New Recreational Fishing Rules for the Bahamas !

[CSY Man]

I will continue to pay $8.00 for one when I am there but please don't advocate scrict laws to prevent me from making my own when I'm "out island".
Dave

Well, here is a previous comment I made on the subject..

Yeah, as a budget cruiser I would eat of the sea-bed as well, but I sure as hell would not kill them poor things just to hang the dead bodies on a wall and brag about how much they fought back.
__________________

[mudnut]

Originally Posted by Fishspearit

It's clear CSYman why you don't understand hunters or fishermen; you completely misunderstand the motivation. What a cynical view of man you have to think that we fish for our egos and hunt for "blood lust". Most sportsmen are law abiding, conservation minded, ethical hunters and fisherman who love being on the water and in the woods. With increasing white tail deer herds and wild turkey our country has shown that we can maintain sustainable numbers of game with sensible laws. While you may live penned in a concrete zoo down there in Ft. Lauderdale, most of our country is rural. Sure, I can go to the grocery store and buy a styrofoam and plastic packaged loaf of ground up steroid laden cow fat, but I prefer to eat venison that I bowhunt, clean, and process myself. I probably spend 100 hours in the woods for every deer I've killed. If it were about bloodlust than it wouldn't be very satisfying.
You're a pilot; why does man fly? We aren't birds, we don't belong up in the air. The long peace of sitting in the woods hunting or on a boat waiting for a fish to bite is a lot like filling the Genoa and turning the engine off. Like sailing & flying the hunting & fishing is mostly just about relaxing with a few minutes of excitement thrown in the mix.
The number of hunters or fishermen that don't eat everything they take is extremely small; it's ignorant to try and portray the majority of sportsmen in that false light. Nothing builds a great respect for nature like spending large amounts of time with it. I, like almost all sportsmen, understand the need for sensible laws to protect our fish and animal populations, and we follow those laws. Save your venom for the poachers and law violators.

Even in OZ we can buy venison.FARMED VENISON.Why in the hell would ya want to go out in the wild and shoot the buggers if not for some bloodlust pre-occupation.200 yrs back,your argument might have sounded plausable.Sportsman my arse.Go out without a gun and catch ya dinner.While we eat the farmed stuff,you kill the wild animals.I have had both fresh kill and processed venison.Not enough difference to go out and kill wild animals that live on the land naturally.Mudnut.

[Ram]

The days of fishing just for hanging a trophy on the wall are long over for almost everyone, Most charter captains will not allow this in south Florida or the Bahamas!.
It went on for a long time & I remember it well as a boy growing up here - where a boat would bring in a dozen sail fish & marlin and get there picture taken on the dock/scales & then just dump them in the water only to rot away.

After a wile we had no sailfish or Marlins left and no one could catch one for about 10-15 years, then they slowly came back thru regulation & Self regulation.
So I think some of you are behind the times in thinking this is still happening today. Sure once in a wile some A**holes are still doing this, but its very rare today, its politically incorrect! And the sport fishing captain knows he would fish himself out of a job if he did that for long.

There has been a catch & release program that has been going on with sail fish & Marlin now for- gees must be 20 years or more & is working well. Most of these fish are released unharmed, and make an easy recovery, some are damaged and do die and that is a shame, but we have a very good population of sailfish here in south Fl & you can go out just about any day of the year and catch one if you know how & where to fish. (Palm Beach & north)

As a former LONG TIME -part time charter captain , In Palm Beach & The Bahamas I can tell you it is not the so called sport fisherman who are causing the biggest impact, its the commercial fisherman with the long lines, nets and the fish traps as big as cars that are ruining everything. I BELEAVE I recently READ that 70+% of the fish was taken by the Commercial guys 30% or less from the rest of the public.

The conch trawlers come out of Nassau and stay out 1 month at a time with a crew of about 8-15 on board with -6 or 8 small skiffs they go out miles in every direction from there base and bring in hundreds of conch , lobster & fish a day each. And they routinely take under size fish, conch & lobster and egg bearing lobster.
Trade them a watermelon and they will give you 6-7 lobsters for 10 pounds of clean conch!

Along the Fl coast once upon a time we had lots of king fish, they were almost wiped out completely by the netters, a law was introduced to ban netting I think 2-3 miles from shore and with in 10 years the kings were back in force, now in the winter months you can catch 20-30 + pound kings by the dozen, sometimes (there is a limit of 2 per person now) Same thing with the sword fish, they were gone & are now coming back

The problem I see in the Bahamas, is the fish populations is on the verge of a complete break down , and the people who live there want to blame someone other than them self’s, so they blame the curisers and visiting boats. They put these restrictions on the us, because the we have no politically power in there country. These restrictions are lifted for forgners only when a lot of money is at stake, like in tournaments.

In the Bahamas, I don’t believe they will stop the commercial guys until everything is wiped out then they will scratch there heads and finally figure it out and do something, for species like the conch , they may never come back , because they are slow growing, some of the rest may make a good recovery.
They will do just like we have in our country, but will wait to really fix it after its truly broken.
There used to be tons of conch living here in the Palm Beach area 40 -50+ years ago. There were piles of them the size of trucks at some places on the intercostals .And they never came back.
I wish they would put a ban on all fishing of every kind for about 4-5 years that would give things a chance to really come back, but that ait gonna happen.


Ram

[GordMay]

I hope we’ve got our moral philosophy, regarding “trophy” or “blood-sport” hunting etc, off our collective chests, and can return to a harmonious discussion of the topic at hand ... Bahamian fishing regulations.

[CSY Man]

I hope we’ve got our moral philosophy, regarding “trophy” or “blood-sport” hunting etc, off our collective chests, and can return to a harmonious discussion of the topic at hand ... Bahamian fishing regulations.

Sorry Gord, but I can't think of a more fitting word than "blood-lust" or "blood sport" when somebody is out there to kill for fun..

Not for food, not for making a living, just for killing some poor innocent animals 'cause that makes 'em feel good, and it is "fun".

Ram:

Good posting on myth and reality of sports fishing in Florida and the Bahamas.

[Panama Dave]

Back to the discussion of the new regs.
I believe they will discourage cruisers from visiting the Bahamas. Most cruisers fish for their own dinner. Most cruisers also obey all the laws in the places they visit. I'm glad I visited the Bahamas before these regs went into effect. I will head to the Western Caribbean on my next cruise.
The new regs have no effect on the big Sports-fishing boats we were discussing.

[mudnut]

Catch and release a Dear or caraboose maybe even a grizzly.Sport fishing is popular and the angler's are leading by example.Shame about the others.Mudnut.