I Found This and Thought You all should Be Aware...
Mr. Robert W. Bizzell
Chairman, NCMFC
Mr. B.J. Copeland
Vice-Chairman, NCMFC
Dear Sirs:
I am writing to you this evening after a long day at work. I want you both to know that I have never written a letter of complaint against a company or an organization before, but with what has been allowed to happen to thousands of striped bass over the past several weeks is an absolute travesty, and I feel compelled to contact you in writing. I have also written to the Governor and the State Senators of North Carolina, and I have been informed that you are the entity responsible for making the required changes to the commercial fishery in your state..
Never before have I seen such a blatant disregard for a valuable resource as I have witnessed by the commercial trawlers in NC. Loopholes in catch limits were exploited and resulted in high-grading and culling. Thousands and thousands of striped bass were killed (arguably un-intentionally) and sent into the drink to rot by commercial fisherman with overloaded nets.
To prevent this, you changed the laws from 50 fish a trip to 2,000 pounds recently. That should have made the commercial fisherman happy, right? They could now load their nets and even transfer extra weight of a haul at sea to other commercial fisherman. That is a win for the commercial fleet--they could have their cake and eat it too. But the actions of the commercial fleet have shown no gratitude or improvement of the waste since the regulation was passed. The dumping of thousands of striped bass into the ocean, dead, continues as I write this to you. The argument that the original culling and high-grading was un-intentional is now indefensible.
I suggest that the NCMFC follows the example of the Maryland DNR. This week, when faced with excessive poaching issues involving gill nets, they closed the season down to evaluate the extent of the waste. There has never been more blatant waste of a fishery than what is occurring in NC at this moment. It is sickening. And it is not an isolated incident---there is plenty of video and photographic proof of the wanton waste that the trawlers create, even after you changed the regs to the current model. It goes against everything every decent fisherman stands for--commercial OR recreational. There is zero defense for the actions of the NC Commercial Trawl fleet.
It is apparent that many NC commercial fisherman believe that the ocean owes them a living. Just because your pappy and grand-pappy worked the sea doesn't make it a birth-right. Fishing for Striped Bass with nets is a dying practice. Massachusetts has a very successful hook and line commercial season that you may wish to consider. There is ZERO WASTE in that state commercially. Or you can take a lesson from my home state of New Jersey and not allow any commercial fishing of stripers. We all know that recreational fishing is more of a benefit to your states economy, hands down, but that is not the agenda here. My agenda is eliminating the waste of a resource.
Times have changed, and your Commission is being watched by the entire country as to how you handle this issue as a governing body. Those commercial fisherman who can't make it legally and ethically in NC need to be culled out. People loose jobs every day. Outsourcing and unemployment is high. Your commercial fisherman may be desperate, but the old "I'm trying to feed my family" doesn't cut it. North Carolina does not own the bio-mass of striped bass, every citizen of the United States does. And we are all watching NC closely to be certain that the issue is rectified.
I understand that you will be discussing this huge problem in detail on February 10-11. Please be aware that the entire country is aware of your issues and is looking to you to correct the waste of our most prized game fish-----morone saxitillis, The Striped Bass.
Sincerely,
so Much waist And New Jersey wants To Charge Us To Fish There waters.... TAX Tax Tax And More tax,, Time To say To all The People That Py Those taxes,,, Enjoy Your Day with Your Family On Our water............. And Tax The Illegals That You want Us All To Pay For, Silly Me,,, We Are Paying for
