We must keep honest records for submission to the state at the end of the season to make the trophy tag program become the scientific monitoring system it should be. In this manner, New Jersey will be the only state to compile information about the harvest impact of fishing at the higher bag limit of three fish per day. This information will be invaluable for determining the impact of continued relaxation of recreational bag limits for all states. This is not the case in other states, where there are civil wars waging between sport fishermen, fishing advocacy group members, party and charter boat representatives all fighting, rather than trying to find common ground and approaching the fishery in a unified fashion. This occurs when one segment or group disregards the needs of another and often fragile coalitions are permitted to fall apart, to the benefit of commercial fishing interest who are there ready to pick up the pieces for themselves.
Commercial fishermen realize they are in business to make money.
Every dead fish is money in the bank as it is shipped to market. Not all segments of the recreational community realize that they are also dealing with a business, a marine recreational fishing industry that generates thousands of jobs, incomes and benefits their local and state economies. They sometimes look at fisheries issues like striped bass with tunnel vision and how decisions will affect them personally, but don't widen the scope of their views to see how those decisions will impact other segments of the sport fishing business. It all comes down to dollars and cents and we all know that a dead fish can only be sold once, but a recreationally caught fish that is released can be captured several times, each time generating additional economic benefit. We sometimes don't give sport fishermen the credit they are due.