Comment from Tony Austin

The fickleness of the council (changing qualifying landings requirements from one meeting tot he next) and its failure to realize that size limits are useless in rebuilding a fishery merely point to the need for Magnuson to be revised and for the council system to be tossed down the drain and replaced by professional managers with backgrounds in management, not in systematics. Rebuilding the Black Sea Bass fishery should be use a constant f, rather than to a constant catch, and somehow the recreational fishery will have to cease being the elephant in the room and subject to the same controls used for the commercial fishery. Probably the only way to achieve such control is by means of a federal recreational license that entails mandatory reporting similar to the present commercial rules. The government should spend less money on advisory panels composed of self-serving fishermen and more on enforcement. The present system is a cluster of conflicting interests. Science and politics don't mix. I want and explanation for the failure of the South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council to rebuild Black Sea Bass while the Mid-Atlantic and New England Councils have completely rebuilt their Black Sea Bass stock even in the face of extensive otter trawl fishing that is not a factor in the South Atlantic. Who is responsible for this failure and who's going to answer for it?