Raleigh — North Carolina's commercial fishermen have an image problem. You wouldn't know it from the rhetoric coming from one of the primary groups that represent them, the North Carolina Fisheries Association. The reason: photos and video footage showing long plumes of dead striped bass, some of them over 30 pounds, left in the wake of ocean trawlers.
One trawler captain said that he simply caught more stripers than he could bring aboard or legally keep; recreational fishermen blamed commercial fishermen who, while restricted to 50 fish a day, wanted to capitalize on bringing the biggest fish to market. The recreational fishermen who took the photos say they numbered into the thousands; the state Division of Marine Fisheries say the number was in the hundreds.
Who is actually right doesn't really matter.
The waste led to outrage as far north as Massachusetts. State officials were inundated with angry emails.
The widespread criticism was because these fish – even if you look at them only as a resource to be utilized by us humans – aren't "ours." They winter off the North Carolina coast, but migrate north to Delaware Bay and elsewhere in the summer.
A recreational fishing industry in states north of here is every bit as dependent on the stripers as the commercial fishing industry in North Carolina.
Read the complete opinion piece from The Pilot