Panel upholds dire cod findings Local News GloucesterTimes.com, Gloucester, MA (http://www.gloucestertimes.com/local/x1760886400/Panel-upholds-dire-cod-findings)

Scientific review indicates the new stock assessment has to be believed. They got it wrong in 2008 and the Gulf of Maine cod stocks are 3-5 times weaker than they thought. Fishing effort is 5 times higher than sustainable.

They meet in Jan to decide what to do, "Even in the best case scenario the impact will still be devastating". Remember, there is a 2014 deadline for full recovery. That cannot be achieved now. They are hoping for political salvation to push the deadline out further, but wasn't this deadline established as the result of court action? Seems likely that any change is going to have come with some dire concessions to the environmental interests that pushed the original lawsuits. Can you say "Marine Protected Areas"?

So what do you think the recreational bag limit will end up?
How long a recreational season?
Will Stellwagen stay open?

Thank goodness the striped bass stock is so healthy something like this could never happen to them.
There are lots of bass out there, right? The 2008 numbers say so!

Yep. The Eff Up that occurred was apparently several orders of magnitude greater than anyone thought.

It is gonna get shutdown. Remember, GOM cod was the "saved" one on its way to recovering.

Maybe JackK will chime in on this one.

I got berated on this board by a member last time I said this but I'm saying it again: "Our fisheries management people are a bunch of nitwits." If I did my job the way they do theirs, I'D BE FIRED!!!:fury:

But hey.. They saved the dogfish.
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Something is fishy. :) First they are recovering now they are overfished? Poor science. IMHO the truth is probably somewhere in between.

What about recent reversal in BFT surveys, did they screw that too?

I've never believed or trusted any of this management BS . Can there really be an honest evaluation when money/pressure is involved ?

You can not have conservation when a fishery is allowed to drag up 20,000 ponds, keep 8,000 lbs. and throw back 12,000 lbs. dead every day and that is just one boat X how many boats per day. There had to be a collapse. Should have been shut down ten years ago.

Rumor has it that there is going to be about a 7 fish limit per angler of haddock and lowering the limit of cod to less then 10 per day per angler.

Rumor has it that there is going to be about a 7 fish limit per angler of haddock and lowering the limit of cod to less then 10 per day per angler.

You'll be lucky if its one fish per day

I kinda just skimmed through it, but there's an article in The Fisherman about this and it says something about if the new data's correct the Gulf of Maine codmen would be looking at a 2 month season with a 2 fish bag. I may have mixed something up I read the article real quick

Problem is the boards are too political. Either they have been appointed due to their bias or when they do the right thing the local politicians step in and try to overrule them. Next thing you see is the local newspaper jumping on the band wagon of how the new regulations will destroy a way of life for the commercial fisherman.

This sets it up for anti-fishing groups to step in and use the courts to take control. Once the court steps in and rules now the board and politicians can step back and say I tried to help but now I can't, not my fault. Then the warning come that you better go along or some evil group will step in and use the courts. It just continues to happen.

Take the time and read about the Grand Banks to see just how bad over fishing can be. During the first 20-years of severe restrictions they saw almost no improvement in the ground fish stocks.

For about 15-years off of NH you rarely saw a haddock caught. Then they started to come back alittle and first thing the board does is remove the recreational limit on haddock. They just don't learn.

anytime the gubmint gets involved everything gets mucked up....lots of $$$ spent on eronious/ficticous statistics. again a moron like me only needs the eyeball test from seasoned fisherman who've been around the block a time or two. in a couple of years theyll tell us about the sb collapse :confused:.

anytime the gubmint gets involved everything gets mucked up....lots of $$$ spent on eronious/ficticous statistics. again a moron like me only needs the eyeball test from seasoned fisherman who've been around the block a time or two. in a couple of years theyll tell us about the sb collapse :confused:.

This is why I now believe Stripers Forever deserves our support and game fish status is the only answer.

What, they got a stock assessment wrong? No way!!! They never make mistakes. The bass are in just fine shape. We just had the good news of that stock assessment. Those of us seeing the fishery with our own eyes are obviously not seeing the bigger picture, even though almost everyone from Maine to NY had a poor fall.

I'm heading out in the am with Freak to save some cod from ending up in a draggers net and then tossed overboard with thousands of other dead ones.

I predict Gulf of Maine Cod Rec Limit will be two fish for a two month season...it's going to be ugly...realy ugly.

I predict Haddock remains at 10 fish...worst case will be 7.

I predict Gulf of Maine Cod Rec Limit will be two fish for a two month season...it's going to be ugly...realy ugly.

I predict Haddock remains at 10 fish...worst case will be 7.

Patrick
I've been hearing the same scenario 2 fish 2 months for cod.
Does anyone in the nmf have a clue or is it all political and who ever has the $ going to the right places gets what they want !
The draggers kill and dump over in bycatch more daily than charters and recs do combined in a month.
Looks like we should start buying golf clubs or some other some other activity !
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2 fish per and a 2 month season - might as well just friggin close it. i know - maybe they can make the open season jan and feb too, wtf. if i'm sacraficing my cod fishing for the future the comms better damn well be doing the same.

