Yesterday the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council was informed by the National Marine Fisheries Service that the rule reducing the black sea bass bag limit from 15 to 5 fish would be published tomorrow, June 15th, and that effective date for enforcement of the 5 fish bag limit would be June 22nd.
The NMFS should have a fishery bulletin out today or tomorrow announcing the rule.
Hope you enjoy the federal bureaucracy and non-profit orgs hard at work to make sure blackfish stocks are healthy. (sarcasm)
All that’s going to happen is a great deal of culling … dead ones to keep the big ones. 10 with a new size limit would have been a MUCH better alternative.
doesn’t this reduction help extend the recreational fishing year?
In technocratic bureaucracy terms- yes.
In real world terms, what it does is have c bass overpopulated and eating juvie snappers, groupers and all the food snappers, groupers, et al are supposed to be having to eat.
Keep playing with the system when we’ve taken stuff out of various levels and the thing will topple even faster.
As skinneej says, perhaps that is the whole goal. Set it up to fail so there’s always a reason for fisheries crisis management.
I tried to push the size limit increase argument like Marsha’s also thinking. I was told it could not be done because of - guess - restrictions in MSA as to the procedure the Council had to follow.
There was an agenda, and the agenda’s been followed to the letter. Doesn’t matter what the stakeholders or the hard evidence shows. The agenda is all that matters to the people making up the game plan.
Oh well. I think everyone here knew this was coming. Unfortunately. And this was passed even after everyone that went bottom fishing before the season opened was catching large knot head BSB’s.
I am sure the head boats hate this as much or more than we all do.
wow. this will seriously hurt almost every charter captain and headboat company in the southeast… WHAT AN UNBELIEVABLY STUPID MOVE
way to put some hard working people out of jobs… good job idiots
went bottom bumping up in NC recently and could have kept a bajillion bsbs but you know i only kept nice ones… guess we cant be trusted to make this judgement call
I’m with marshgrass, up it an inch & go to 10. Who is gonna make the drive for 5??? Just what they want right. Chip away till not worthy of the trip. These clowns don’t represent us on alot of issues as the approval ratings show.
If correct, I believe we were only half way through a 10yr rebuilding plan with the BSB’s with no further studies. As has been said & admitted to by those in power…BAD DATA was used.
I only have a small ride so can’t get out to far unless with others on a bigger ride so the “pick your days” motto means alot to me.
Thanks again Phin & others. This includes Courtland that organized the DC trip awhile back. Met you at the SAMFC meeting in Pooler.
This has been in the works for years. They let us “overharvest” bsb for the last 3 years waiting for this judgement day. The overall harvest of Rec. bsb is I believe 409,000#, down from about 800,000# a few years ago. The new rec. limit will stay at the 409,000 or MSY for a while. (my #'s may be off here)
2 questions:
Having never been stopped or asked to wiegh my fish, how do they KNOW how many have been caught?
2)How will they pick a day for a seasonal closure, ie:, you’ve caught your limit, if these fish are not wieghed or tallied somehow?
Having never been stopped or asked to wiegh my fish, how do they KNOW how many have been caught?
MRFSS was supposed to be scrapped by 1/1/09. NMFS did not do so and have been slowly implementing a rec. survey method that isn’t “fatally flawed” for purposes of fisheries management. Still, until phone or web reporting is required for rec fishermen (like we have to do with swords under the HMS system), MSA allows NMFS to use “best available” science, which can be anything. I mean anything literally here. Whatever the agency deems as best available… Who is to argue with it? We can pay 100’s of thousands to a few of the guys not under NMFS’s influence who have the credibility and credentials to dispute what’s being done, but they will still get away with most of this stuff until the public and politicians give a crap. The public thinks they are still eating fresh local snapper and grouper in restaurants and that when Pew tells the newspaper that red snapper are fished down to 3% of historic levels then they both must be true and that anything we stupid, lying, desperate fishermen say must be rhetoric we’re using just to keep on fishing. The public doesn’t get it, and the orgs that traditionally represent the conservation minded, ethical portion of our community (the majority of us) don’t get it either… Dolphin or wahoo- oh yeah don’t tell us they’re in trouble we’ll have thousands of dudes show up to protest that. Snapper and grouper though? Well not everyone can go catch them as they please and those bandit boats are out there all the time so we’ve got to get rid of those guys. Let’s cut off our noses to spite our faces… Surely the federal government will give us access back to public resources and not allocate those resources to any private parties in the future to give those with the biggest PAC’s and best lobbyists any sort of financial windfalls. Nah… the federal government wouldn’t do that. You all need to wake up and think about what’s being allowed to happen
There just has to be a way to take this information that shows the bias and outright treachery going on and beat the hell out of those bastards until they cry and leave office.
Umm, you gonna eat that?
Thousands have died to save my freedom. Only one has died to save my soul!
I remember at the meeting in N Chas. that we were told by David Cupka the process they use for determining catches. “We make phone calls to random coastal residences and inquire about thier fishing trips” When asked further on it they responded with “If the household being surveyed had no boat, that counted as 0 fish caught.”
In thier opinion that is the “best available science” available to them. You could have heard a pin drop in the room after those statements by him.
If they outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns. I guess if they outlaw fishing only outlaws will fish!
Russ B. Formerly known here as “Top2Bottom1” www.joinrfa.org
God is great, Beer is good, People are crazy
Oh well. I think everyone here knew this was coming. Unfortunately. And this was passed even after everyone that went bottom fishing before the season opened was catching large knot head BSB’s.
I am sure the head boats hate this as much or more than we all do.
Not according to SAFM news article. Headboats average only 2 - 3 BSB per person so this shouldn’t affect them a bit. [:0]
“If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel .” Benjamin Netanyahu
Wonder how many will die from culling every 14/15" when a 16-18" is caught. Stupid regulations that’ll cause more waste than keeping the limits at 15.
Mark
Mako 262 Twin Yammaha F200s
Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal? I wouldn’t go so far as to call a dog filthy but they’re definitely dirty. But, a dog’s got personality. Personality goes a long way.
“Life’s tough…It’s even tougher if you’re stupid” John Wayne
Southeastern Fisheries Association East Coast has hired a scientist to review the SEDAR update…more changes could happen when it is released in November…plus MRIP and Count My Fish Data is going to be injected into the mix of ‘BAS’
I would suggest making a donation to their research fund for this. Also take into consideration the Dr Hester’s work on Red Snapper did have an impact above the council when released.
Personally, I rather have a closed season in March, then a reduced bag limit if I was having to choose between two evils, yet I must accept I was in the minority when it came to this choice in a mangement scheme.
Oh well. I think everyone here knew this was coming. Unfortunately. And this was passed even after everyone that went bottom fishing before the season opened was catching large knot head BSB’s.
I am sure the head boats hate this as much or more than we all do.
Not according to SAFM news article. Headboats average only 2 - 3 BSB per person so this shouldn’t affect them a bit. [:0]
“If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel .” Benjamin Netanyahu
GW 205
F200 Yam
Dont know what head boats they were talking to , but we always got a limit on Black Sea bass.
