Highly Migratory Species Report

After a good early season, which lasted until Early August, the Yellowfin tuna totally vanished. There were many explanations offered but that did not make up for this key offshore species. The slack was taken up by the strong showing of bluefin tuna along the 30 fathom line.

This fishery lasted over 4 weeks with a few weekends the area resembled a Wal-Mart parking lot. Then for no good reason dirty green water moved into the prime fishing area and the bluefin moved inshore to the 20 fathom line.

The white marlin fishing has been very good. The Mid-Atlantic $500,000 tournament recorded 388 white marlin caught with almost all being released alive. The big surprise was the tiny number of tuna registered in the tournament. Only 13 were weighed in for the lowest total in the last 20 years for this tournament.

In September NMFS changed their rules for bluefin tuna and now permitted General Category boats to land up to 3 giant bluefin tuna per day. The reason is for the fourth year in a row the huge New England giant bluefin tuna fishery has vanished. A few giants were landed early in the season but the main body of fish failed to show.

Many New England fishermen had believed lack of key forage species like herring had encouraged the giants to keep going and end up in Canadian waters where they had another good giant season. But commercial herring landings were reduced! So far it does not appear to have worked despite a major change in herring catch rules.

Small bluefin tuna showed up in good quantity in their old fishing grounds like the Mudhole and Chicken Canyons along the 20 fathom line. A few skippers were delighted but the absurd NMFS limit of 1 school tuna and 1 large school per boat trip reduced the number of boats willing to spend the huge fuel dollars to fish to a tiny number. At the same time on the other side of the Atlantic, the ICCAT bluefin tuna management farce continues. The EU closed the giant Fishery 2 weeks early because they estimated the full giant bluefin quota had been caught and sold. Nations like France and Spain ignored the rules and part of their fleet continued to fish for bluefin.

There is no internal force within any European country to enforce ICCAT rules. So again after 32 years, the US and Canada are the only countries with regulations. In the US the toughest regulations apply to the huge recreational fleet while the commercial fleet is given most of the US quota. Meanwhile, our ICCAT representatives reduced our 2008 quota by hundreds of tons of bluefin once again with the absurd expectation that the European countries would impose the tougher ICCAT regulations and lower their quotas as proposed by their scientific arm.

No one should be surprised that the Europeans refused to impose the 2008 lower quota. Naturally, the US imposes their reduction for about the 10th time while the Europeans refused to accept their lower ICCAT quota for the 10th time. Why the US delegation to ICCAT expects quota acceptance by the Europeans after 32 years of a total refusal are an unreasonable expectation!

An unusual bluefin spawning success in 1995 and 1997 increased the number of US bluefin tuna population greatly. Now these 2 year classes are sexually mature. Now the number of school fish is exploding! Will US recreational fishermen ever be permitted to catch a few bluefin their conservation permitted to expand? This will happen the same as the Feds lower our taxes.

One good item in the offshore area is the ban on longline fishing in the Florida strait which has permitted the Mahi-mahi population to sharply increase in numbers. Offshore anglers are enjoying their best Mahi fishing in the last 20 years. It will likely be short lived since NMFS in an absurd ruling has created a new version of longline fishing named buoy fishing. In buoy fishing the longline is attached to a buoy with a specified number of hooks and then tied to the boat fishing. This is not supposed to be longline fishing but the reduction in the number of small swordfish and other pelagic fish is evident. So much for expecting NMFS regulations to ever benefit anglers for long.

It is expected that the hurricane glances that have brushed the east coast will churn up the ocean enough that yellowfin tuna will return to end the season on a positive note. As everyone has noticed yellowfin fishing reduces slightly each year. It is a mere shadow of what anglers caught 20 year ago. Naturally, the problem is the huge number of purse seine boats fishing off the coast of Africa on the spawning yellowfin and bigeye tuna each year. Eight years ago their countries agreed in writing that they would reduce their landings. Naturally, after 8 years their landings keep increasing and the US ICCAT group does nothing, not even complain when it is evident that they are not reducing their landings and saving the US east coast fishery. Can anglers ever expect NMFS to get ICCAT to work? Clearly, ICCAT is a worthless organization.

After thirty-two years of expecting the European countries to follow their agreed to ICCAT rules seems absurd. Why do the US ICCAT reps expect the 33rd year to be different?

Go offshore fishing now! There are fish to be caught before the stripers arrive and the weather turns cold despite global warming.

Spiny dogfish are a small shark but they are a voracious predator that hunts in packs. My personal experience has been unpleasant. When they show up in the early fall they totally shut down any chance for wreck fishing trips where you drift such as the artificial reefs. Recently, they now stay longer into June making early season fishing difficult until they leave. Their large size and huge numbers usually makes fishing impossible.

There has been a total commercial fishery shutdown. The management plan is based on the total protection of the female spiny dogfish population. The plan did this because the female dogfish was being directly commercially targeted. Fish buyers desired the larger filets that female dogfish provided. It was possible to target female dogfish because during most of the year female dogfish and male dogfish separate and group together by gender.

Fishery managers have ignored the exploding dogfish population biomass, claiming there was nothing they can do. Plan Management is based on increasing the female population. But it has become clear that the female population is higher than NMFS trawl surveys are reporting. This has been fully supported by recent new scientific trawl surveys that worked deep water beyond 100 fathoms and inshore waters less than 10 fathoms. These new surveys found a major population of young dogfish that the traditional NMFS surveys had missed in water as deep as 1000 feet.

The problem is a total dogfish population is larger than at any time in fishery management history. Despite their massive population increases, the female population has not reached the target specified by the management plan.

It is now the belief of some fishery managers and most fishermen that the current spiny dogfish population is having a major negative impact on all other commercially valuable species. Many commercial fishermen believe they are being directly impacted by dogfish due to the slower rebuilding of more valuable species.

Commercial accidental catch of dogfish must be discarded because of the current management plan. But these catches have increased to the point where it is impossible for commercial fishermen to fish without being overwhelmed by the huge numbers of spiny dogfish in their nets. To make matters worse, spiny dogfish are tough and survive most commercial discards which seems to have little affect on their survival.

This position is fully supported by NMFS surveys that found that the dogfish population biomass has exploded while the required plan female population has not been reached. NMFS and fishery managers are so far unwilling to reopen a limited commercial fishery that would target primarily male dogfish.

The current law must be changed. This requires a major effort by all fishermen to change.

A new group named "The Dogfish Forum" is sponsoring a series of meetings in Philadelphia, Biddeford, Maine and Hyannis, Massachusetts on September 30th. The forum has invited federal, state and regional managers, researchers plus commercial, recreational and party/charter boat fishermen most familiar with the dogfish problem to discuss the current dogfish over population condition.