By Jack Holmes
Don’t like the recent closures? Neither do we. However, until the fishing community unites we don’t have a prayer. Here’s what you must understand.
1. Look at California. The environmentalists have successfully closed nearly a third of the waters to no fishing.
2. They’ve closed red snapper and now black sea bass off the coast of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas.
3. They are now trying to limit Wahoo and dolphin.
4. After that, what’s next? Are we going to end up with anything to fish for?
When I say unite, there are several issues we must look at.
Are our elected officials doing anything to help? NO. But that doesn’t mean we stop the pressure. Some are actually trying to get legislation to work in our favor. But that takes time and our influence.
In recent scoping meetings on the Wahoo, dolphin, and black sea bass, attendance was light. Here’s the first thing we should concentrate on. These meetings should have hundreds if not thousands of people attending. We should overwhelm NMFS officials there to officiate the meetings. Strength works. The “We’ve had enough and were not going to take it anymore really does work.”
Then we should overwhelm public officials with our concerns, local and state. Then flood our elected officials in Washington with our own observations and feelings. Not some form letter but factual commentary of what we see on the water. Let’s not forget that they are there to represent us also and not just the strong environmental community. Just because scientists have a PhD after their name, doesn’t mean they get it right. Red Snapper proves that!
Let’s not get into the “it’s the commercial sector that’s hurting us” debate.
We’re all in this together.
Let’s look at them as it relates to the king mackerel. Here, off the northern coast of Florida, we saw many Gulf commercials come into our waters last year because of the oil spill. They took hundred of thousand of pounds of king mackerel out of our waters. Then the snapper commercials went to work on them also. However, we know exactly what they take. They have a commercial quota of approximately 3.8 million pounds. The feds do a good job of enforcing the quotas. In fact the southern zone, south Florida, has just about reached their quota for this year. Their quota does not hurt the stocks however we do have some concerns when they also target the bigger fish. That we really do have a problem with.
With all that went on last year they still did not exceed their quota. Will they this year? My guess is they will. We, on the other hand, have the balance of the ten million pound quota and we know that 8 million pounds taken from the resource will not affect the stocks. We will never exceed 8 million pounds. Last year SKA fishermen scaled a little over 125.000 pounds. When we factor in the excess fish we catch for consumption or die from release we are between 250,000 and 300,000 pounds. Certainly no big deal! We’re watching this very closely.
One thing we don’t know, will more commercials join the group of king mackerel fishermen as other species are closed?
You must join and support the RFA (Recreational Fishing Alliance) who are working with limited resources in all their endeavors. Do this today! (Go to joinrfa.com.) Also read the two releases we have posted here on the forum of the work of Schummer and Brown in Washington. Right now, contact your legislators in Washington and urge them to get behind these efforts.
We can win the battle to keep our fisheries open but only if we unite!
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Bob Zales is putting together a meeting in Washington 2-28 to 3-3 not sure which days yet. This meeting will be for those who wish to meet with their representatives and senators and select committee members. This is an effort from the northeast thru the Gulf and hopefully some from the west coast. Will keep you posted on this if you like. We are working on a central message for all to use. We are trying to go!
There will be a rally in St Petersburg and all west coast fishermen should attend…
Friday, February 25 · 9:00am - 6:00pm
Location
National Marine Fisheries Service (Southeast Regional Office)
263 13th Ave South
Saint Petersburg, FL
Created By
Lisa Steelman, Chip Blackburn, Dave Campo
More Info
Its time again for all fishermen to UNITE and send a message to Washington DC! This is a family event. The faces of the American public need to be seen and heard…bring the kids. If we don’t fight now, they’ll never even know what to do with a fishing pole! Issues still on the table and unresolved are: Unnecessary Gag Grouper closure
Unnecessary Red Snapper closure. Use of fatally flawed data for stock assessments. Use of fatally flawed data for management decisions. Magnuson Stevens Act violations on time limits to repair recreational data. ACL (Annual Catch Limit) development Development of new recreational data collection system management. Stock assessment ‘models’ ignoring standard benchmarks (Catch Per Unit of Effort CPUE, for example). Unnecessary denial of the OPPORTUNITY to fish ANTI-FISHING groups and efforts.
As of now the kingfish quota may be 8 million pounds. What I believe will happen is that the TAC is reduced to 4 million pounds. After the commercials take their 3.8, the SAMFC will indicate that the recreational sector took more than the remaining 200k pounds and now kingfish are overfished. Then it MUST be closed. Since everything else is closed pressure will naturally increase on kingfish, wahoo, dolphin and cobia. The increased pressure will deem them overfished with a resulting closure imminent. If the quota is not close to being reached, then lower the quota.
Red snapper was a gateway fish. Did everyone notice how the bottom closure and other species closures were created to protect red snapper from “accidentally” being caught while targeting other species? They knew darn well snapper could be caught anywhere. So if they became endangered, everything else would have to go to avaoid a snapper as a bycatch. See the pattern? This has nothing to do with science or stock assessments. The red snapper was the Golden Child due to their abundance and wide range. Why not choose queen triggerfish or hog snapper? Well, when was the last time you caught one of those?
Our commerce secretary wanted $8 gas which surely would have limited fishing and kept more people off the water in general. This is something he along with Jane Lubchenko want. Prices didn’t get that high and we keep fishing. So then the closures are implemented. Do you really think our environmentalist commerce secretary Locke cares about the economic impact of the closures? NO!! He wants us out of the picture. These two people want catch shares and will stand to make billions of dollars. Investors in the capital markets are being courted as we speak and promised that this will make anything else on the commodities market look like chump change.
By Larry Vogt on 2011 02 05
Larry,
The last meeting we attended, they were talking about changing the quota to 12 million pounds, up from 10 million pounds. If they go to 8 million pounds then the quota would change to 2.56 million pounds for the commercials and the rec sector 4.96 million pounds. We don’t come close to that quota. When we made our presentation to the feds we recommended three quotas, one for rec., one for tournaments, and one for commercial. Then they could track two user groups. Also if the commercial quota goes down, then we may end up with a problem with the charities who sell the fish at the tournaments. So far we have been able to work together.
Jack
By Jack Holmes on 2011 02 07
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