What's Going On With Our Fisheries?

[reason162]

Originally Posted by Gerry Zagorski

If you want to point fingers they should clearly be pointed back to the agencies managing the fisheries and setting and enforcing the regulations during the decline. Not the people who were following their regulations and trusting their "science".

That might be a true statement if the people following regulations (in this case the charter/party/tackle industries) don't also push to influence regulations, and always in one direction.

It's more accurate to blame the comm/rec reps who hobble the efforts of state biologists - both parties are represented in the ASMFC, and the entire process is poisoned by political appointees and people with vested economic interest in a public resource.

[Togfather2530]

Originally Posted by Gerry Zagorski

Woah! Not denying that people kept and wasted a lot of fish back in the day and I was one of them.... However, those fish were still around in great numbers until recently... As far as party boats are concerned, don't you think the people who run those boats want to be able to sustain the fisheries to keep their businesses viable in the future? Even if you assume that wasn't the case and it was short term greed, shouldn't the agencies who were managing the fisheries tightened up the regs so overfishing didn't occur?

I believe most recreational fishermen and for hires might not like it but they'd suck it up if they had faith in the way these fisheries were managed and the so called "science" that goes into managing them... MRIP is a joke and even they admitted it. And, after sucking up the punitive declines in Seabass regs , even when fishery fully recovered, we never got anything back?

How about some critical thinking here? If you want to point fingers they should clearly be pointed back to the agencies managing the fisheries and setting and enforcing the regulations during the decline. Not the people who were following their regulations and trusting their "science".

Jerry. No one’s pointing fingers here. Maybe you take this the wrong way. But I knew so many that went down to the shore back in the day and kept tons of weak fish and blues and didn’t eat half of them. If you really think these fisheries, get depleted and results are immediate when you’re taking fish like hogs, you’re wrong. I’m a firm believer that any fishery that’s not being managed right takes 10 years or more to show its ugly face. I’ve seen enough posts of party boat captains complaining about the Regs but believe me when I tell you these guys that run businesses whether they’re charter or party boat guys, if they were not regulated, would be keeping fish like it was never going to go out of style. Fishermen are not the best managers of a resource. Also, I put no faith in any government agency to manage anything or do anything or get anything accomplished. I’m sure they are doing a lousy job, but if the fisherman really care they can manage the resources themselves. No one really needs the government to tell them what to keep and what not to keep. I know we all need or want to keep shorter fluke and not the breeders but at the same time no one that salt water fishes does any kind of catch and releasing much. The fisherman that fish saltwater back in the day were all just about filling their freezer up when they went fishing. Half of it was freezer burn trash. Another thing these people that talk about how recreational fisherman could never damage a fishery seriously need to get their head out of the sand. Just my opinion.

[Togfather2530]

One thing to take comfort in is fish reproduce quite well. All we would have to do is closed down all fisheries, commercial and recreational for two years or so and the oceans would be teaming with fish I believe. As far as the fish that moved north because of global warming well that’s another situation. I don’t think you’re going to get them back in the numbers that they were in the same areas. It’s that simple though. If man leaves his fingers off of the resources for a while, they will replenish. As far as the oceans being clean, I’m sure our area is cleaner than it was one time and I’m sure the EPA did quite a bit good. But there’s been plenty of days that we’ve all been out there and there was nothing but trash and plastic floating by our boats. To say we are in clean waters is a joke to me. There’s been plenty of days when I was embarrassed to take the people that I took fishing in the ocean because it was a cesspool full of trash.

[hammer4reel]

Originally Posted by Togfather2530

One thing to take comfort in is fish reproduce quite well. All we would have to do is closed down all fisheries, commercial and recreational for two years or so and the oceans would be teaming with fish I believe. As far as the fish that moved north because of global warming well that’s another situation. I don’t think you’re going to get them back in the numbers that they were in the same areas. It’s that simple though. If man leaves his fingers off of the resources for a while, they will replenish. As far as the oceans being clean, I’m sure our area is cleaner than it was one time and I’m sure the EPA did quite a bit good. But there’s been plenty of days that we’ve all been out there and there was nothing but trash and plastic floating by our boats. To say we are in clean waters is a joke to me. There’s been plenty of days when I was embarrassed to take the people that I took fishing in the ocean because it was a cesspool full of trash.

Winter flounder was a super catchable fish through 2007 .
2008 it went to 2 fish .
It’s held at that level for over 15 years .
Hardly anyone fishes for them , because it’s too expensive to buy chum , sand worms etc to warrant catching only 2 fish .

Yet without a decrease by about 99% in fishing pressure they apparently still haven’t rebuilt .

.There should be no commercial harvest , but there still is .
NC closed its recreational fishing season for fluke last year .
Opened it for 2 weeks in September .
Yet the commercial boats were allowed to go anywhere for 30000 pounds a week .
If that’s not mismanagement I don’t know what is.

.

[baseballman]

The whole situation is a disaster. Regulations are insane, the data is extremely flawed and state government doesn't even care enough to fill vacant council positions. The latter is really all you need to know about where the priorities are...elsewhere.

On a more anecdotal level, I'm a somewhat young fisherman. My entire life the striped bass regulations included a keeper starting at 28" and a bonus fish...how can you tell me the data supports keeping that the same every year? Now its a 3-inch slot to protect oversize females...which to me is funny, because as the fluke limit creeps up, we are DECIMATING the spawning size female fluke population.

