I have no knowledge of nor interest in this ledge.
This is one of the issues, not that I think you should care but…
I have already shifted my 100 days a year offshore to more like 50 offshore, 25 inshore and 25 in other fisheries/countries.
The tackle shops will see a great decrease in business and possibly go out of business. You will be left with WalMart and the internet. Your inshore serenity will be gone as we offshore guys filter into your honey hole. I have spent the last 3 weeks chasing tarpon inshore. Never have I spent that much time that close to the docks.
This will impact every fisherman, even if you don’t fish the ledge.
This is from the SAFMC email newsletter that I received on 9/23. Public scoping meetings will be held in January up and down the east coast. If sufficient numbers of citizens attend or email comments, this could easily be shut down just like VMS.
Other Items
The Council voted to move forward with developing options for the use of Type 2 marine protected areas (MPAs) to help reduce bycatch of speckled hind and warsaw grouper. The Council will review updates on research and law enforcement activities within eight existing deepwater MPAs in the South Atlantic during its December meeting and is scheduled to approve an options paper for public scoping meetings to be held in January 2014. </b>
These people will not stop until all fishing ceases.
Banning trolling to protect warsaw grouper? Why not ban salmon fishing in Lake Erie while we are at it. Both have the same likelihood of catching a warsaw or SH
I have no knowledge of nor interest in this ledge.
OK, I do have interest in what happens to this ledge, but I am not by far a public speaker. However, some of you guys seem to do very well getting your points across(Skinnee, Courtland, Phin, Freefish, and several others). I would love to help but just need a little guidance in what I can do. I work 5 days a week and live 1-1.5 hours away from where the meetings are normally held (which are usally on a weekday). So what can I do???
28 WA Hydra Sport
Twin 225 4 stoke Yammies
“Fin Loco”
I have no knowledge of nor interest in this ledge.
OK, I do have interest in what happens to this ledge, but I am not by far a public speaker. However, some of you guys seem to do very well getting your points across(Skinnee, Courtland, Phin, Freefish, and several others). I would love to help but just need a little guidance in what I can do. I work 5 days a week and live 1-1.5 hours away from where the meetings are normally held (which are usally on a weekday). So what can I do???
28 WA Hydra Sport
Twin 225 4 stoke Yammies
“Fin Loco”
Good question. If you can't make it to the meetings, the second best thing is to submit public comments. At some point in the near future, I will post a template email that you can use and then all you would have to do is (modify if you like) and email to the council members. I will find out the timelines and try to get an update out in the next week or so...
Unfortunately, this a realistic proposal for our waters off SC.
The importance of the completion of the South Carolina Memorial Reef will/may have an impact on the Fed’s decision as we have been told.
We saw this first presented in May of this year. Basically, the Feds have said “we established the Charleston Deepwater Reef MPA 7 years ago and nothing has been done”, hence the decision to place the SCMR in that MPA to prove that we are/can in fact trying to do something to provide additional habitat. And when they speak of closing, they are talking about ALL fishing, surface and bottom.
The first phase of the SCMR project was scheduled to be completed prior to the August meeting but met with the expected delays, though the required funds were raised by mid July and we had everyone on standby to start. We are on schedule for Phase 1 to be completed and placed in October with Phase 2 shortly thereafter.
We have been told that this will make an impact on possible MPA alignments and we are working diligently with all involved to make this happen as soon as possible. The funds have been raised and construction is well underway.
We all need to spread the word. Please take action and contact your representatives at the local, state and federal levels.
We have posted similar updates on our website at scmemorialreef.com and on our Facebook page.
J. DeStefano
“I won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting you really believe what you just said”
William F. Buckley, Jr.
First of all, I would like to say THANK YOU for the SCMR reef. I applaud your efforts and the hard work. I think it's actually pretty amazing that you guys raised nearly half a million dollars in
Well here’s my 2cents again. If one of you senior members who have followed this committee , could post the committees members names , position, and there e-mails along with phone numbers . That would be a one prong effort for the fisherman to contact them and let them here from the people who fish these waters. Also the fisherman can contact there Government contacts and let them know of our disapproval . Sometimes if there is enough Cain raised committees don’t like hearing from people in higher places. In other words s… Rolls down hill. We just need to keep it rolling.
