Pair Trawlers Banned from Inshore GOM Waters

[Mr. Sandman]

long overdue, hope it is not too little too late. Once again, poor management has got us to a complete shutdown.

If they want to rebuild herring stocks they will need to do more then just stop fishing for them. (althought this is a first step) How about some federal and State $ for rebuilding historical runs and improving the newer ones? How about relaxing all the overbearing permitting fees that are involved in re-building a run? How about putting some people on the re-building efforts that really know what they are doing and oversee this to compleation? They have been taking from this fishery for decades, it is about time they give something back.

[PNG]

They have been taking from this fishery for decades, it is about time they give something back.

So true.
This fishery has gone from basically no regulation and almost ZERO oversight to being shut down. Hello, NMFS where are you, hello.
This is like when they were screaming the cod stocks collapsed * stop all fishing * when in reality their survey vessel was and had been towing a collapsed net catching nothing. This was discovered by a commercial fisherman.

[JohnR]

A little scared about the May 1 date as it might be too late, Now RI and CT fish don't fall into the G.O.M. so I hipe they do something down here too (what is the migration range of the herring anyway??). I know we see the herring coming into the runs in March down here and I think Mass is no more than a few weeks later from Boston and points north...

But it is a start - too late - but a start

[Redsoxticket]

Council limits herring vessels

New regulations to take effect in 2007, New England fishing regulators voted to limit the number of fishing vessels that can catch Atlantic herring in a move to stabilize the growing fihery.
Under the new rules that take effect in 2007, vessels that entered the herring fishery after 2003 will no longer be allowed to catch Atlantic herring. Future boats will also be barred from the fishery.
This would eliminate so called "derby fishing" when vessels race against each other to catch as much of the quota as they can before the fishery is closed, As more vessels enter the fishery, the incentive to race for fish will grow. Derby fishing can lead to overfishing and cause negative impacts.

[Redsoxticket]

Originally Posted by Redsoxticket

Council limits herring vessels

New regulations to take effect in 2007, New England fishing regulators voted to limit the number of fishing vessels that can catch Atlantic herring in a move to stabilize the growing fihery.
Under the new rules that take effect in 2007, vessels that entered the herring fishery after 2003 will no longer be allowed to catch Atlantic herring. Future boats will also be barred from the fishery.
This would eliminate so called "derby fishing" when vessels race against each other to catch as much of the quota as they can before the fishery is closed, As more vessels enter the fishery, the incentive to race for fish will grow. Derby fishing can lead to overfishing and cause negative impacts.

Offshore, the time frame on the new rules will take effect in 2007 as was written in the SouthCoast newspaper out of New Bedford. There is a conflict with the time frame that you indicated which was May 2006.
Are we comparing apples with apples and what is the time frame?

[JohnR]

The processing boat was processing in RI waters - but not sure if it came in this year (I think the permit was denied). This particular Russian boat did not actually fish for the herring, just purchased from local boats. It was permitted for 5000 tons of Mackeral and 5000 tons of herring...

I have seen / heard some interesting comments on the Observers of the "sea" herring fishery in that these observers may be focusing on juvenile haddock instead of differentiating between alewive, blueback, or sea herring...

[flatts1]

Originally Posted by Redsoxticket

Council limits herring vessels
Under the new rules that take effect in 2007, vessels that entered the herring fishery after 2003 will no longer be allowed to catch Atlantic herring. Future boats will also be barred from the fishery.
This would eliminate so called "derby fishing" when vessels race against each other to catch as much of the quota as they can before the fishery is closed, As more vessels enter the fishery, the incentive to race for fish will grow. Derby fishing can lead to overfishing and cause negative impacts.

Still a problem.

While it is true that only boats that participated in the fishery since before 2003 will be allowed to fish the inshore Gulf of Maine, the problem is that this was a huge concession done at the last minute. The original date was 1999, but enough well paid lobbyists made the case that they would sue if their boats (newer entrants) weren't included in the so called Area 1 as well.

Bottom line is that this is going to qualify many many more boats into the fishery than before. So there can still be (and predictably will be) a race to fish. However, this does not mean that there will be over fishing. The herring fishery is managed by hard TACs. Once the harvest Area 1A hits 60,000 metric tons, it is shut off.

The good news is that at least the area is Purse Sein only (no midwater trawling) during the prime months when everyone else relies on there being a good forages base for predotry species (cod, haddock, stripers, etc).

The goal of those interested in seeing the orderly development of the herring fishery has always been (and continues to be) lowering the Area 1A TAC. Still got our work cut out for us.

For more info, see...

http://www.msba.net/main/index.php?o...=128&Itemid=82

Best,
Mike Flaherty
Wareham, MA

[Offshore]

Sorry to read it, but thanks for the update, Mike.

[jkswimmer]

The truth is that inorder to fix a stream that has been damaged the group will have to jump through alot of hoops. This needs to be addressed at the State house because the red tape keeps groups from volunteering to get this work done.