the resource, so I wouldn't oppose this. However, there is a lot of bias against keeping the smaller fish, so I tend to think that doubling the limit of the existing length ranges is more likely to find wide support.
I found if you "assume" an average shrinkage of 1/4" your ok so I mark my lines at 12 1/4" and 16 1/4" and if it touches the line it goes back but if it goes just past the line i'll keep it.

true theres not much meat on the small fish (16" red is about the same as a 12-14" speck fillet) but the meat texture is worth the extra effort to clean it for that small amount of meat because that small fillet is going to be flakey and tender and not firm and lumpy like the bigger ones are.

for the big ones they are for stews, gumbo, and coobeyon (ya I know I cant spell it) and the small ones are for frying
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