Personally I think this is just part of the Agenda 21 plan that most people say does not exist.but some states have banned Agenda 21 and any of its parts entirely. It’s about simply control of the people and there ability to be self sufficient . The government wants you to be totally dependent on them, so they have the control .
Anyway enough of political views from me. But this idea of flooding calls and emails to the right people seems to work some of the time. So I would encourage some of you senior members to post a list if they can get the information here on this post , and let them the committee members here from us.
Hopefully with enough concentrated effort of all of us our waters will remain open.
I’m sure we have attorneys that fish that may assist us in our efforts. A lot of times it’s about what you know as fact and can prove, and also who you know in the right places that can grease the squeaky wheels. We are the squeaky wheel. We just have to do some squeaking.
Scblackbeard, I am working on a list of names and contact info…
That being said. I think it’s much simpler than that. I think it’s a matter of perspective when one approaches a problem. You give an “overfishing” problem to an environmentalist and the answer is always going to be “stop fishing”. You give that same exact problem to an engineer who loves to fish and he will engineer a solution using technology.
The bottom line is that you don’t ask an environmentalist to do an engineer’s job.
quote:You give an "overfishing" problem to an environmentalist and the answer is always going to be "stop fishing". You give that same exact problem to an engineer who loves to fish and he will engineer a solution using technology.
Lot’s of truth in that statement. Problem is, only Enviromentalist are sitting on the board that makes all the rules.
My proposal has been to “defund” the SAFMC. Direct that money to the State DNRs and let them manage the fisheries out to 200 NM. NOAA should be stripped of all Fishery management authority. They should be reduced to an advisory position to the State DNRs. Less Government involvement and placement of management and enforcement back to a level closest to the people.
Skinnee, when you get the “Email” ready I will gladly send it to whoever it needs to be sent and I’ll make sure everyone in my family sends it also. I’ll try to get some of my “freshwater” friends to get on board and send Emails.
Many thanks for you guys that stay on top of this stuff.
Why would you reply to a quote and imply I dont care??? I cared enough to post personal experience of mine associated with public hearings to help you!I have never been to the ledge and not interested in ever going there.But I am interested in helping where I can.Just have no experience in actual offshore fishing,none.
quote:Originally posted by Courtland
quote:Originally posted by toppyblue
I have no knowledge of nor interest in this ledge.
This is one of the issues, not that I think you should care but…
I have already shifted my 100 days a year offshore to more like 50 offshore, 25 inshore and 25 in other fisheries/countries.
The tackle shops will see a great decrease in business and possibly go out of business. You will be left with WalMart and the internet. Your inshore serenity will be gone as we offshore guys filter into your honey hole. I have spent the last 3 weeks chasing tarpon inshore. Never have I spent that much time that close to the docks.
This will impact every fisherman, even if you don’t fish the ledge.
All good information. Toppy the way you worded that sentence was confusing and may have been why you received that reply from Courtland. Take a deep breath and let’s try to stay on point here. Thank you guys for taking the time to break some of this down into layman terms. I truly believe and have told Mark Brown on more that one occasion that they are purposely making all of this so confusing that the average fisherman cannot take it all in so they throw their hands up and give up. The bottom line of it all is that they want to close down all types of fishing and little by little they are accomplishing this goal. People like Mark, natureboy, skineej and others have been telling us this, on this site, for over a decade and back then people said they will never shut down trolling there is too much money behind it, said it was crazy talk. Not looking so crazy now. If there is not a stand made now, might as well sell all those big sporties and apologize to your kids and grandkids that you cannot take them offshore fishing because it was taken away from us with little to no fight.
There’s a lot riding on a federal court judges decision from this past July. This is a very complicated situation and because of the way the law is written to protect overfished species, EVEN THOUGH THERE"S LITTLE PROVEN EVIDENCE it puts fishermen at risk of having prime fishing grounds completely taken away and off limits.
There are many people involved in this process and its so deep that there’s a lot that is not known, but I also believe there are many foxes in the hen house that would like nothing better than to see this happen!
I agree with what Skinee said about the Deep Reef Project. Hell one of the MPA’S off NC is the SNOWY WRECK. This may be the only example that they can point to where they have empirical evidence that an MPA is working and it is a de facto artificial reef. The private sector has paid for SC Memorial reef the feds can pay for the rest and not close any more productive bottom. Creating habitat is where its at!
