What you are seeing is the effects of a Neo Con idea: Sell the Public Resource. The idea is that the private sector can better manage the public resource, and it means smaller government!!! The trouble is, the private sector is to pay a FEEEEEEEE for the resource. Really, the commies don't pay much for a license compared to what they take. If it was oil there would be a 25 % royalty. If it was timber, it should be stumpage. etc. etc. Anyways, selling quota is just another way to make money, but this time, WITHOUT THE OVERHEAD OF RUNNING THE BOAT! Commies could just go out and kill the fish themselves, but why pay overhead when someone else will do the work, and still pay up per pound caught?
The fact that the recreational sector pays up to $100.00 per pound for recreational fish is lost on a Government that saw someone pay directly $5.00 per pound, but kept a commercial operation going, which is really how we measure the strength of the ecomony. Right?
Drewski