It's 6.99 a pound and after you cook it, it weighs about 9-10 ounces - so its really about $11 a pound.
You can get a big thing of whey protein at Walmart for $16 - have enough protein for like 32 meal replacements.
Food, what a rip off.

Rotisserie chicken, $6. Serves 3. Two bucks a person. No fuss bachelor food.
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Cod will be like 9.99+ there won't be much demand at that price. They got to find a way to fix by-catch issues. Stick a monitor on board or something - find a way to keep it and count it toward the quota, if it is going to be dead anyway. Think of how senseless that is.

The solution is catch shares. Unfortunately, all the politics that go along with catch shares makes them controversial.
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Many species have been fished for many years. The problem is why so many species are in the same boat as the Cod. That's the problem that needs to be fixed! If the root of the problem is not eradicated, the problem will continue to arise!

Fish aren't the only thing the government can't track:
Faulty Forecasts Roil Corn Market
Government reports about the U.S. corn crop have become increasingly unreliable of late, contributing to wild swings in corn prices,.....

Fly rod hit the nail on the head.Now the cod have been replaced in their homes on the bottom and lost their place in the food chain so they get clobbered down there plus bt the nets and charters.A couple scientist said this would happen 20 yrs ago unless people listened. But nope too much money in it.Greed is such a wonderful thing.

Don't confuse haddock with cod. Haddock are known to be very cyclical and now they are on the downside of their cycle. Cod OTOH are not as cyclical. IMHO the big problem with cod is the dogfish, eating their young and their food.

Last springs Whale back closure was a big joke... it only succeded in taking the rec. and party boat/charted fleet out of the equation... I normaly fish about 3 miles inside of ( before it) the N/W edge of the closed area and do quite well( all alone while dozens of boats battle it out on the spawning grpunds) .. i watched several draggers that were awarded that sector drag the edges... all around. they got them going in and coming out.. my little piece of ground was producing nicely until they moved in. in one night it went from fruitfull to barren... not even the dog fish were left..

It's enough to make honest law abiding fisherman to say "screw it" and apply the me catch 'em .. me keep 'em attitude... when they see the waste that is granted one particular user group..or throw back fish too small for us to keep but big enough for them to keep... the same size limits should apply.

Rotisserie chicken, $6. Serves 3. Two bucks a person. No fuss bachelor food.
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So now you're counting MAKAI as 2 people?

AFAIK this initial assessment was based on preliminary data- the full report isn't due until the end of January. While the final report may end up being the same, this should be considered. Mr. Gaines loves to stir the pot any chance he can get.

I don't work in stock assessment, but from what I've seen first hand, there's no shortage of GoM cod- Numbers are extremely high. I can't speak for GB/SNE. And since the shift to sector management, the days of "thousands of dead ones" being tossed over the side are long gone. Comms know where the small ones are, and they don't fish in those areas. It quite simply doesn't happen anymore. With the high monitoring levels, there's no incentive to discard marketable catch.

The old DAS system was a travesty- 800 lb daily limit, basically encouraging high grading and excessive (not to mention wasteful) discarding of catch. And now vocal minorities in the fleet are petitioning our senators to go back to the DAS system- which IMO would be a catastrophe.

I think MakoMike is correct- the truth is somewhere in between. I think the data for the current assessment needs to be reexamined.

close it down for the foreseeable future...at least 10 years, completely...not just the gulf of Maine, completely.
Then, create an investigative team to figure a way to regrow the populations. Keep commercial fishing closed until the nation is overrun with cod and then open it up on a very limited basis.

This is going to be painful.


BTW...mark this post...the same thing will happen with SB... IMO those YOY index numbers will not materialize into anything and they will determine that the danger threshold number they base everything on was not nearly conservative enough.

Hey...what is the best way to cook spider crabs???:drool:

I fear that not only is our nation being Europeanized but so are our fish resources. You ever Google European fishing mags, they glorify dogfish and skate. In my opinion you want to save the cod, cull out the dogfish.
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You can't possibly expect a species to recover when you have protected a predator that feeds on the young of the more desirable species.
It doesn't take a biology degree to realize that the explosion of the dogfish population (thanks nmfs) has adversely effected cod stocks.

IMHO ver similar to seals and Stripers - 10,000 gray seals on the back beaches of the cape don't give a crap about 2 @ 28, 1 @ 36, or whether something is a gamefish or on a menu.

In both situations, man is a culprit, but not the only factor.
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I don't get it. I see totes of dogfish being loaded into trucks. Are they illegal to fish for?

I don't get it. I see totes of dogfish being loaded into trucks. Are they illegal to fish for?
I believe the take on Dogfish was heavily limited, if not completely restricted. I think the restrictions were lifted a year or two ago.

I don't get it. I see totes of dogfish being loaded into trucks. Are they illegal to fish for?

Looks like currently at 15,000,000 pounds of them landed, 74% of CW quota for the year. MA has 9 million pounds.

Dogfish = Sea locust
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The limits on dogifsh are very low compared to their population.