Quote:
Originally Posted by bajababy  I knew something like this was coming...the California Spiny Lobster stocks are being overfished by HOOPNETTERS! DFG regs for lobster were set up DECADES ago when the commercial guys and sport divers were the only ones taking bugs. The explosion of hoop netting has had a HUGE impact on this fishery! ! |
Huge impact my ass.......
Personally I find it pretty funny when people (especially divers) say there are too many hoop netters or that they are somehow destroying the lobster population. If you combined all the breakwalls in Southern California, and removed every lobster from them, it would still have almost zero impact on lobsters because breakwalls are only a fraction of a percent of the actual Spiny Lobster habitat in Southern California.
To put this in perspective 90% of hoopers are working less then 1% percent of the habitat. Even if they wiped those rocks clean they still would have minimum impact on the lobster population.
The Lobster fishery commercially has traditionally been the best managed fishery in So.Cal. It's a real success story and the DFG has worked very hard to keep it so. Bugs of legal size reproduce several times before they can be taken and every study to date has said they population is in great shape and the harvesting numbers are sustainable.
All I can say is where they hell are you people getting your information from? Please by all means point out some legitimate study that says lobsters are being over fished.
If were just going to debate this on the merit of opinion or personal experience let me tell you mine.
From my experience I catch just as many bugs now as when I started hooping. Furthermore I catch just as many large bugs from seven to twelve pound range now as when I started, and I'm still getting them from the same locations I have always found them. Now if these bugs are really thirty forty and fifty years old as they say..... where the hell are these big bugs coming from. It's not like I'm pulling them out of my ass.
I mean if the fishery is so over fished as you suggest: how is it there are so many of these older big bugs still around? Seems to me that a lobster fishery that's in trouble would not have many big bugs that are forty and fifty years old crawling around, but I catch them all the time in almost the exact same numbers I did when I started hooping before the internet hoop craze.
You want to suggest that hooper's are a big problem, that we are somehow over fishing the bugs and it's going to screw us all own the line.
Well I would say you are the problem: you and everyone else that goes around saying the sky is falling and there are no more bugs because of hoopnetters, and overfishing.
You are playing right in to the hands of the enviros, and MLPA people, and no doubt when they give their next heartfelt but unscientific arguments at the next closure meeting they are going to be saying exactly the same things your saying, in fact they are probably reading those arguments first here.
The problem is it's not true. There is absolutely no scientific evidence at all to back what you say. You may believe that we're overfishing bugs but there are no studies that say we are.
I think people like you are either uninformed or just talking nonsense, and I consider that nonsense dangerous because it plays into the hands of the very people who want to close the fisheries to us.
The commercial Lobster fishery is well studied and known to be sustainable. It is by far the most successful sustainable fishery on this coast. Based on the numbers they take 900 thousand pounds a season, our catch numbers are in contrast are tiny. I seriously doubt the rec catch has had any serious impact on the fishery whatsoever. I doubt our total take even equals 2% of the total harvest each season. By the way 2% of 900 thousand pounds is 18 thousand pounds of bugs. Do you honestly believe the hoopers are going to take 18 thousand pounds of bugs this season. the whole Idea is ridiculous.
Please try and prove me wrong, but with science, not bullshit. If you have some data that says other wise, I want to see it, if not, if you don't have data, you're just talking out of your ass like the people from the NRDC and other pro closure groups.
Additionally I'd say by stating such irresponsible things on a public forum your just playing into their game and giving them more fuel for their anti fishing bonfire.
Thanks alot for that one
Jim
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