Highly Migratory Species Report

As you know, all fish species NJ anglers desire or want are soon going to be included in one Fishery Management Plan (FMP) or another. The latest recreational attack comes from a new ASMFC shark plan that intends to regulate 39 coastal shark species. The plan will impose rules on all these Shark species with new landing limits, new permits, etc. The result will be a tough level of new rules for the 39 shark species listed in the plan. It will take some book work to be able to identify 39 coastal shark species. Many of these sharks are southern species which we never catch, but, regardless, it will take time to be able to identify 39 coastal sharks.

The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife will host a meeting on

Tuesday March 4, 2008 at 7:00 PM.
Ocean County Administration Building
101 Hooper Ave, Room 119
Toms River, NJ
NJ contact person is Peter Himchak
Phone # 1-609-748-2020

The NMFS has estimated that anglers went 150% over their 2007 quota for large school and small medium bluefin tuna. NMFS estimated anglers landed 362 MT of large school/small medium bluefin tuna in 2007. Their 2007 quota was 144 MT for this size category. NMFS reacted by changing their 2008 rules for recreational catches to ONE large school/small medium per trip, down from the original 2 per trip.

NMFS did this despite the fact that they were unable to get ICCAT approval for any new quota limits on their Mediterranean bluefin tuna landings. These Mediterranean landings are more than 50,000 MT per year. ICCAT scientists state the MSY for this fishery is 25,000 MT per year. In 1976 NMFS first imposed US bluefin tuna rules. It must be noted that ONLY recreational bluefin landings were regulated in the first year.

NMFS continued unilateral conservation of an ocean crossing fish has been an international farce and a domestic economic disaster. Why should US recreational fishermen be eliminated when the US is way under their ICCAT quota? ICCAT rules have NEVER been imposed by the European and African nations on their fishermen. Why should US fishermen suffer when for 32 years European nations have yet to observe ICCAT rules?

NMFS reports US Atlantic coast 6 month swordfish landings were 2,574,000 million pounds DW. The US yearly quota was 7,940,000 million pounds Dressed Weight. They were 5,366,000 million pounds Dressed Weight under their US ICCAT quota.

These low US landings have nothing to do with swordfish abundance. Asian fishermen have flooded the US market with inexpensive frozen swordfish with a wholesale price of less than $3.00 per pound. Directed swordfish trips along the US East Coast cannot make an operating profit with such low dockside prices. Despite this fact NMFS is still approving a limited number of longline vessels to fish and negatively impact a huge mixed species fishery that has slowly rebuilt from 30 years of longline fishing.

Sail fishing in the Palm Beach area was so good in December that anglers released record numbers of sailfish for the month. Several captains reported releasing so many sailfish that this fishing reminded them of catching bluefish in New Jersey. This was the first time in recent memory that most could remember sailfish being this abundant.

NMFS has opened Florida’s East Coast closed areas to a New EXPERIMENTAL longline fishing. NMFS will allow longline vessels to fish and thereby determine if Swordfish had recovered in the closed area. NMFS approves this despite the known economic fact that the primary reason more US swordfish are not being landed is not swordfish abundance, but very low dockside prices.

All USCG inspected head boats that are licensed for more than six people fishing must be aware and comment on their proposed new rule. In their proposed regulation, the USCG has redefined FREEBOARD. Their proposed new definition is: “Freeboard is the working distance between the top rail of the gunwale of the vessel to the water’s surface.” If your vessel freeboard exceeds four feet, you are required to have a USCG specified boarding ladder!

Recreational anglers are being clobbered from all directions. NMFS latest rule which affects inshore groupers is a typical reaction to states refusal to go along with tough new GOM regulations. The inshore groupers have rebuilt at a good rate. But this species will not meet their 2010 goal for a rebuilt fishery. Tough new rules were passed by the Gulf of Mexico fishery management council. Florida and Texas would not impose these devastating rules on their anglers. NMFS responded by specifying that any federally permitted vessel with a “Reef Fish Permit” will not be allowed to land these groupers in either State or Federal waters. The GOM charter boat fleet would be the only group affected. So much for expecting common sense regulations from NFMS.

The South Atlantic Fishery management council is creating new regulations which will ALLOCATE MANY important South Atlantic fisheries. These new rules include a proposed Comprehensive Allocation Amendment which outlines how fisheries resources will be distributed between fishing sectors. They will extend these regulations through the Mid-Atlantic council’s area of jurisdiction.

Amendment 18 will establish a Limited Access Privilege Program for the commercial snapper grouper fishery and allocation of the commercial king mackerel quota in the South Atlantic.

Long time journalist Dusty Rhodes who has been involved in fishery management for over 20 year’s wrote in his column in the December issue of The New Jersey Angler: “At this juncture, I’m not as concerned about how many fish we can land as I am about being able to fish at all.”

Given what has occurred in recent NMFS regulations, where NMFS choices seems to be driven by an eco-conservation agenda, how many anglers who read his comments “Believe he is wrong”?