Posted on 02/12/2014 8:28:19 PM PST by ATOMIC_PUNK
For generations, tour boats have been collecting fishing enthusiasts in Key West, Fla.: taking them for a day of deep sea casting; providing them rods, bait, companionship; and then, when the day ends, there's a little wharf-side ceremony. Everyone is invited to take his biggest fish and hook it onto the "Hanging Board"; a judge compares catches, chooses a champion, and then the family that caught the biggest fish poses for a photograph. The one up above comes from 1958. Notice that the fish on the far left is bigger than the guy who, I assume, caught it; and their little girl is smaller than most of the "biggies" on the board. Those aren't little people. Those are big fish.
How much smaller? Adjusting for time of year, and after checking and measuring 1,275 different trophy fish, she found that in the 1950s, the biggest fish in the photos were typically over 6 feet — sometimes 6 feet 5 inches long. By the time we get to 2007, when Loren bought a ticket on a deep sea day cruise and snapped this picture ...
... the biggest fish were averaging only a foot, or maybe a little over. That's a staggering change. The biggest fish on display in 2007 was a shark, and sharks, Loren calculated, are now half the size they used to be in the '50s. As to weight, she figured the average prizewinner dropped from nearly 43.8 pounds to a measly 5 pounds — an 88 percent drop.
(Excerpt) Read more at radiolab.org ...
I thought it was a joke when i first started reading it then seeing the pics wow it blew me away i knew some fish got huge but it overwhelming to know that they don’t get that big anymore it unreal to me ! Of course i’m not a big fisher i like to hunt so maybe that’s the reason i didn’t pay attention
Different types of fish.
Exactly. The old photo shows a Grouper, which still get VERY large. I believe the second photo shows Red Snapper, a totally different species!
Those are apples and oranges. The big ones are Black Drum. HUGE fish... The others are Red Snapper and other little fish. This stupid and should be pulled.
And that cat or dog the little girl is holding is kinda huge too.
Heck - The people even look happier back then.
It kind of depends...
Are you offshore fishing or inshore fishing?
Still, I imagine there probably was some over-fishing going on.
Because of modern creel limits, pics like the first one will never be seen today because nobody is allowed to keep so many fish, and the ones that are caught are often released.
Trust me, this article is a good pictorial showing a then and now representation of typical charter catches. I know, I’m a charter Captain and scuba diving instructor with over 6000 dives into the Gulf. I’ve watched daily from above and below the decline in the amount and size of what hits the docks.
To be fair, just about all the BIG fish in the earlier pictures are Jewfish (goliath grouper for the PC) which are HiGHLY protected these days and illegal to keep. They were once so decimated that they almost went extinct but are now with conservation making a big comeback.
Were the sharks caught in the 1950's the same species as the one on display?
“Heck - The people even look happier back then.”
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Only because they were, oh, sure, there were some unhappy people but most had a different outlook than now. High spirits prevailed far more than is the case today.
Why not? All they had to worry about were Polio, The Russkies, and The Bomb.
Not like today when the enemies are within.
There is a name for those 2007 fish....bait.
This is incontrovertible proof that the big fish have become more intelligent in the past decades and don’t fall for that “bait and hook” scam anymore.
The pictures are misleading. The first 2 pics are jewfish (now the politically correct goliath grouper) an apex predator of the reef that is big and aggressive and easily overfished due to its fearless nature.
The other pics are of smaller species. Yes, fish size on limited reef space diminishes with overfishing. These pictures do not show that.
they DO get that big and they are called Goliath Grouper or Jew fish.
Begs the question, which is worth more, a picture or a thousand words.
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