That’s right… The classic “Good Cop” (Catch Shares), “Bad Cop” (mini seasons and inequality amongst fishing groups)…
With the intention to make us beg and plead to the federal government for catch shares, they decide to kick off a fishing derby and open up COMMERCIAL grouper for EIGHT DAYS, oh yeah and RED SNAPPER too… NO, still closed for recreational… Don’t even think about it…
quote:
SOUTHEAST FISHERY BULLETIN
(South Atlantic)
FB12-085
727-824-5305
November 9, 2012
Commercial Harvest of Shallow-Water Grouper and Red Snapper in South Atlantic Federal Waters will Re-open for Eight Days
Starting November 13, 2012
The commercial harvest of South Atlantic shallow-water groupers and red snapper in federal waters of the South Atlantic from North Carolina to Key West, Florida, will re-open from 12:01 a.m. (local time), November 13, until 12:01 a.m. (local time) November 21, 2012. Landings information provided by the Southeast Fisheries Science Center indicates the commercial annual catch limit for gag was not met; therefore, NOAA Fisheries is re-opening commercial harvest of shallow-water groupers. In addition, updated landings data indicate the commercial annual catch limit for red snapper has not been met; therefore, NOAA Fisheries is also re-opening commercial harvest of red snapper during the same time frame.
South Atlantic shallow-water groupers include gag, black grouper, red grouper, scamp, red hind, rock hind, yellowmouth grouper, yellowfin grouper, graysby, and coney. An annual commercial and recreational spawning season closure is in place for shallow-water groupers during January 1 - April 30.
The operator of a vessel that has been issued a federal commercial permit for snapper-grouper and that is landing shallow-water groupers or red snapper for sale must have landed and bartered, traded, or sold such species prior to 12:01 a.m. (local time
Would the mini seasons for recs and a small commercial quota be considered a step in the right direction for both? Seems better than what it was the past few years not being able to keep any.
I thought grouper closed at the end of December…?? WTF…?
Because the commercial sector has to rapidly report their catches and landings, it was quickly determined that the gag grouper commercial quota nor the red snapper quota were not yet met. Because there is so much lag time with recreational landings, the feds are unsure what the outcome of the Sept red snapper mini season, so that part of it remains closed.
Recreational grouper remains open until Dec 31 regardless of what happens in the commerical sector.
Being it such a nice day, I’m going out to one of the nearshore wrecks today to catch my ONE fish limit of weakfish trout and hopefully some bull reds.
Sea Hunt 207CC,Yam 150
www.abfishcharters.com
FYI we got this notice read to us Thursday afternoon at the SG AP meeting and I was taken back just as much as you are. This was handed down by the NMFS.
I did asked the represenatives from council staff why recreational fishermen were being excluded from this opening when what I have been told from NC to FL fishermen that we did not come even close to meeting the allotted mini season ARS quota and the answer given to me was because the commercial sector has accurate landings logbook data which can be verfied by electronic fish house dealer reporting for each fish and for ALL four states (NC,SC,GA FL)!
Charter and private recreational fishermen are not bound by law to report their landings in ALL four states and because MRFSS and now the new MRIP are still so unreliable and lag way behind with their random way of calculating these landings it wouldn’t be possible to open this back up recreationally!
ANY fishery no matter what it is that has data poor landings and discard formation will continue to be held hostage in the future unless this is fixed somehow!!!
quote:
Originally posted by Redstripe
I thought grouper closed at the end of December…?? WTF…?
That is for recreational. The above notice is for commercial...
quote:
Originally posted by baseballfireh
Would the mini seasons for recs and a small commercial quota be considered a step in the right direction for both? Seems better than what it was the past few years not being able to keep any.
No. Did you not see that half of the 6 day mini red snapper season was all but shut out due to weather? It forces people to fish in conditions that they may otherwise not fish or forces them to not participate.
Also, with these “mini seasons”, all we did was lose our leverage in negotiating… We had everyone’s ear when we were completely shut out. Now, they look like the are doing us a favor…
If I owed you $2 million dollars, would you settle for $20?
quote:
Originally posted by capt.markbrown
FYI we got this notice read to us Thursday afternoon at the SG AP meeting and I was taken back just as much as you are. This was handed down by the NMFS.
I did asked the represenatives from council staff why recreational fishermen were being excluded from this opening when what I have been told from NC to FL fishermen that we did not come even close to meeting the allotted mini season ARS quota and the answer given to me was because the commercial sector has accurate landings logbook data which can be verfied by electronic fish house dealer reporting for each fish and for ALL four states (NC,SC,GA FL)!
Charter and private recreational fishermen are not bound by law to report their landings in ALL four states and because MRFSS and now the new MRIP are still so unreliable and lag way behind with their random way of calculating these landings it wouldn’t be possible to open this back up recreationally!
ANY fishery no matter what it is that has data poor landings and discard formation will continue to be held hostage in the future unless this is fixed somehow!!!
Thanks for the input Mark. I think it's safe to say that NMFS has way too much power over our local resources.
It’s funny to me how they could have even implemented the plan to begin with and given us a 6 day mini season, knowing that they couldn’t accurately calculate the landings…
I just love their logic:
Hey everyone, we just solved this problem: ‘2 + X = Y’!!! We have determined that the value for ‘Y’ is 6 because we just figured that 4 would be a good guess for ‘X’. We know that we are correct, because when ‘Y’ is 6, then ‘X’ MUST BE ‘4’!!! And, since ‘X’ MUST BE ‘4’, the ‘Y’ MUST BE 6!!! Yay!!!