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Subject: Good Dog..... Bad Dog

Author:
Jim Day

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Date Posted: 936937687PDT
In reply to: Steve Ross/Bad Dog 's message, "Re: Big ,Small and other storys" on 936908121PDT

Hey your posts over here are kinder and gentler as well. Kind of like good cop bad cop....
Well your right about one thing, well sort of. I moved here ten years ago and started fishing Mako's shortly after. Back then we trolled for them, on a good day we'd pick up around ten mako's in the 30 to 100lb range. The best days we'd get maybe fifteen. One year I was in the Fred Hall show showing some of the lure guys my homemade trolling jigs. One guy looking at the teeth marks said "hey you actually catch sharks on those things" I said "yea this year we got about a hundred and fifty" (we were releasing a lot even back then) He laugh really loud and said "I guess you guys caught more mako's trolling this year than anyone in the world" He was trying to embarrass me but I just told him "Yea you know I haven't thought about it but your probably right" For a long time I thought the reason that the sharks were small was do to trolling. A Mack jig combo is just not that exciting to a big mako when it's moving three to four knots. I'd add to that now: the area we were fishing inside SBI just doesn't have that many really big fish. How far out were those commercial guys fishing? I'd bet money that they were setting their lines much further out. I've read a lot of articles on east coast fishing. The guys who catch big sharks fish way out, they say if your depth is less than 1000 fathoms your in to close. Occasionally they pick up a big one inside but it's a rare catch. Sound familiar? You'll get no argument that the shark numbers have dropped. Mike and I hardly ever troll anymore. we quit shortly after the Archer books came out. It's just not worth the effort to troll all day for one or two fish. (on a good day) If the payoffs that small I'd rather fish Marlin. You say that the population decline is due to the commercials over fishing. Once again no argument: I totally agree with you. I don't have your knowledge of the commercial fishing industry, I wish I did. What your saying comes as no surprise, I figured they probably just beat the hell out of the fish. We both agree that things are bad and that something needs to be done. We're on the same side. I think it's important to remember that, There's a lot of fighting in the shark conservation camp that doesn't do us any good. This is kind of a mantra for me these days, I find myself saying this over and over. If we want to change things we have to work together. You want a total ban on shark fishing. I just don't think that is going to happen. Government is slow to move at all, especially when conservation issues are put against special interest Groups with cash. The commercial fishing industry is a big contributor to both parties, any reform is going to come against their will, it's not going to come easy. You can slam the tagging effort all you want, but I'll say this it has gotten a lot of people interested in this issue who otherwise would know nothing about it. Recreational anglers need to have a voice, otherwise we may find ourselves completely out of the picture. What if they implemented a ban on sportfishing but allowed continued commercial use. Not too good a scenario. Free from the eyes of concerned anglers things would get worse not better. when I saw Johns numbers I was appalled. It's hard to believe that Rec anglers are taking 5000+ sharks a year
with 85% of them under 60 inches, what's worse is the commercial numbers are roughly double. When I came up with the idea of the 60 inch limit. I was trying to figure out something that would help, but could still get implemented fairly quick. If enough anglers get together and ask for it the DFG will put it on the books, it doesn't effect the commercials their lobby will largely ignore it. Using the DFG stats it should save around 4000 pup mako's a year. Once we get that in place we can start trying to implement
legislation that prohibits commercial by catch of young Mako's. Since the idea of protecting the sharks will already be on the books, so to speak, it would be easier to get sympathy for for anti-by-catch legislation. For years the commercial Albacore take was strictly hook and line. Imagine the difference it would make if we could force the commercial sharkers to do the same. These are long range local strategies. At the same time we should work on the international scene. The shark fin trade bill is a start,
it's a good thing to try because the obvious waste. If we get the word out, there should be a lot of sympathy towards stopping finning. From there maybe we could try for legislation limiting the length or hook count on longlines. eventually maybe we could eliminate them entirely. these are just some ideas I have. I'm not saying that I know best. When you posted this you don't know what your talking about post at Allcoast, it pissed me of because I'd spent all week trying to convince people that a local sharlk size limit would be a good thing. Tred Bartas views are true on a global scale, but with the current ratio of pups to adults, a size limit is what we need locally right now.
Well that's all for now I'm beat. Hey good for you to come by even if I don't agree with you. At least I know your on the right side.

Tight lines Jim

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Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Re: Good Dog..... Bad Dog	Bad Dog	936989825PDT
Re: Good Dog..... Bad Dog -- Jim Day, 937096582PDT