Bluefish regs not looking good for next year

Originally Posted by Detour66

1980!

Close Detour. 1989 to 2003 before recreational size limits sky rocketed and commercial operators were cunningly given a substantially larger percentage of the biomass for their own harvest when recreational size minimums exceeded their 14" minimum. Funny how in 1997 the legislation increasing the commercial size limit to 14" and the mandate to increase mesh sizes by 1/2" was sold as a conservation effort.

In reality, the real reason which you can see in the data is increasing mesh sizes accommodated the harvest of larger size fish with higher catch values. Had nothing to do with conservation. While I agree some smaller fish will get through larger mesh sizes, when the cod end of nets get plugged up, mesh sizes don't matter one bit and everything trapped in the nets is coming on board. Commercial operators retrieve the nets, unload the entire catch on board, reset their nets first, start the sorting process of fish they're retaining and then toss back by-catch or fish not meeting size minimums or fish with lower market values. So figure an hour to hour and a half per tow, nets coming up primarily during fall and winter months from deeper depths, cold air temperatures, fish lying on decks while nets are re-set and continuing to sit on deck while the desirable catch is stowed away which will take another hour. Any summer flounder or by-catch caught in a net and not retained goes back dead, think about the waste involved in the process and vessel trip reports report on average about 15% discard rates which fisheries management assigns an 80% mortality factor to. Discard rates are most likely well over 100% in the commercial fishery and discard mortality is likely 100%.

Now factor in the lost egg production of the fish being harvested which is in the TENS OF TRILLIONS and that's why the fishery is in a 17-yr decline. Yet the Monitoring Committee fails to acknowledge a relationship between the severe declines in recruitment and the increased harvest of older age classes being mostly females so they change their position that most fish under 24" are 50/50 males:females and a large percentage of today's catch are males. Total BS. This is now in their own words a 10-15 year trend within the fishery which contradicts every aspect of the data included in the 66th Stock Assessment published 8 months ago in April of this year! THE ENTIRE GENDER COMPOSITION OF CATCH AND THE BIOMASS HAS CHANGED IN 8 MONTHS CONTRADICTING EVERY OTHER STUDY REGARDING SEX, LENGTH AND AGE COMPOSITION CONDUCTED AND NOW MALES AND FEMALES WHILE SMALLER ARE LIVING LONGER AS WELL. GUESS THAT'S BECAUSE THEY'RE RELENTLESSLY BEING POUNDED YEAR ROUND OR BECAUSE THERE WERE TWO MALES SLIGHTLY OVER 20" HARVESTED IN A RECENT TRAWL COMMENTED ON IN THE OCTOBER MEETING WERE 20-YR. OLD FISH EXTRAPOLATES OUT TO A DEFINITIVE STATEMENT THAT MALES AND FEMALES ARE ATTAINING LARGER SIZES AND LIVING LONGER. TWO FISH IN A BIOMASS OF 122 MILLION AND THAT CONSTITUTES A DEFINITIVE TREND! This is the BS being fed the general public by the Advisory Panel, Monitoring Committee and being used to set policy decisions by the Commission and Council.

Reality is they're lying to the public, changing models and data to support the results lobbyist funds are paying for. Truth is I could have walked into the meeting yesterday insisting it was Tuesday and they would have taken the position that recent trends suggest it's actually Wednesday or Thursday so sit down, stop asking questions, check your brain at the door or you'll be asked to leave.