the current fisherman mag..

[ZuluHotel]

Originally Posted by ThomCat

I'm still here, Zach. As far as comm. rod & reel efforts are concerned this is absolutely the cleanest fishery out there. There is virtually no waste. High-grading is not a factor as the catch is sorted on a fish by fish basis rather than picking through an already dead or dying deck full of fish. Incidental by-catch is dealt with the same way, before the fish is dead. If the issue is the massive waste incured by draggers and gill netters, then those methods should be addressed. To lump the the most destructive methods of harvesting toward both the fish and the fragility of the ocean's floor together with what is far and away the most selective and conservation minded technique is totally unfair. Why do the R&R fishermen, who have the shortest window of opportunity and who generate the least environmental harm have to suffer the hardships and restrictions created by the most wasteful and destructive approaches?

Hey Thomcat,

I agree that r-and-r guys should not be lumped in with the more destructive gear types. You're absolutely correct that hook gear represents the cleanest commercial fishery--I have never argued that point. That's why I would suggest a separate chunk of quota, state-by-state, for the hook-and-line sector.

I think there's ample wording within Magnuson and state regs to support the hook-and-line fishery. After writing that inflammatory editorial about pin-hooking back in Feb., I've given that issue a lot of thought.

What I think is important is thinning the herd of draggers and gillnetters involved in the fluke fishery. Naturally, there's no way you're ever going to get rid of those gear types, so I'm not wasting my breath on that one. It is, however, quite possible to minimize their destructive impact. Whether it's IFQs (now called LAPS in regulatory circles, I'm told) or some other mechanism, I want to see sweeping changes in the management philosophy.

ZH

[MakoMike]

Mike,
Increasing the minimum size for commerial fluke would only exacerbate the regulatory discard problem. I would force them to keep every fish, so none of them went to waste, no matter what size they are.

As far as the haddock bycatch cap in the herring fishery. Did it really work? I doubt it. If I were the owner of one of those boats every single haddock I could identify would get thrown back. I would'nt jeapordize my thousands of tons of herring by keeping any haddock I could discard. That's why we need obervers on those boats.

Maybe we need observers on every dragger, just make sure they play by the rules?

[flatts1]

MakoMike,

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"Maybe we need observers on every dragger, just make sure they play by the rules?"
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That would be ideal but will never happen. I would settle for some of the video monitoring technology they are now expirimenting with (it automatically turns on when the codend is hauled back).

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Increasing the minimum size for commerial fluke would only exacerbate the regulatory discard problem. "
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That sounds pretty hopeless doesn't it? Why not 13''? Why not 12''. In other words, all we end up doing is accomodating the shortcomings of the gear instead of fixing it. We do this in the NE Groundfish fishery too. Remember when rec haddock was 21'' and commercial haddock was 19''. Why? Because the highest size mesh in the world was still too indiscriminate to weed them out. So we accomodated them (ditto haddock/herring above)

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"I would force them to keep every fish, so none of them went to waste, no matter what size they are."
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I'm hessitant, but I could go along with that if it was based on the number of fish and not pounds. Again though, enforcement would be an issue.

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As far as the haddock bycatch cap in the herring fishery. Did it really work? I doubt it. If I were the owner of one of those boats every single haddock I could identify would get thrown back. I would'nt jeapordize my thousands of tons of herring by keeping any haddock I could discard.
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Yes, it does work. The whole premise behind why the herring boats need to be allowed to land at least some haddock is because it is virtually impossible to separate them as they are vacumed out of the bag. We are talking about 4'' - 14'' haddock here (haddock mature around 19''), and when a herring vessel was busted with some 4,000 lbs illegally, they tried to brush it off as insignificant because it only represented about 4% of its total catch.

But your point remains: that it would be easy for pitchfork FLUKE over the side to avoid hitting the cap. Again, I think that a video monitoring system could help with that.

Best,
Mike F.