Quote:
Originally Posted by Goooh
I believe that the SPR and limits should be continually monitored and limits should be changed accordingly. To think that limits should remain the same if all things stay the same with the biomass and estuary, while human population continues to increase along with the number of anglers does not compute with me.
My observation and theory...
I'm 30 years old and have been fishing and crabbing from vermilion bay to holly beach since I was little, and the number of people out there has grown considerably since I can remember. I could tell the increase in people by the time I was 18 and even more in my early to mid twenties. Do y'all have a different experience?
With the continual expansion of refineries and influx of outdoorsmen that typically move here for those positions, along with regular old natural population increase, there has to be an affect on pressure. This coupled with the advancement of fishing technology that allows people to run places they'd never dream of without a true knowledge of a fishing area, and the Internet/social media eliminating the need for putting in your time at the local bait shops and marinas to learn from people with wisdom has to have introduced a large population of harvesters.
Without HD maps half of the idiots on the water would have been too scared to get that expensive boat and tear off into the abyss. A lot of people don't beat the snot out of an aluminum bait with zero electronics while learning to navigate before diving off into a full blown fishing boat. A lot of them have never dragged a boat out of bayou pigeon for 2 hours and bailed water in storms on the way back (navionics on a phone would have saved us that day), or high sided a skiff on an oyster pad.
For me, the expansion and addition of numerous boat launches and marina facilities around the coast is a testament to the increase in recreational fisherman.
Just my theory.
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I am 52 and this debate or point of debate has been going on as long as I can remember.
I also remember in the 70's catching crabs from our pier at our family camp in the dozens. Then I remember not catching them for over a decade in the 80's. And everyone thought then.......we were done......yet here we are in 2016 catching crabs again........
all the "stuff" does not equal more harvest to me. It means more sells for companies, more people on the water, more people with more gadgets and yes for some it may mean more fish.
But as a whole, we no longer have an attention spans past the new "thing" that is cool........I.E. duck hunters and the Robertson's affect on the sport.
But all those young men, bought all those mud boats and now they cannot kill more ducks because of all the "pressure" yets us old guys kill all the birds we want (well maybe not all but enough)........
I hear you..........I've seen it........but our fisherie is as healthy as it has ever been. As the gadgets get better, so does our science to save and or preserve the populations of what we chase.
Oysters, shrimp, grabs and of course the elusive red snapper seem to be at all time highs.........water quality gets better and better. Our oysters are affected more by the fresh water we put on them during flooding than harvest. But up and down the east coast you hear more and more reclamation of the indicator species.
I will concede that adjustments must be made from time to time, but I will still beleive that if we only had "recreational" harvest of the resources, we would not hurt the resource.
But hey........I could be dead wrong