Billy the Greek's slot limit proposal
28-34" slot limit, one fish, throw back the rest except for a tournament winner..... YES or NO???
I know there's a lotta guys out there that would say this is a patronizing or self-promoting move to name a thread after this legendary striped bass fisherman. I saw his videos here today and it reminded me when I had the honor to meet him at the Farmingdale show.
He's an incredible fisherman, I could only hope to someday have half the knowledge he has.
This proposal came from a conversation we had about the state of the striped bass stocks. If any of the other guys were there that day remember the details differently. lt me know and I'll edit. But I think I have the basic principle right:
to have one bass limit, slot between 28-34", and to throw the rest back unless it's a tournament winner.
This proposal has been put forth in many forms on every striped bass web site out there. Many guys are tired of hearing about it, saying it will never get anywhere.
On another site I used to post at, a guy named The Spaniard came up with a "one fish at 34" proposal.I thought we could go somewhere with that, but it died out eventually as guys had their best year ever. Upon thinking about that original 34" proposal, I think it wouldn't work because it would unfairly penalize surf fishermen. Surf fishermen, who only catch 5-10% of all striped bass landed, should have the reasonable possibility of going out and coming home with one fish. A 34" minimum would make it hard for that to happen. Many guys would get frustrated, and I don't blame them. It's your choice whether you keep a fish or not, but I have no problem eating them. I love to eat bass.
I agree, it won't get anywhere as long as we let ouselves be governed by inertia, and accept the status quo of catch figures from thr NMFS and ASMFC which end up managing yearly yield, and not the future.
But then I met Billy the Greek at the show and he was saying the same thing again, that more bass are being harvested because there are more guys into the sport now.
For him to suggest this as a way of striped bass management of the future was a big step. He depends on bass when he takes guys out fishin. Talk like that is about as popular as saying you support the Communist Party, most people don't evn think it's an issue and it's all a fabrication by a few tree huggers.
Well, Billy don't lok like a tree hugger to me.
There was another captain I read about on this site somewhere, a charter captain out of Virginia, who was saying the same thing... that he sees the overall numbers of bass are down. Try telling that to some of the guys I know who said they caught 1000 bass last year.
So what's your opinion, sound off.
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How do we sort this all out to see if if's reasonable, or not even necessary? The way I went about it was I started talking to long time bass guys, like my friend Joe and others, and asking them about how it used to be, and if they saw any decline at all.
There was the analogy of a bowl of M&Ms, what do you people think about that?
Is it reasonable? Is it stupid? Do we have a chance of implementing it if we could even agree that it might be effective?
Where is the science to support all this? How can we learn more about the numbers? What about the people who had their best years in the last 2 years, don't their opinions count?
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