Cod 27/28

Day late and a dollar short!

I am sure that will be the game changer to bring them back

Definitely. Same way it was a game changer for winter flounder!

Lots of reason for the collapse of the Winter Flounder fishery. One is rather surprising in that it mirrors what happened to the Whittaker family.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://dec.ny.gov/regulatory/proposed-emergency-recently-adopted-regulations/marine-resources

DEC has their reduction mandates. I don't think Jesus himself can show up and change their minds!

Cod fishing in the 1970's was worse than it is now, it only took 4 or 5 years for the Cod to come back. Why aren't the Cod coming back now ? It's gotta be all the by catch they're throwing back and illegal fishing. New England Politicians are looking the other way and letting it all happen. Just a phone call to an agency head telling them not to enforce fishery laws.
The Cod Fishermen in the 1970's were super dedicated . I remember seeing 40-50 guys going out on the weekend on a party boat and they caught no more than 10 cod for the whole boat. All the good Whiting and Ling /Black fishing and they continued going out for Cod. Whiting , Ling , Winter Flounder and Blackfish all survived the foreign fleet back then, all the fish that lived outside 12 miles were destroyed. Fluke Fishing was awful in the 1970's. Bluefish and Mackerel were the #1 targets for Recreational fishermen back then. Oh the Acid Waters . I sound like Matt Ahearn !!! BTW, he was the little skinny kid standing next to Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth when they went Cod Fishing out of Sheepshead Bay on the Rose R 2.

if you look at old long island fisherman winter flounder was the big draw in the 70's

The cod fishery recovered in the 70s because there were plenty of fish inshore and on the wrecks. Today there are few fish inshore, few fish offshore and those big spawners are nowhere to be found. IMHO the fishery collapsed because not enough was done to protect the know spawning areas North and South of Cape Cod. Seasonal closures in addition to size limits early on for both rec and comm might have produced a different outcome. That said, warming ocean temps have likely changed spawning habits and egg survival for the worse.

Yet I see cod on menus, so somebody can keep and profit off a public resource. I am not permitted to catch and keep to feed my family.....................

There is plenty of FRESH Cod imported into the U.S. from Peru, Canada, and Iceland.

And some other countries import frozen. China and Vietnam are suppliers, and the fish we import from China may very well be from Russian sources.

So there’s a good chance that Cod you see on menus, fish markets, etc., are not locally sourced.