Stop the Hypocrisy!!

[broadbill-pro]

Ted, I don't buy into the loons who say there is no reason to kill an animal for food when we can go to the grocery and buy it. Surely these people can not see past their nose and do not rationalize that the grocery is full of dead animals. The days that I eat what I have shot or hooked are days that chickens and cows get pardoned.

It burns my *** that guys like Tom, Ron and Brownlee dismiss the wrong doing of their sector by indicating I am a longliner. No doubt these are intelligent men without an answer to provide us so they post remarks unrelated to the issue in an attempt to derail the thread. FYI - I didn't start this thread.

Catch and release is a gray area in the law. Regulations say we can harvest one marlin or sailfish of a specific size, yet we can hook and release without limit. If one fish per day is an acceptable limit in regard to the determined sustainability of a fishery, where does the release of 20 with a 20% post release mortality put conservation?

[circus act]

Tom,

As a recreational angler in Florida since early childhood, a licensed commercial fisherman for many years (stopped fishing commercially a few years ago), and as an individual who made 100% of my income off the water for the past 21 years, you come off as irrational, possibly hot headed, "sky is falling", with an elitist tone. You are the one telling people what "should be" while condemning others for fishing for a living.

Your long winded diatribes do nothing to prove incorrect anything that broadbill-pro has posted; Arguing what he's posted about catch and release fishing is moronic, fish die. Actually, BP has demonstrated a very in depth knowledge of fisheries and their workings...frankly, he comes off as having more of a global understanding than you do. I think you mean well but, your delivery could us some work.

I'd say it's time to get off your high horse, Tonto.

And I took my captains test at the USCG in Miami

[Tom Hilton]

circus, anumber1, broadbillpro - seems all birds of a feather.

if you cannot grasp the lunacy of the statement that "the true definition of a conservationist cannot be a hunter or fisherman", when our country's greatest conservationist was both - well, that's a pity.

if you can't grasp the hypocrisy of bp's stance regarding hunting, where there is also bycatch mortality, that also is a pity.

the sky isn't falling, but our fisheries management has surely been hijacked by enviro for-profit politics.

the so-called "wrongdoing of our sector" blames American fishermen for following the letter of the law?

typical BS Amigo.

Capt. Thomas J. Hilton

[ANUMBER1]

Tom, where do you compile your information for your subscribers? Did your company launch it's own satellite or do you pay various govt. agenices for the information and then package it for sale?

Or do you just glean the info from taxpayer funded sites(free of course) and then pretty it up for resale at a substantial markup?

I sure you have some software as well as advertising costs but I hope you are not sucking at the public tit (so to speak) for the the intel., compadre

[broadbill-pro]

the so-called "wrongdoing of our sector" blames American fishermen for following the letter of the law?

Thanks for making my point more clear in regard to longlining.

I suppose in retrospect I may have misspoken on the definition of a conservative as it could be a person who does not kill all they possibly can. If that definition removes the guilt of killing fish for entertainment then you have been absolved.

[John Brownlee]

I just came across this thread and wanted to jump in. None of us need absolution, but the assertion that catch-and-release fishing is somehow immoral because some release mortality occurs is simply nonsense. Vinnie, I know it pisses you off that longlining gets blamed for everything, but that's where the greatest mortality for billfish occurs. Without question. Yes, we recreational anglers have some impact, but I believe the numbers you're throwing out are grossly inaccurate. I've heard the anti catch-and-release argument before, that somehow we are cruel antagonists who torture animals for our own amusement (as a scientist for the State of Florida once called those of us who practice c & r), but that's a radical position more suited for someone from PETA than yourself. Fishing is a blood sport, some fish will die, purposefully or not, but catch-and-release is an honorable, proven and sustainable fishing practice that MORE people should engage in, not fewer. The idea that only those who kill every fish they catch for the market are righteous is absurd.

[Gary S. Colecchio]

I just came across this thread and wanted to jump in. None of us need absolution, but the assertion that catch-and-release fishing is somehow immoral because some release mortality occurs is simply nonsense. Vinnie, I know it pisses you off that longlining gets blamed for everything, but that's where the greatest mortality for billfish occurs. Without question. Yes, we recreational anglers have some impact, but I believe the numbers you're throwing out are grossly inaccurate. I've heard the anti catch-and-release argument before, that somehow we are cruel antagonists who torture animals for our own amusement (as a scientist for the State of Florida once called those of us who practice c & r), but that's a radical position more suited for someone from PETA than yourself. Fishing is a blood sport, some fish will die, purposefully or not, but catch-and-release is an honorable, proven and sustainable fishing practice that MORE people should engage in, not fewer. The idea that only those who kill every fish they catch for the market are righteous is absurd.

Good stuff, John. Nice to see you.

[John Brownlee]

Thanks Gary!

[broadbill-pro]

John,

Glad you have engaged in this discussion as I believe it was getting lonely for Tom. You certainly understand my motive for discussing this topic and are partially to blame as is Wickstrom and others who continue to sensationalize the impact of longlining while down-playing the effects of recreational mortality on a fishery. It was your observation that 52,000 pounds of discarded white marlin by longliners that prompted me to put a weight on the release mortality during the OC Open, a 4 day event that by estimates was at least 25% of the LL yearly total without including fish that were lost during battle. A figure that could be 50% of the total as estimated by a friend to both of us. These figures are not grossly inaccurate and does not account for an entire year of trolling by recs. as far away as Venezuela. In regard to sailfish, a coastal species for the most part that does not greatly interact with longlines there is no ground for even a comparison in regard to which sector kills more. While I respect your experience as a recreational angler and enjoy you as a person, you possess neither the history nor knowledge of pelagic longlining to draw the conclusions that you print so often.

Just to give you an example of how your analysis that longlines kill so many marlin can be discredited is by the fact that swordfish longlining is a dead bait drift fishery. We don't suppose you could count on one hand the amount of times you have drifted dead baits while marlin fishing, if ever? Marlin are not scavenge feeders and rarely will eat a dead drift bait. Most bycatch of marlin on pelagic longline occurs during hauling when the baits express movement within a few hundreds yards of the vessel at which time those fish are quickly released without exhaustion in comparison to the rod and reel method.

It's hard to argue with common sense, an ingredient I always include.

You are correct that fishing is a bloody sport/industry and nobody wears more of it than I do. Does notifying your readers as you have about my profession make killing fish for amusement more ethical? The question of who is more righteous is not so complicated, we need only look at the purpose we are baiting the hook to determine it. You are also correct that more people should engage is catch and release, it's what brings them to be able to make that decision that I question. Is it for flying a flag on a rigger string or while catching something for dinner. They can't be equally noble.

[John Brownlee]

I don't know which is noble, if any of it and I do not claim to be an expert on longlining. You've forgotten more than I will ever know. But it's disingenuous to imply that longlines don't catch billfish, we all know they do. Perhaps we will need to agree to disagree about the levels of impact that both longlining and recreational catch-and-release, have on billfish stocks. I do know this: those stocks are in pretty bad shape. If you guys aren't killing them, and we recs aren't killing them, who is?