Posted by Ed on November 13, 2002 at 09:41:56:
For the past several weeks, on and off, I've been trying to preach that if we REALLY want something done, we have to do something about the commercial MASS take (99%+?). This is what WIPES everything clean... not a fish caught on line, or speared, here and there.
The commercial take is TONS a day. Closing one area to them, will just move them to another 'currently open' area, where they will proceed with 'wiping' that area clean too....
Now, here is something interesting I came accross...Get a hold of commercial fishing regs, and refer to:
Section 120, subsection h, Title 14, CCR concerning commercial by-catch.
They are allowed an INSANELY HIGH 1500 lbs per day for EACH AND EVERY DAY they are out on the water!!!
A 3 or 4 day trip means 4500 to 6000 lbs of BYCATCH for the trip! From my understanding, the bycatch can include MANY species of fish which would be otherwise illegal to keep. 1500 lbs per boat, per day.... Hmmm.. IS THERE ANY WONDER why are fisheries are in trouble? Are we not counting on the DFG to 'manage' our fisheries?
Since the lobster openner, I've been out on my boat twice out of the CIH. Both times, when returning to dock, I've had officers (in one case 5+) JUMP out of the bushes, run to the boat, and shout "STATE GAME WARDEN"... I've had them throughly search my boat, and ask everyone aboard THE SAME freak'n questions OVER and OVER again, trying to 'catch' us with something we MAY have done that is not by the book. Meanwhile, 1500 LBS PER DAY/PER BOAT of by-catch is being landed....
It seems to me that DFG has NO INTEREST in actually protecting our wildlife/marine life, or managing it....