I agree with what Skinee said about the Deep Reef Project. Hell one of the MPA’S off NC is the SNOWY WRECK. This may be the only example that they can point to where they have empirical evidence that an MPA is working and it is a de facto artificial reef. The private sector has paid for SC Memorial reef the feds can pay for the rest and not close any more productive bottom. Creating habitat is where its at!
Yes, but this wasn't a government made reef either. If I am not mistaken, it was a true shipwreck discovered in the 1990's. The government just confiscated it and made it into an MPA. That being said, it was a known to hold spawning aggregations for Snowy grouper. So, back to your point: yes habitat is habitat. And the more habitat we have, the better!
I don’t like the idea of them closing off areas that people may have fished with their grandfather, but if they want to throw some money at the problem and create NEW habitat, then I say, “knock yourselves out”! Unfortunately, the government doesn’t understand economics. They would rather shut down a 100 million dollar fishery than throw a million or 2 a year at it.
Just to see some numbers, the state of SC can do about 12-15 artificial reef deployments (each deployment - a full barge of material) on an operating budget of about 70K per year. Can you imagine what we could do if the feds gave each state 1 million dollars each year? Since it’s inception, the SCDNR reef program has created about 21.9 million cubic feet of reef habitat.
That is a lot of information and some good points. I do have two question. (1) On Skinneej’s last map I noticed Flordia doesnt seem to have many MPA’s? Why is that? (2) If they want to impose all these new MPA’s are they doing anything to increase the artifical reef program to help the fish? And I dont mean in the MPA areas? Ever look at a gulf shore reef map off Alabama? Cant count how many reefs they have.
A wise man once said “Do as I say not as I do” Good advice when I tell you that.
That is a lot of information and some good points. I do have two question. (1) On Skinneej’s last map I noticed Flordia doesnt seem to have many MPA’s? Why is that? (2) If they want to impose all these new MPA’s are they doing anything to increase the artifical reef program to help the fish? And I dont mean in the MPA areas? Ever look at a gulf shore reef map off Alabama? Cant count how many reefs they have.
A wise man once said “Do as I say not as I do” Good advice when I tell you that.
I'm not 100% about Florida. I have theories, but never really questioned it since I am mostly focused on our back yard. As far as artificial reefs go, those are typically done by the STATE (or lower) and are usually on pretty tight budgets. The FEDS always complain that they don't have any money. They must have not seen my paystub, because it clearly says they are getting money. They are trying to go the "cheap" way out. I say "cheap", because they don't understand that killing 100's of millions of dollars in tax revenue is way more expensive than investing a few million in reefs. Alabama has done this and it has paid off big time. The feds have a hard time quantifying ROI and only know about "budget", so you can't really expect them to be any smarter.
Also, despite the fact that Alabama has already PROVEN that artificial reefs are habitat and are treated as habitat, you still have the age old debate of “attraction vs. production”. The bottom line is this… a handful of reefs with published coordinates can act as “sink holes” (i.e. attraction). But 20,000 reefs and thousands of oil rigs in the GOM have increased the biomass of fish well over what virgin stocks were in the 1850’s. The debate only exists for people who don’t want to admit that they are wrong…
I had a nice meeting yesterday with Amy Dukes and Wallace Jenkins at DNR. Amy and I had our head butting competition again, but there are many things that we agree on. The first is there is no need to shut down bottom fishing in depths less than 200 feet if you are trying to protect Warsaw and Kitty Mitchel grouper. She agreed that it would be very nice to split the South Atlantic area into two zones being North Carolina, South Carolina and the other zone being Florida, Georgia. She says there is no funding to make this happen. After speaking with Mr. Jenkins and seeing that he is on our side on many of these issues, he implored that we write the letters and send them to either him or Amy Dukes at DNR and they will make sure that these points are made to the Council. I proposed to them that triggerfish and b- liners be open at the same time while grouper is closed, that way will you avoid the by catch because as we fishermen know triggers and be liners are caught at the same depth on the same drop a lot of times one on one hook and one on the other. In addition it will give commercial fisherman something else to fish for while grouper is closed. I also told Mr. Jenkins that if the nitwits at SAFMC would change the Deepwater MPA to depths greater than 250 on out to 1000 I could support it at Georgetown Hole and would even state that at the December meeting. Something tells me hell will freeze over before that happens.
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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”