year 2010 recreational catch statistics

[numbskull]

Originally Posted by CowHunter

Arent these NOAA statistics actually reported by fishermen via countmyfish.gov through these new licenses we are supposed to have??? d netting and intentional waste / discard of Bass down in MD, VA, NC...

NO. Recreational numbers are made up by charter boat statistics, that are relatively accurate based on reliable sampling, and non-charter catch, that is extremely inaccurate and based on fishing effort and catch rate estimates obtained by angler sampling. The Technical committee report I gave you the link to above explains that there is good reason to believe these estimates are wildly overblown and the huge recreational catch numbers (that you and others use to chastise concerned recreational fishermen, and defend continued commercial catch quotas) are in fact pure fantasy.

It is important to realize that the ASMFC does not care, however, about what percentage of the catch is recreational, and what percentage is commercial..........they care about total catch and total population.

Since they have good reason to suspect that recreational fishing pressure is much less than the number they are using, they have good reason to suspect the fishery can handle more commercial take, hence their move to increase the commercial take.
Now keep in mind they wanted to increase the commercial take by 10%.
Yet they suspect the recreational catch is 50% over estimated.
That suggests that 100% of the non-charter recreational catch equals about 20% of the commercial catch......or that commercial landings are FIVE TIMES larger than NON-CHARTER recreational landings.

Now you can argue that charter fishing is recreational fishing, but the bottom line.......which fits my experience........is that the average schmuck recreational guys that make up 90% of the people using the resource end up killing a much smaller total share of the resource than the small number of guys making money off the fish.

Gamefish anyone?

[Saltheart]

This post is not to bitch about cmms or recs or our reps on the committees , etc. I think everyone is doing their best and its no good to point fingers and argue amongst ourselve.

What I want to comment on is the validity of the numbers that the surveyors get.

I used to be all over from the CT breachway to Napatree back when I used to get the oversand permit. I spent a lot of time down there and I also cruised all the beaches from Ninigret to Misquamicut (actually decided to delete some of the places we fished , both for our own good and for the good of the spots ) Anyway , we put our time in.

One weekend I was down there with my friend Chris who also used to come up all the time. Now we were into everything from eels to pogie heads , every lure under the sun , all the odball stuff like balloons , hooking the eels in the tail got tried and real good stugg like rigging them etc , we worked hard and listened while at the tackle shops , etc. We did as well as anybody was doing out there. Well one weekend we were there the whole weekend round the clock. We caught almost nothing. We also had lots of friends who were serious fisherman and would ask how they did and did they see anyone else catching , etc , etc. the whole point is that weekend , all the regular fisherman who were there all day and all night caught sqwat. Well Sunday morning about 8 AM , we were standing near the truck drinking our morning coffee and a surveyor came along. He asked us about our catch that weekend , how often we went , etc , etc. We told him we fished all the time and knew the whole game but we caught sqwat that whole weekend. He thanked us and indicated it was nice to get an honest answere from some guys who obviously fished a lot and were not screwing up his survey by lying about fish we didn't get.

Well then he goes over to this bunch of guys who had been showing up mid morning for the weekend , mostly tangling everyones lines and talking more than fishing. These guys could not catch a fish unless the typical monster blitz came drifting by and they just happened to hit a fish in the head with a multi treble hooked popper. So we listen as these know nothings , catch nothings, start telling the surveyor about how they each caught a dozen fish every day all weekend. Now we were there and we saw these guys fishing every morning and they got zip. No way , even if they fished 10 more weekends , they were not going to catch anything at all.

So now the surveyor has interviewed 6 guys total (me , Chris and these 4 fishless wonders) , 2 say almost nothing caught , 4 say they got 48 fish a day between them , and did that each day .

So now these six interviews get worked by the statistics of how many guys , say 100 in the general area , times an average of 8 fish per guy (Their lied about 48 divided by the 6 total fisherman) so the end product of the survey would show that based on a statistical sampling , there were 800 fish caught per 100 people fishing. Now maybe they estimate a 1000 fisherman along the whole coast that weekend so now the lied about 48 fish ends up about 8000 recreational fish caught in the quota calculations that weekend based on the surveys.

Now I'm not complaining about the surveyor as he was doing his best , etc , etc. The fact is that recreational catch totals are based on interviews and surveys and estimates. The baseline data around which all the estimates and statistics rely upon are info from fisherman who as a whole lie through their teeth about how many and how big they caught.

So anyway , the rec numbers are based on surveys that gather info from lying SOB's.

So i agree with the ASMFC tech committee that rec numbers are overestimated by 50%. Now what that does to the overall picture , I don't know.

I did see a guy on the cable the other night on Cox Channel 15 who had all kinds of data on fin and shelfish and historical comparisons and the decline of lobsters and the rise of crabs and the way the catch followed but lagged the biomass data by a couple of years , etc. Worth watching so maybe check your listing to see if they replay that 9they often do). His stats on the bass was that we had a miraculous recovery but that things were trending downward again and he hoped the committees would reduce the catch before the striper stock collapsed again rather than wait until after it happened.

1 fish a day for recs , I don't really care what size it is. I think size has offsetting effects. Allow lower you lose more fish , allow higher you lose better breeders. So that's why I say 1 fish , let the experts decide on size.

[CowHunter]

Originally Posted by numbskull

NO. Recreational numbers are made up by charter boat statistics, that are relatively accurate based on reliable sampling, and non-charter catch, that is extremely inaccurate and based on fishing effort and catch rate estimates obtained by angler sampling. The Technical committee report I gave you the link to above explains that there is good reason to believe these estimates are wildly overblown and the huge recreational catch numbers (that you and others use to chastise concerned recreational fishermen, and defend continued commercial catch quotas) are in fact pure fantasy.

