I'm not directing this at anyone, but it never fails that people bitch when they feel there aren't regulations in place and then bitch when they feel there are too many. You can't ask the DEP to make management decisions based on their expertise and data, and then complain when they actually make one.

If the issue is actual fishing mortality during warm months and not an actual harvest issue, there really are no other ways to get at their goal. I'm also suprised that they'd react to creel data indicating few anglers catching lots of fish, and I can only assume they would have reacted the same way to all anglers catching fewer fish.

As pointed out already, a fish swimming away does not mean it survived. A question for timb would be has fishing mortality on East Twin been examined or are estimates coming from literature and general ALK type information?

We deal with closed seasons for a bunch of fish, both fresh and salt and have to deal with it.