[lemaymiami]

For every coastal state... protect your baitfish stocks - or lose the fish you want to target, period. Over here in Florida we went through it for years -watching specie after specie go into decline, then collapse... We lost every conservation battle we fought back in the seventies and eighties (the commercial industry, from the fish houses on up, owned our state's legislature back then...). Every attempt at reasonable regulation failed and we all got motivated...

Finally with the help of the FCA (the forerunner of the CCA) we were able to get organized and stop inshore netting here forever...

You've got a long road ahead of you and a lot more friends than you know of so keep at it.... I used to contribute a fishing trip for auction every year to the Houma chapter of the state's CCA and I'll be glad to do it again even though I'm not likely to ever fish over that way (I like my Everglades too much...). This sort of stuff needs to be fought and beaten if our grandkids are ever to see the fishing we have now... Protect your fisheries or lose them - that's the deal everywhere...

 

[lemaymiami]

Contact your local CCA - they'll probably be able to fill you in on what's happening... By the way -for anyone not watching closely - the real value of the CCA is that they fund a full time rep to our legislature here in Florida and to attend all the meetings of the FWC and other rule making bodies...

In short they provide us with a voice where it's needed... Are they perfect? Of course not, but they've done a lot of good over the years from my point of view...

 

[lemaymiami]

Seeing a big kill of the fish we target (particularly when they're just being wasted...) will get everyone's attention -but the real deal is simply that the fish will go where the food is - and leave areas without the food they need.

Anyone making excuses for this sort of stuff (even if it's been going on for years and years...) is kidding themselves. I meant every word that I said in my first posts. Protect the food the fish need and your areas will stay fat and healthy. Allow netters to take the bait (particularly with spotter planes...) in your areas and you can come fish with me over in the 'glades where such things haven't been allowed for years and years...

The big surprise for all of us when we finally stopped the mullet netting by high roller rigs... is just what that was doing to our trout, pompano, redfish, and everything else - and how quickly our fisheries came back after our net ban... The solutions we found here were only the beginning of efforts we're still engaged in around my state - and the only thing keeping things going is the willingness to keep up trying to make things better. The moment any of us slacks off - the folks with money will find people who should know better willing to "ease up a bit" -and it will all go downhill again...

Each area has to come up with it's own solutions but you have to get going or all too soon the things we take for granted will just be gone....

 

[lemaymiami]

You have to push, poke, and prod to get the needed changes for your state(s) - or get used to watching it all disappear on you.

In fact that dreaded word “politics” comes to mind. This is exactly why folks in my state (Florida) worked so hard to get an inshore net ban in place back in the early nineties. It has made a world of difference.