On top of this, there is also a painfully obvious fact that there is no lobby or organization that has its act together enough to represent the interests of recreational fisherman. Obviously the commercial fishery is a billion dollar global business - but it should dawn on the tackle shops, brands, head/charter/six pack captains and even local politicians in places that still have a fishing economy left to band together to fund pushing change.

[Broad Bill]

Originally Posted by reason162

That might be a true statement if the people following regulations (in this case the charter/party/tackle industries) don't also push to influence regulations, and always in one direction.

It's more accurate to blame the comm/rec reps who hobble the efforts of state biologists - both parties are represented in the ASMFC, and the entire process is poisoned by political appointees and people with vested economic interest in a public resource.

All parties are to blame. It's a collective cluster#$&!. Science has it's hands full dealing with the complexities of fisheries management but bad data from science isn't helping matters. And please don't start lecturing about Peer Review. MRIP is admittedly an absolute unmitigated disaster. Landings and discard mortality percentages are at best a guess and they have statistics discard mortality rates are 2 to 3 times higher in the commercial fishery than reported but that data gets swept under the carpet. Recruitment levels are a complete guess and assigned weight values by age classes landed for the recreational sector, if anyone bothers to research it, are 20% - 60% higher than the same assigned weights for the commercial sector. Higher and with greater disparities for the age classes that make up the majority of annual landings.

Example, a 4-year old fish caught by North Carolina has an assigned weight factor of 1.99 lbs. in the last year of statistics. Same 4-year old fish caught recreationally has a weight factor assigned of 3.15 lbs. meaning the recreational sector has a 59% greater weight factor for 4-year old fish than NC. Adding insult to injury, most of NC's commercial catch occurs in the winter from local waters meaning they're harvesting the same body of fish as the recreational sector so why would assigned weights be different. Numbers should be identical between sectors. What that one issue, which no one focuses on much less even knows about means, is if 2 million fish consisting entirely of 4-year old fish were caught recreationally the sector would be charged 6.3 millions lbs. towards it's annual quota. If those same 2 million fish were caught by NC commercially, the commercial sector would be charged only 3.98 million lbs. toward their quota for the same number of fish harvested based on Peer Reviewed models. The problem is consistent but slightly less variant, with commercial values from Virginia through Maine. Think about the impact this one issue has on quotas and allocations every year between the recreational and commercial sector. It's simply not possible to have that degree of difference in weight values per age class between sectors harvesting the same biomass of fish but it's another means of allocating more of this fishery to the commercial sector at the recreational sector's detriment. Back in the 80's and 90's when there was a southern Chesapeake stock which NC and Virginia destroyed, age classes may have had weight variances from the northern biomass based on growth rates, available forage, genetics etc. Today, everyone is harvesting the SNE / MA biomass and weight values should be identical across the board.

This inconsistency brings up another very important issue with how this fishery and others are being managed. Should weight be the primary focus of landings and mortality statistics. Does the harvest of a 2 lb. male have the same impact on the fishery as the harvest of a 2 lb. female. You would think not. SSFFF tried years ago introducing a gender based model to NMFS which was shot down by Peer Review because of their approach, not the sensibility of that argument. What's more important to the sustainability of the summer flounder stock or any stock, gender balance, weight or size? I'd argue gender balance, a healthy spawning biomass as well as protection of the spawn. The regulations don't protect any of those three. It's exactly the question baseballman asked in his post, why is protection of breeders and the spawn in the striped bass fishery important but not with the summer flounder stock. A question NMFS, ASMFC and MAMFC refuse to answer or address. Until gender composition is addressed in models, protection of the spawning stock, the spawn itself and commercial waste in future regulations, results will continue to disappoint and the stock itself will struggle sustaining the pressures and risks year round harvest poses to the fishery.

Much of this relates to data science produces so while I agree everyone involved in this process has culpability for the disastrous results we've seen, federal and state politics certainly included, science is certainly not the holy grail you believe it to be. If data they develop is ignored, it's not on science but when statistics used between sectors or on it's own makes no sense, it's science's flawed data decisions are being based on. The process is an absolute mess top to bottom needing a complete overhaul.

[Gerry Zagorski]

Originally Posted by baseballman

The whole situation is a disaster. Regulations are insane, the data is extremely flawed and state government doesn't even care enough to fill vacant council positions. The latter is really all you need to know about where the priorities are...elsewhere.

On a more anecdotal level, I'm a somewhat young fisherman. My entire life the striped bass regulations included a keeper starting at 28" and a bonus fish...how can you tell me the data supports keeping that the same every year? Now its a 3-inch slot to protect oversize females...which to me is funny, because as the fluke limit creeps up, we are DECIMATING the spawning size female fluke population.

On top of this, there is also a painfully obvious fact that there is no lobby or organization that has its act together enough to represent the interests of recreational fisherman. Obviously the commercial fishery is a billion dollar global business - but it should dawn on the tackle shops, brands, head/charter/six pack captains and even local politicians in places that still have a fishing economy left to band together to fund pushing change.

About the only national organization I know of that represents recreational fishing interest is the American Sportfish Association which you may also know as Keep America Fishing as well as Take Me Fishing https://asafishing.org/ They also run Icast which is the largest fishing trade show in the country.

They are funded by businesses involved in the both the salt and freshwater recreational fishing industry like boat, tackle and accessory manufactures, retailers and wholesalers. The funds are used to promote fishing education and awareness, fishing access and they have Government Affairs people assigned to every region in the country to try and influence legislative issues.

Not sure how well they are funded compared to the commercial side but they are pretty active. One example here in NJ is their involvement in the Greenwood Lake Access issue and on a regional level, the Vessel Speed Restrictions.