Posted by Northcoast_diver on November 23, 2004 at 16:26:43:
In Reply to: mature male sheepshead posted by tommy7 on November 23, 2004 at 13:33:40:
Lings are slow too. The issue is not so much in shooting them as in finding them. Or being lucky enough to find a big one.
It's too bad that Calif DFG allows the taking of sheepshead, in my opinion. They are a beautiful fish, like the garibaldi or the canary rockfish.
If you wanted to conduct meaningful protest, gathering names to petition the DFG to put the sheepshead on the no take list might avail something. That is what worked for the Calif mountain lion. Now the lions eat more people than ever in the past before the ban. Point being, if it can work for the lions, it should work for the sheepshead as well.
Or you could call up the DFG biologist and get his/her views as to why sheepshead are allowed to be hunted, whether there is any statistical difference in the population of sheepshead compared with garibaldi or canary rockfish.
As for spearfishermen, they don't care how hard or easy it was to shoot a fish, they normally care how big it is instead.