Complaint thread

[Islander77]

Originally Posted by JackK

New regulations starting May 1st are going to seriously reduce the amount of groundfish discards while at sea. Boats won't be required to discard that bycatch, they'll be allowed to land it and that poundage is taken out of a total quota. It's part of the new NE shift to Sectors.

Now whether or not sectors will work in the NE ports is a completely different debate... no comment.

Islander, I understand you're pissed, and you have every right to be. But please realize that not all people at noaa/nmfs are "nerds". Some are in management, and make the rules/regs. Others strictly perform research and are devoted towards providing the best possible data for fisheries management. And there's entire divisions of noaa devoted towards working with fishermen to obtain quality data. Some of us are a little more united than you might think

Jack you are correct not all are nerds... and if your that united tell them to get a real net please so their test instruments are real... And yes sector will change things dramatically WE HOPE if they can do better math that is lol.... the biggest draw back to sector so far seems to be leaning towards vessel size and not landing history to determine it from what I have been hearing but here is hoping to a brighter future...

[Nebe]

Originally Posted by Islander77

the biggest draw back to sector so far seems to be leaning towards vessel size and not landing history to determine it from what I have been hearing but here is hoping to a brighter future...

sector based fishing quotas will based on catch history of the vessel not vessel size. Boats who have been sitting at port or have not been active for the past few years are going to get screwed. The guy who is really going to get screwed is the captain who wants to buy another boat with poor landings, even though he has been doing well on his current boat.

[BasicPatrick]

Originally Posted by Nebe

sector based fishing quotas will based on catch history of the vessel not vessel size. Boats who have been sitting at port or have not been active for the past few years are going to get screwed. The guy who is really going to get screwed is the captain who wants to buy another boat with poor landings, even though he has been doing well on his current boat.

Isn't that scenario a little like feeling bad for a guy who insists on buying a Toyota Dealership or a typewriter service company in the next year. The commercial fishing buisness will never again be what it was and the fleet is going to shrink. Ecosystem based management plans are coming and far less people will be catching the same amount of fish just so that regulatory discards are converted to sellable product. This is a fact. Buy a boat and get what you deserve right now.

[JackK]

Originally Posted by Islander77

Jack you are correct not all are nerds... and if your that united tell them to get a real net please so their test instruments are real... And yes sector will change things dramatically WE HOPE if they can do better math that is lol.... the biggest draw back to sector so far seems to be leaning towards vessel size and not landing history to determine it from what I have been hearing but here is hoping to a brighter future...

Nets aren't a problem. If you've been out fishing for haddock on GB, you know it's common for ~10 boats to be fishing right in the same area, and one boat hits the 10,000lb school while the rest get nada. That's just the way it goes sometimes. There's so many different versions of that story (research vessel was towing with no doors, net was full of holes that weren't mended, etc etc) out there.

The movement now needs to go towards cooperative research- using commercial fishing vessels to obtain catch data (in addition to survey and observer data). That, along with the development of new trawls (or gillnets, or dredges, etc) that reduce bycatch are going to be the future of the northeast fisheries.