Quote:
Originally Posted by reds
It didn't take much to move the tournaments back to May. A mandatory 50 percent reduction in catch will move them back to What? December.
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The topic of tournaments was brought up at a fall SFAC meeting. Appeared that most said that the DNR shouldnt even monitoring tournments given that anglers are fishing within regulations. See page 79 here for transcripts:
http://dnr.maryland.gov/fisheries/ma...Transcirpt.pdf
I will start now by saying that I believe DNR should strongly consider the no-take slot from 2007 to effectively achieve a reduction if necessary. It proved to be very effective as despite an increase in participation in 2007 over 2006 that the harvest was reduced by half even with a 33" min in 06. Tow hurdles to climb in Maryland though. 1. Charter boats capts claimed all those fish died, which I believe to be untrue unless they were not handled properly. 2. DNR complained about the number of recreational violations of the no-take slot. To me this was more of a problem due to a lack of consistancy in regulations from year to year. The first year level of violations would decrease with consistancy to the next year.