It is important to realize that the ASMFC does not care, however, about what percentage of the catch is recreational, and what percentage is commercial..........they care about total catch and total population.

Since they have good reason to suspect that recreational fishing pressure is much less than the number they are using, they have good reason to suspect the fishery can handle more commercial take, hence their move to increase the commercial take.
Now keep in mind they wanted to increase the commercial take by 10%.
Yet they suspect the recreational catch is 50% over estimated.
That suggests that 100% of the non-charter recreational catch equals about 20% of the commercial catch......or that commercial landings are FIVE TIMES larger than NON-CHARTER recreational landings.

Now you can argue that charter fishing is recreational fishing, but the bottom line.......which fits my experience........is that the average schmuck recreational guys that make up 90% of the people using the resource end up killing a much smaller total share of the resource than the small number of guys making money off the fish.

Gamefish anyone?

Charters / Headboats / Guideboats / Party Boats or whatever For Hire vessel you have taking Recs out fishing is doing exactly that Recreational Fishing. These guys dont take away from any Commercial Quota up and down the coast nor do they have their own Quota allocated to them in any species they target.

The truth is nobody will ever know the exact, or even close to the exact numbers of Fish Recs are catching.....

As for Gamefish, you can wish it all you want and its not going to happen anytime soon.. They were just trying to increase com limits this year... Especially since all the states with the exception of Maine and North Carolina,(Northern/Southern Limits - Migration water temp sensitive), Have had absolutely no problem filling their com quotas year after year. The pics of all the thousands of Dead Bass floating off the north Carolina week after week give people that dont have a clue the illusion that the ocean is paved with striped bass....

[Mr. Sandman]

In my view I find it illogical and almost immoral to have a comm fishery on a species that is declining in numbers, having forage, breading and health issues. Nothing can justify this IMO. Comm fishing segment should be the first to be shut down when a fishery is heading for trouble. Regardless of who is catching what. Moreover if you want to talk about uncounted or inaccurate fish in terms of numbers, look no further than the comm industry. The discard numbers + black market + high grading numbers are insane, Further, the rec numbers include RELEASED fish. Rec kill is a fraction of what it was in years past.

As far as gamefish goes... it is inevitable and it will happen much sooner than you think. It is the best way to protect the species from exploitation...take the $ off this fishes head directly. Yeah you can go catch them from charter boats but there is little incentive to fill your cockpit with them anymore. (Just because you can doesn't mean you should. We should not protect the jobs of comm fisherman just because this is what they chose to do, do what is right for the species and let the chips fall where they may. ENOUGH with this maximum yield theory.

The answer is very simple:

Gamefish status
1 @ 36 rec fishing (with C&R only... if needed)
Aggressive restoration of all forage species

[afterhours]

Originally Posted by Mr. Sandman

In my view I find it illogical and almost immoral to have a comm fishery on a species that is declining in numbers, having forage, breading and health issues. Nothing can justify this IMO. Comm fishing segment should be the first to be shut down when a fishery is heading for trouble. Regardless of who is catching what. Moreover if you want to talk about uncounted or inaccurate fish in terms of numbers, look no further than the comm industry. The discard numbers + black market + high grading numbers are insane, Further, the rec numbers include RELEASED fish. Rec kill is a fraction of what it was in years past.

As far as gamefish goes... it is inevitable and it will happen much sooner than you think. It is the best way to protect the species from exploitation...take the $ off this fishes head directly. Yeah you can go catch them from charter boats but there is little incentive to fill your cockpit with them anymore. (Just because you can doesn't mean you should. We should not protect the jobs of comm fisherman just because this is what they chose to do, do what is right for the species and let the chips fall where they may. ENOUGH with this maximum yield theory.

The answer is very simple:

Gamefish status
1 @ 36 rec fishing (with C&R only... if needed)
Aggressive restoration of all forage species

[MAKAI]

From the Oxford American dictionary


Commercial ( adjective )

1. Concerned with or engaged in commerce.

2. Making or intended to make a profit.
(a) Having profit, rather than artistic or other value, as a
primary aim:

It is rather obvious that we should break the accountability take pie
into thirds.

Commercial. ( selling fish )
Charter / Headboats . ( selling fishing )
Recreational.

I work some weekends as a mate on a Charter boat out of Green harbor. The general theme is a keep everything meat fishing trip. The whole attitude is to fill the box.
A far cry from most ( not all ) people that I know when they are out fishing for enjoyment.

No way it's an either or , now you would be just arguing semantics.

But this is all a mute point to our collective ignorance to the future of this fishery. The plenty of now does not mean the plenty of tomorrow.
Hell, just look at the state of our Country and economy. Aren't we all just looking around wondering " what happened ? It was so good not long ago, "
You can definitely draw some parallels to striped bass fishing, once this large biomass out there now is gone we may be in trouble.
The deterioration of the estuarine nursery may not bode well for all of us, who for work or play, pursue this fish. As I said earlier it now takes 3 times the breeders to produce the same YOY as it did 20 years ago.Something is very wrong.

Get involved.

[MikeToole]

IMO charter and head boats are not selling fish. They are selling a service; a ride out to where the fish are, rental equipment, bait and instruction. Most of the time the customers keep the fish for personal use.

To me the real difference centers around final results. On a charter 6 people go out and they get to spend a day on the water with friends and maybe catch 12 bass. For many of them this only happens once or twice a season. They pay the charter 3.5 to 6 hundred depending on location and time. They may also eat out and rent a couple of rooms. So in the end six people got to have a good day fishing and dumped some money into the economy. The boat earns about what one commercial fisherman would make if he caught 12 fish.

So the main difference is in one case 7 people benefit and in the other case only two at most when averaged (whole saler and retailer). In both cases the trickle down is still there just to different people and the fish make it to the public for use.