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by Tom Siciliano
(from Jersey Coast Anglers Association July 2003 Newsletter)
A record number of boats registered for the JCAA 9th Annual Fluke Tournament and it was a great day for our 12 port winners. Big fish honors went to Brian Will of Mays Landing with his 14.06-pound fluke. Brian weighed his catch in Ocean City. His big fish was over 4 pounds bigger than the next biggest port winner Fran McCann with his 9.96 pound fluke out of Atlantic City. The smallest fish to win the port prize was 6.20 pounds caught by George Steininger of Freeport, NY fishing out of Jersey City.
All first place winners receive $1200 as the winner of their port. A full report with all the winners can be found on our web page at www.JCAA.org. The awards ceremony will be held June 20 at Trump’s Marina in Atlantic City. If you fished don’t forget you did not have to weigh a fish in to be eligible for the grand prize. All you have to do is show up in Atlantic City and you will receive a door prize ticket for the drawing. Remember, you must be present to win.
Your fellow volunteer fishermen at the JCAA will be taking the summer off to do some fishing. This Tuesday, June 24, will be the last membership meeting until September. We will still be keeping alert on what is happening on the legislative and regulatory front and we will step in when it is necessary.
We will continue to work on the controversial New Jersey Freedom to Fish Act. This bill is working its way through the New Jersey Assembly and was recently amended to include commercial fishing. This amendment change makes it such that the JCAA can no longer support the bill. The JCAA has been working for the last four years on the federal Freedom to Fish Act. When the question of commercial fishing came up then it was agreed that it should not be included in the federal bill. The basis behind the Freedom to Fish legislation is to prevent the formation of “no fishing zones” such as occurred in California where 175 square miles of the most productive fishing area was closed to all fishing. The initial idea was to protect the rock cod, which are a long-lived, bottom dwelling fish. Recreational anglers fully support efforts to protect this fish, but to eliminate trolling in the area is totally absurd. What started out as an effort to protect one species turned out to ban all fishing. The environmentalists are calling these zones “Marine Protected Areas” and are promoting them as the way to save the fish. What they do not recognize is that recreational fishermen have been operating under MPA’s for years. Even a season closure is a form of MPA. Commercial fishermen continually face gear restrictions and strict quotas. These are another example of MPA’s. The Freedom to Fish bill does not eliminate those fish management measures. It simply requires that there be good reason to exclude a specific type of fishing that can be proven to be causing a specific problem and that other types of fishing not be limited.
As your new President and since I am now retired I went along with Tom Fote to a few meetings in Washington, D.C. this month. It was an opportunity to get to know Tom better and it was amazing to me to see how well respected he is by the leaders of the fishing, environmentalist, legislative and regulatory communities. Needless to say, he introduced me to many interesting people who are the leaders in the various groups. We met with Senator Frank Lautenberg and Congressmen Frank Pallone and Rush Holt and the leading staff people for Senator Jon Corzine. Tom also met with Congressman Jim Saxton to discuss bluefish. It was interesting to me to walk into an office and have these people greet Tom. They knew him on a first name basis that was genuine and they were truly interested in what the JCAA had to say on the various bills that are working their way through congress.
We attended the ASA/Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation Congressional Breakfast where we heard Congressman Dingell discuss the importance of the reauthorization of the Dingell/Johnson funding for continued support for the fishing and hunting community. Congressman Dingell is the son of a former Congressman and he started out his career in Washington as a congressional page. He spoke of keeping a shotgun in his locker in the Capitol and going bird hunting where Dulles Airport now is. He recalled a story about his father and President Truman. It seems that President Truman vetoed the original Dingell/Johnson Bill because he didn’t understand the importance of the bill to the sportsmen and women of the nation. His father met with the President the next week in an effort to convince him to reconsider signing the bill. After a lengthy discussion the President was still not convinced of the importance of the bill. That is when his father who was the Chairman of the appropriations committee did the political thing and stated very calmly that if the President didn’t sign the bill he would never get another appropriations bill approved by his committee. The bill was signed the next day. Interesting how politics works, isn’t it?
The week started off with the annual meeting of the ASA (American Sportfishing Association) where Tom sits on the Saltwater and Government Affairs Board. It seems he is on the board of every organization he becomes involved with. The ASA is the organization that all the tackle manufacturers belong to. As most annual meetings of Associations, the top people from the manufacturers, Presidents and Vice Presidents, attend the meeting and Tom was greeted warmly by all of them. The ASA is the voice of the Sportfishing Industry and are leaders in the conservation of fish to ensure healthy, sustainable fisheries. They also promote the recreational benefits of fishing and promote increased participation through education.
Next we attended the Marine Fish Conservation Network. They are a broad-based coalition of over 150 environmental organizations, commercial and recreational fishing associations, aquariums and marine science groups dedicated to promoting the long-term sustainability of ocean fish. The Network played a major role in passing the Sustainable Fishing Act (SFA) in 1996 and continues to track its implementation. The Network is now calling for fundamental changes to our ocean management system. Your JCAA will be at the table for those discussions along with the National Audubon Society, National Environmental Trust, Sierra Club, The Ocean Conservancy, Reef Relief, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Conservation Law Foundation, Marine Conservation Biology Institute, Gulf Restoration Network, National Coalition for Marine Conservation, Oceana, IGFA, Save Our Shores, Greenpeace and others. Tom has been involved with the network for many years and sits on their board. The members respect his voice of reason on many issues and Tom is able to articulate the concerns of recreational fishermen and the importance of having the recreational fishing community agree with the way forward. In this way conservation of fish and fishing will remain the focus.
The MFCN meeting included presentations by the former Governor of Alaska, The Honorable Tony Knowles, who was a member of the PEW commission. He talked about the upcoming release of the PEW Oceans Commission report. I will discuss that further in a separate article. In addition to the PEW report the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy will issue a similar report in September. Dr. Andrew Rosenberg and Dr. Paul Sandifer presented portions of that report. When a lawyer from Audubon challenged Dr. Rosenberg on his data and science, it was Tom Fote who came to his defense. Dr. Rosenberg and Tom have had many differences over the years and yet there was a mutual respect and Dr. Rosenberg thanked Tom publicly saying that was the first time in 10 years that they had agreed on anything.
It certainly was an interesting week following Tom around and watching him at work. I was truly amazed by the respect shown to him by people on all sides of the various issues that the JCAA is working on.