Just got thru reading an article on how we recreational fishermen who buy a saltwater stamp are funding the buy-back of shrimp, crab, and finfish licences. I know this is not a new issue but everytime i see it and how it's handled it just chaps my *****. I am all in for the reduction of these commercial guys dreging the bottom of all life. The wastefull discard of by-catch is unexplainable when the ratio is something like 1-10. 1 pound of shrimp for 10 pounds of by-catch ( snapper, flounder, croaker, sea trout, redfish, turtles...ect). I am sure I read that somewhere. As stated in the article in Mariners log (September)and a Quote from Larry McKinney TPWD Costal Fisheries director, "All three fisheries, shrimp, crab, and finfish are currently being overfished, over capitalized (too many vesels), fully exploited, or a combination of all three. We want to stabalize the fishery socially, economically, and biologically. Our least-disruptive management tool available has been the licence buyback program, which has been sucessfull thanks to the contributions from the recreational anglers in Texas".
Maybee someone can enlighten me on this a bit more. When the red fish was in trouble I don't recall having to buy back any permits or licences. The limits were set and the recreational angler adjusted to the new regs. When the new trout regs came out this year, again the recreational angler accepted the regs and went fishing. As I understand it the commercial guys are fishing a state (Texas) resource, governed by laws and regulations. The state should adjust and set the regs on shrimp, finfish and crabs just like the recreational anglers get them. Why would the state continue to deplete a recource that is in so much trouble by not adjusting or managing that recource? What makes the commercial fishery so special, that the recreational anglers have to spend over 7mil to buy back licences from someone who is abusing the recource. As I see it the commercial guys have been abusing a resource from the begining. Since the recreational angler just swallows what we are given, the state gets away with the Least-diruptive management tool (our money). I say put limits on the commercials and use the money spent on giving them another hand out, restoring and managing the recource they have depleted. Ok, off my soap box. just had to get that out.
