Highly Migratory Species Report

Nothing is more important to anglers than their opportunity to catch and keep a fish they desire to eat or release as they choose. It is clear that when anglers conserve and release fish they are being penalized by rules that impose a release mortality percentage on their released fish. Put another way, anglers observing the rules and carefully releasing a fish results in them having fewer fish to keep and eat. This results in anglers going over quota even though they kept far fewer fish to eat. In 2009, the revised Magnuson act requires anglers to pay back all overages with a reduced quota for the next year. Is this what anglers expect from fishery management?

Offshore anglers have been punished for their tuna conservation with tighter rules and regulations since 1976. Never yet have the fish stocks they conserved resulted in anglers getting a larger bag limit or quota.

Over the last ten years, anglers have been harassed with tougher rules each year for catching and keeping a bluefin tuna. Last fall, the US delegates to ICCAT voluntarily reduced the US 2009 quota of bluefin tuna. At the same time, after 34 years of failure, the European nations have yet to reduce their landings of bluefin tuna in their managed area. US anglers’ reward for their 34 years of conservation is now one bluefin tuna per boat per trip for 2009.

Many offshore anglers have responded by ignoring the bluefin tuna and targeting the canyon tuna species like yellowfin, bigeye and longfin tunas. Then NMFS HMS division decided that anglers were catching too many yellowfin tuna and imposed an angler limit of three yellowfin tuna per angler per trip. At the same time they imposed ZERO limits on the commercial sector. A suit was filed to stop this illegal action but was dropped because of angler’s failure to fund the lawsuit expense.

Last summer, for the first time in memory, there were no yellowfin tuna to be found in the late summer and early fall canyon fishery. High fuel prices and few fish resulted in far fewer trips by offshore anglers. A few diehards gave it a try anyway. Some lucky few were rewarded with a swordfish or a few longfin tuna making the trip worth the effort.

Anglers who failed to catch any fish tried another deep water fishery, tile fishing. This is tough fishing. The water is deep, usually 400 to 600 feet. But when you find the right spot you are rewarded with a 10 to 30 pound tile fish for dinner – which saves your trip!

Now, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management council is revising their rules for tilefish with Amendment #1. The Tilefish Fishery Management Plan had primarily affected the commercial fishery and has been a great success. The commercial limits imposed have resulted in far more tilefish being available. The New proposed amendment to the plan proposes commercial Individual Fish Quotas for the commercial sector.

Anglers will be rewarded with proposed new recreational permits, reporting requirements and possession limits. Comments can be made by June 6, 2009. The Federal Register was published on May 4, 2009. The number is 74 FR 20448.