I attended the council meeting today at the Marriott downtown on Lockwood Blvd. I didn’t see or recognize anyone from our local fishing community in the audience, but the room was plenty full of representation from many different NGO’s that would like nothing better than to end ALL fishing.
More Snapper/Grouper discussion tomorrow with a Q&A at 5:30 pm with the NMFS Regional Administrator Roy Crabtree and chairman David Cupka.
I’ll be their again tomorrow as I am also taking this opportunity while everyone is here for the council meeting to plead a case for change to the current SA BSB rebuiding plan which is currently structured in such a way that it will continue to ratchet down our fishing season until there is none for Black Sea Bass.
There are some avenues of approach that I spent last week discussing that if considered could help with revamping the current plan and make a big difference in extending the season.
I plan on addressing this at the Q & A tomorrow afternoon and during break sessions through out the day with different council members.
I have also applied for a position on the snap/group AP which will be voted on Thursday.
If you have time try to attend if not its also braodcasted via the web on the SAFMC website.
Why Mark??? Cupka and Crabtree don’t give a rats @ss about you, commercial fisherman or recreational fisherman. The only way we will make anything happen is to vote in a Gov. that will stand buy the fisherman and remove that cancer from the board. Nikki Haley abandoned the fisherman when she put Cupka back for three more years. So what are you hearing at the meetings…“Best available science”, “BSB’s are undergoing over fishing”, “BSB’s are overfished” All BS! and anyone who has fished at all knows this. Same old somg and dance and nothing changes! I plan to float a few Snappers this weekend in search of a 25#+ fish! High grading will be the norm for this privlage fishery they are giving us. I can’t go to anymore of these meetings, as all they are is lip service and I am sick of looking like the bad guy.
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NMFS = No More Fishing Season
“Back home we got a taxidermy man. He gonna have a heart attack when he see what I brung him”
Sells I know what your saying and I feel just as disgruntled as you, but I find it hard to sit back and just let it happen without challenging the process.
I spent last week over at SEDAR going over and over the BSB rebuilding strategy until I could finally understand how it was suppose to work.
The current plan obviously has flaws and needs to be redone but unless fishermen are willing to be part of the process and suggest ideas we are left to the mercy of the council.
There is much to learn about the process and how it works but it is a work in progress.
If the time I put into this doesn’t help its not because I didn’t try!
sellsfish, no doubt, there is a leadership problem. Look at how differently fisheries are managed by SCDNR than by SAFMC. Statistically, it’s highly unlikely that SCDNR just “got lucky” in their hiring process and that SAFMC just didn’t “get lucky”. To me that says it’s a cultural difference that stems from leadership…
When the company fails, you don’t fire all of the employees. You fire the CEO and maybe a few of the VP’s…
And you are right… We will never get the change we want until that happens. Some of them have to go…
I suggest we start a petition to remove Cupka. This should be addressed to the legislature and the governor.
Next I think we should look at segmenting the SAFMC coverage. While Red Snapper may be overfished in Florida and perhaps NC, it is probably not in GA or SC due to the long runs we have to make. Somehow the regs must be applicable to the specific areas covered. Blanket regs do no one any good. JMHO:sunglasses:
I suggest we start a petition to remove Cupka. This should be addressed to the legislature and the governor.
Next I think we should look at segmenting the SAFMC coverage. While Red Snapper may be overfished in Florida and perhaps NC, it is probably not in GA or SC due to the long runs we have to make. Somehow the regs must be applicable to the specific areas covered. Blanket regs do no one any good. JMHO:sunglasses:
Marsha
35 Contender
I like your thinking. Couldn't agree more. I don't even think it's all of Florida. I would be willing to bet that more of the problems are in South Florida and the Keys. I have little doubt that overfishing is happening down there. Even the mentality of the typical fisherman is different down there.
Until we get a governer that cares I don’t know what we can do. We are just going to get steamrolled over till then. Until then it’s just a hard decision we all have to make on weather or not we want to be law breakers. All the states have to do is de criminalize the possesion of certain amounts of certain types of fish. Just the same way some of these states get around medical marijuana use. Arguing with the feds is useless. This by far is the best course to take.
You know I’m just a dumb ass truck driver from Bowman SC and I’ve been to a few meetings and voiced my concerns like Sell’s…These
people do not care what we have to say.
I’ve been told that scientific data has been collected by using phone surveys and have yet to meet anyone that has been contacted one time.
Everyone knows that Haley and our politicions have done nothing but let this thing get way out of hand,when what they should do is tell the council that SC waters are ours and we can manage our own back yard…
We now have thousands of boat owners with millions of dollars of worthless tackle,boats,and asperations shot to hell by a few pinheads trying to further their own socialist agenda…
I have said it a hundred times,lets organize a f%@kin carvan statewide and take our rigs to Columbia and circle the statehouse and not leave until someone helps us get just a little reprieve from this bull****.
Get out of our trucks,take out the keys and shut our capital city down.No disrespect to Mark or any of the others who have spent countless hours on our behalf but it ain’t workin.
I know I’m gana get blasted by several of you on this board and maybe I lose a few friends in the proccess but it ain’t workin…
I will donate my old ass boat if someone wants to paint it with something like “Haley Sold Out SC Fishermen” I will leave it wherever you want,pull it around on my days off,drag it to Columbia and let them tow it off.
