New Reef Fish Restrictions

[kitefisherman]

Close all snappers from February to April because they think yellowtails are overfished? This is really getting old . . .

From this morning's Sun-Sentinel: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...home-headlines

[Screen Name]

They are out of control. Too many people are now employed in the business of restricting fishing, in my opinion. 20 years ago, there were relatively no restrictions to the best of my knowledge.

Look at them today, for the east cost alone. Don’t they already restrict you to two Grouper......24” long, 5 Hogfish, 1 Amberjack, 2 Red Snapper........on and on, and these restrictions aren’t even mature yet. I’m sure that if we did a comparison that we would find a 1000%+ increase in fishing restrictions, much greater than the population increase. Its crazy.

[diligaf]

To me...it sounds like the real intent is to create MPA's. The want give the fisherman two options... we can take away half your fishing area or we can let you fish anywhere and just not allow you to catch any fish. A pretty slick move on their part.

[Denny]

Not slick enough, hopefully.

[Rice]

I've joined CCA and I hope all of you have too. We really need someone to stand up for our collective fishing rights about now. ] CCA

I really apprecieate the people from spearboard that are willing and able to attend these meetings. I'd like to show up if possible for things like this. Is is possible to implement a "conservation calender" a page on this site that would inform all of us of when things like this are happening and where? It would be significantly easier than going through all the threads. It would also be easier to print out.

just an idea
Rice

Join CCA!

[Denny]

Coming at ya, Rice. Stay tuned.
For now:
MPA hearings scheduled by SAFMC for areas ALREADY being considered as/foe MPA's. Starts next week.
http://www.safmc.net/news/fmpro?-db=...id=33711&-find

Document with proposed MPA's mapped out and explained:
http://www.safmc.net/news/mpa%20phdoc04.pdf

SEDAR workshop January 27th through the 30th, 2004. Tampa.

Gray's Reef meeting. January 28th. Comments on the spearfishing proposal will be accepted from the public. 11 am - 4pm. Savannah (sp?), GA

More soon...

[eyyeball]

Don DeMaria, a commercial spear fisherman on Summerland Key, said the council was taking the easiest, least effective path by focusing on traditional methods such as spawning closures and size limits. He said what would really help would be marine protected areas, in which most fishing would be banned. The council is considering marine protected areas, but only for deep-water reefs that attract few fishing boats. The council dropped proposals to designate marine protected areas in popular shallow-water reefs after protests from recreational and commercial fishermen.

Who is this guy and has he read Dr. Shipp's study on how useless MPAs are?

[SPEARIT]

Denny, I'd mentioned these meetings on the Hogfish thread. Glad you caught it also. I'm in a location where I have 2 meetings each within 50miles of me so I'll be hitting both. For us here, the proposed sites are in undiveable waters that will be of little impact but I am still concerned in light of the old "Give em an inch and they'll take a mile" rule. I'll be interested to see the turnout from the Commerical and recreational Hook & Line outfits at these meetings.