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very significantly and not because the Commission is not capable 

 of managing stocks. On the contrary, the very people who sit on the 

 boards are also on the councils. State directors certainly have that 

 expertise. 



Nevertheless, there is an essential difference in the make-up of 

 the councils and the commission that I think should be addressed. 

 When Congress put together the council system its intent was to 

 provide for more public input. 



That is provided not just by canvassing the public but essentially 

 by the presence on the council of public members who can bring 

 that kind of information to bear although Jack Dunnigan has done 

 an excellent job in erecting an advisory system and I, in fact, am 

 part of that but there is not the same make-up on the board as 

 there is on the council. 



I think the synergy between that has developed between the 

 council and the commission working together with these additional 

 industry members contributes significantly to public input not at 

 the hearing process, not at the advisor process, but at the decision 

 process. For that reason, I oppose the elimination of the council 

 from the decision process. 



There is a second reason. Why pick bluefish? If, in fact, bluefish 

 are to be moved then any species that we have a joint plan for 

 could possibly be moved. Is this a de facto way to reexamine and 

 reorganize the management system? I have said many times that 

 the journey is as important as the destination. If, in fact, we are 

 going to do that then let's do it substantively. Let's not back our 

 way into it. If we are going to reexamine how we do things into 

 the next decade, then let's put an effort together to reevaluate that, 

 to reexamine it but let's not do it by selecting one particular plan 

 and moving it over under the guise of reducing paperwork. I don't 

 think the paperwork will be reduced and I don't think this is the 

 way to go about a reexamination of how we manage fish if, in fact, 

 that is what is on the table here. 



Finally, you have my comments concerning changes to the Blue- 

 fish Plan and indeed whether or not the stocks are depressed, the 

 Bluefish Plan needs to be updated and modernized and flexibility 

 needs to be built in but there is one issue that I want to address. 



It is a very serious one and it runs through a number of fishery 

 plans, the scup plan, the black sea bass plan, the blackfish plan 

 and now the bluefish plan has a very great opportunity of ignoring 

 and eliminating from participation of the fishery a class a rec- 

 reational anglers, namely the shore bound angler. 



By virtue of minimum size implementation the jetty, the pier, 

 the river, the sedge bank angler can be leveraged right out of this 

 fishery and yet we have no scientific information indicating the im- 

 pact of their fishing pressure. Yet by implementation of minimum 

 sizes and without consideration of this sector, we are very rapidly 

 eliminating that portion of the recreational sector from participa- 

 tion in fishing and taking home a fish. 



I think that is wrong and we as managers need to reexamine 

 some of these measures and we need to be pressed to examine 

 some of those measures and I am very concerned that although we 

 seek controls and seek flexibility, we may very well be saddling the 

 management process with yet another albatross; that in fact, the 



