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Gang I have said this in the past and will keep saying it we need to police our selves or we are going to fish our sevles out of the game. I'm posting a quote from another thread that states the importance of not killing sows...
Cows = Sows= millions of fry each!!!!!!!!
As long as we continue to target SOWS we are doing a disservice to our selves and the fishery!!!
I'm infavor of looking at a slot limit for snapper say 15-20".
I know this will get bashed, slammed and what knoted but it's time we approach it from all sides not just headon like Jim and Tom are doing.....
Keep up the great work guys ...
John
We need to approach the fishery like a cattle feed lot... Where they fatten and slaugther Steers not COWS !!!!.Tom Hilton said:The problem was the Commercial long liners killing the brood stock not juvenile snapper caught in shrimp trawls. Sow Snapper spawn billions of eggs in the Gulf of Mexico. Shrimp bycatch was a symptom but not truly the underlying Cancer the long liners were. This Council has approved two million dollars to further study an effective bycatch reduction device. The Recreational sector is being held hostage due to ill thought out plans as far as who is really the problem. The Commercial Snapper Fishermen were rewarded with IFQ's to fish 30 days. They can not be properly supervised in a ten day season as evidenced by public comments all across the Gulf of Mexico.
When the longliners were moved to the fifty fathom curve the sows were not being killed.
Texas was forced to use an 18" Red Snapper size limit which did untold damage to our brood stock. The loss of those fish with an eighty percent mortality rate was again and open indictment of this Council's Judgment causing tremendous damage to Western Gulf Stocks.
Jim Smarr
Texas RFA
[email protected]
361-463-1558
Cows = Sows= millions of fry each!!!!!!!!
As long as we continue to target SOWS we are doing a disservice to our selves and the fishery!!!
I'm infavor of looking at a slot limit for snapper say 15-20".
I know this will get bashed, slammed and what knoted but it's time we approach it from all sides not just headon like Jim and Tom are doing.....
Keep up the great work guys ...
John