Posted on 10/21/2009 11:22:49 AM PDT by Howard Morrison
Most of us call it “Southern, by the Grace of God”...
My late father-in-law brought back an amberjack from a Gulf fishing trip and smoked it one time. Most delicious fish I believe I have ever had!
***A metal medal??? ;-) ***
Anything to prove I’m not a “Dandy lion.”;-)
How True!
Our sports fishermen did not do this...it was commercial fisherman virtually erasing fishing spots with 15 and 20 hook rigs and huge reels nicknamed "one-armed bandits" that brought the fishery to its knees.
The worst thing that could possibly happen to a captain would be a commercial boat catching you on a good spot and casually taking readings on it as they come past you. The only thing helping us was the fact that we had no GPS back then and they had to use loran-c and its earlier cousin loran-a which were only accurate enough to get you "in the ballpark". From there you'd have to read the bottom and run a pattern to locate the fish.
There's a huge difference between recreational fishermen catching their limit of red snapper and a commercial boat taking 12,000 pounds in one trip.
A lot of these "commercial fishermen" were actually transients who fished "on shares". They would go out on a boat with its owner covering fuel, food, etc. and when they got in and the catch was sold, they'd get their share minus expenses. They would then hit the bars and not be seen again until they ran out of money. The waterfront became infested with them and the cheap run-down apartments and motels where they hung out went out of business when this form of "fishing" became illegal. Commercial fishing still hits the red snapper stocks pretty hard, but nowhere as bad as it used to be.
Industrial-scale fishing harvests on the West Coast were rarely done by American fishermen (I believe the sardine fishery is an exception), and certainly not in salmon or albacore, which required trolling -- NOT trawling, but trolling. Do you know the difference? Huge harvests that threatened those fisheries off American waters were made by vast, factory-ship Russian trawlers, and when the offshore limit was 3 and then 12 miles, it was a real problem; my dad was one of the fishermen who worked hard to organize commercial fishermen and make the 100-mile offshore limit a reality.
It always amazes me how people who don't fish for a living think commercial fisherman could be so STUPID that they'd outfish and destroy their own livelihoods and mismanage the resources that feeds and clothes their families, while all the oh-so-smart hobby fishermen, many of whom took undersized catches without blinking an eye and at no more risk than a fine, whereas commercial fishermen who take undersized catches risk loving a whole lot more than a few bucks, had all the answers. For generations, the commercial fisheries did just fine with the sensible, mutually-agreed-upon rules. It was not "industrial scale fishing" that decimated the abalone beds on California's Central Coast. It was not "industrial scale fishing" that has kept perfectly good trollers from going out and harvesting still-thriving albacore runs. No, it was and is more often stupid regulations made by people with no actual experience in the workaday reality of the fisheries that keep men from making a living on the sea.
Come to think of it, I knew a whole helluva lot of full time, commercial West Coast fisherman and I can't think of a single one who made his living exclusivly fishing salmon. NOT ONE.
Because you don’t really need to pimp your blog twice in less than a half-hour...
Looks like I hit a nerve. I don’t have time to do more than scan your extended rant, but it seems that you agree with me on the basic elements: over-fishing is a real phenomenon, and it is largely caused by industrial-scale fishing operations.
Amberjack was the first big fish I ever caught. Snapped the blasted rod in two. Mate on the boat brought it in by hand. You are right about the taste.
Of course they are. The Chicago Way. Nobody does nuthin’ wid out cuttin’ dem in on it...
I don't understand you post?
I grew up in the industry. How about you?
Like I say, I grew up in the industry. How about you?
“My late father-in-law brought back an amberjack from a Gulf fishing trip and smoked it one time”
I tried it once, but I didn’t inhale.
“Like I say, I grew up in the industry. How about you?”
No bias there.
You guys are all sitting ducks for environmentalists and you don't even know it because you dont'really know the first thing about the realities of commercial fishing. r9 STUPIDLY stated that salmon was the primary commercial fishery for the West Coast, which proves that he doesn't know his ass from a hot rock.
It doesn’t take an environmentalist to see trawlers cleaning out entire areas of fish species. And it doesn’t take an environmentalist to see how states that have curtailed net fishing have had their fish stocks rebound to healthy levels measured on the recreational end.
But I do call bullshit on this albacore ban.
“The data is based on “landings” and some of the data is collected through “dock-side surveys and phone calls,” according to Charlene Ponce, an agency spokeswoman.”
How long does a “dock side” fish surveyor stay employed if they don’t report “healthy” numbers to achieve a preset goal?
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