The current plan of trying to get along has failed.
quote:The current plan of trying to get along has failed.
Well Said!!
Mark,
I personally watched you speak directly to Cupka at a meeting over in NC challenging the data- there was a picture taken where he was all but asleep during this. I’m having a hard time believing this is time well spent?? I appreciate your efforts but really do you think this is where we should concentrate our efforts?
It may seem like time wasted and I too wonder about it sometimes, but I fight this fight from many different angles as some of you know and the more I know about the inner workings of the situation the better I am able to make constructive criticism and understand what needs to be done so we can fish.
From what I have learned here recently the Black Sea Bass rebuilding plan is something that needs to be revamped and a lot of the council memebers are in favor of this and I do believe this can be fixed.
The next stock assesemnt is in the March/April time frame and so far from what I have been told the numbers are very favvorable toward an increase in the ACL which may help us next year but the rebuild plan is a problem and I want to devote time towards helping fix this issue.
I filled out and application to be a Snap/Group AP member which today behind closed doors will be voted on by the snap/group committee.
This is not easy and I totally understand everyone’s frustrations but I have to do what I think is right and continue to press in and maybe one day it will make a difference.
As far as Haley goes, she took John Frampton’s advice most likely and put career fishery closer Cupka back on. She understands what she needs to do next time. And because of everyone’s efforts, many of our leaders are definitely aware of the problem.
The problem is funding and politics. Plain and simple. Our dnr says they don’t have enough to do what they are tasked with now. The Feds cut anyone who isn’t on the same team. Marmap and sea grant are both cut to the bone. There is excellent data up to the 90’s then monly a few sprinkles of good data that are quickly dispelled since they show healthy fisheries. Local biologists KNOW the same thing as us. They feel powerless to do anything. Its all coming from the federal law and entrenched regional and national leadership in nmfs and noaa. The west coast states love how MSA is right now. And of course, the oil companies and enviros have nothing bad to say about more fishermen being denied access to areas they feel are highly important. And our local anti commercial fishing group also loves seeing the commercial industry slowly become replaced with a few monopolies and all the little recreational guys forced to apply for tags to catch fish via lottery and give multiple parties a cut of the tag costs for peddling them to us.
How else is a federal bureaucracy tasked with keeping fisheries healthy going to “survive” without denying the truth and keeping up appearances that the sky is falling and desperate measures are needed. Self validation. What will everyone do when fisheries are healthy? Go home and party? No. They will keep moving the bar and keep shutting out science that proves anything other than what they want.
How? The law allows them to!
Law gets revisited 2014-2016. We’ll see who is on what side this time.
Just a note guys, Nikki Haley has a place you can post your comments about things, and I have personally written her on gun issues, she is quick to respond with a real hand signed letter in the mail. Seriously send her a comment about your feelings. And be nice, she will do the same, i have proof.
I also appreciate all the time and effort you have committed to this fight. It was very frustrating to see first hand how the information from the “public forum” was being processed … They just don’t want to hear it … Plain and Simple!! There could be enough Black Sea Bass to crowd the harbor and prevent the ships from getting in/out and these Yahooos are still going to say they are “overfished”! What really chaps my A$$ is that when all is said and done and the BSB fishery opens up - the SAFMC is going to give themselves a big KUDOS for saving the fishery when we all know there was never a problem to begin with!! I guess its the way Big Government works!!!
quote:genehunter Posted - 09/13/2012 : 09:13:11 AM Just a note guys, Nikki Haley has a place you can post your comments about things, and I have personally written her on gun issues, she is quick to respond with a real hand signed letter in the mail. Seriously send her a comment about your feelings. And be nice, she will do the same, i have proof.
Should we make this a “sticky” on the main forum - I think we all agree things need to change and apparently Nikki herself was responsible - let “her” know how we feel - some Dive Videos, Catch Videos etc!
Just a note guys, Nikki Haley has a place you can post your comments about things, and I have personally written her on gun issues, she is quick to respond with a real hand signed letter in the mail. Seriously send her a comment about your feelings. And be nice, she will do the same, i have proof.
2012 DLV 198 Carolina Skiff
Humingbird 998 Side scan and GPS
GPS trolling motor
Clear Skies
Ask her to recommend capt. Mark brown for membership on the safmc ASAP and to encourage tom swatzel to stay anoher term even though he has fought and fought for us and been frustrated by the rodblocks t every turn. The mindset of the safmc has to change.
And also to please let our dnr take over management from the Feds since they are clearly unaccountable and inept regardless of their enormous resources and power (which is actually the problem).
quote:genehunter Posted - 09/13/2012 : 09:13:11 AM Just a note guys, Nikki Haley has a place you can post your comments about things, and I have personally written her on gun issues, she is quick to respond with a real hand signed letter in the mail. Seriously send her a comment about your feelings. And be nice, she will do the same, i have proof.
Should we make this a “sticky” on the main forum - I think we all agree things need to change and apparently Nikki herself was responsible - let “her” know how we feel - some Dive Videos, Catch Videos etc!
36 Contender Fisharound
Are We There Yet?
She was no more responsible than carol Campbell, hodges, Beasley and Sanford. We need to stop blaming everyone but ourselves. We weren’t loud enough when she recommended the last time. All she can do is recommend anyway. The Feds are in charge. Again… The federal law allows it! Secretary of commerce has final say in who gets on the safmc.