der Fischadler, Thanks for your comments. I always appreciate honesty so positions can be clarified. I think something may have been lost in the whole C&R debate and that is that i believe most fisherman like to be able to keep fish too. I know I do and actually enjoy hunting for the largest fish I can catch. I even enjoy fishing tournaments. To me the C&R debate was about some on the SFAC wanting to reduce or restrict fishing access without scientific justfication. Given that there are known aspects of the fishery, such as the catch and keep seasons, I believe that adjustments to when and how many fish a person keeps should come prior to access reduction/restriction over anecdotal concerns. To me it just makes sense for sound management policies and would have been a bad precedent for DNR to reduce access given the unknowns on C&R and knowns on the keep seasons.
I also believe many recreational anglers believe the practice of catch and release fishing to be a way to sustain the stock and keep access to fisherman open. By preserving the practice of catch and release it at least gives dnr the option to keep fishing open while taken tough measures should they be needed for conservation issues. Lets face it, if C&R is regulated and accepted as a bad practice for sustainability without science, then total access to fishing can be taken away when stonger measures are needed. In my mind sport and recreational fishing is about being able to fish and not how much we can keep. As stated before I dont think keeping fish is wrong when done legally. However the sport is about being able to fish regardless if we can keep 10 per person, 1 per person, or if we have to catch and release to sustain the resource. I believe a sport fishery should be managed so that people have the opportunity to catch a fish, keeping it should be secondary.
While conservation is important or should be to most fisherman, I do believe some that wanted access restricted or reduced during the C&R only season were wanting to do so only to protect Marylands trophy season. Given that there are so many knowns to this season, i do like the term convenient conservationalist to those that supported making C&R the red herring in an attempt to preserve the trophy season. I will say that their positions may have bit them in the butt as they didnt even wait for the DNR to come out with their final position on C&R before asking for an extention of the fall season. While I cannot say for sure, I am sure it helped in DNR not making access restrictions part of their final proposal on the C&R only season.
Again, There is nothing wrong with catch and keep within the law. However, if there is a conservation issue that needs to be addressed through public policy, I believe DNR has an obligation to address it through scientifically known measures and not through reducing access based on anecdotal conerns.
Thanks again for your honest post and I hope you continue to contribute here, Especially fishing reports as that is what many of us here are most ineterested in sharing.
