Nothing is more important to anglers than their opportunity to catch and keep a fish. It is becoming very apparent that as anglers conserve and release fish they are being penalized. NMFS rules that create a release mortality percentage on their released fish takes a major part of our assigned yearly quotas. Put another way, anglers observing the rules and carefully releasing a fish results in them having fewer fish to keep and eat. Is this what anglers expect from fishery management?
Offshore anglers have been punished for their tuna conservation with tighter rules and regulations since 1976. That is the year when bluefin tuna limits were first imposed on anglers alone. Never in 34 years has an increase in the fish stocks they conserved resulted in anglers getting a larger bag limit or quota!
Over the last ten years anglers has been harassed with tougher rules each year for catching and keeping a bluefin tuna. Last fall, the US representatives to CITIES were shocked when their vote to save bluefin in the Mediterranean Sea was defeated by a vote of 20 for, 68 against and 30 abstaining. This is not a win for tuna conservation! At the same time after 34 years of failure, the European nations have never reduced their landings of bluefin tuna in their managed area. Our reward for 34 years of US angler’s conservation is now one bluefin tuna per boat per trip or possibly even less this year.
Many offshore anglers had responded by ignoring the bluefin tuna and targeting the canyon tuna species like yellowfin, bigeye and longfin tunas. Then NMFS HMS division came along and 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 NMFS imposed ZERO limits on the commercial sector. Anglers reward a yellowfin tuna fishery that is near the collapse stage. Last year anglers caught lots of yellowfin tuna in the 20 pound class but most were released as under the US size limit.
Late last summer for the first time in memory there were no yellowfin tuna to be found in the late summer and early fall Canyon tuna season. High fuel prices and few fish resulted in far fewer trips by all offshore fishermen. Some diehards gave it a try anyway. A lucky few were rewarded with a swordfish or two, plus mahi-mahi making the trip enjoyable but it was not worth the effort and expense.
At the same time our ICCAT delegation has for the last several years refused to denounce the Spanish and French for totally destroying this once great fishery by using FADs in the Southern Atlantic between Africa and Brazil and totally destroying the yellowfin tuna population. They return a week later to purse seine all the species under the FADs. This fishery has exploded from selling 1 million pounds a year to well over 10 million pounds a year of just the yellowfin tuna. This NMFS style of we are the good guys has yet to be rewarded with any conservation by the European members to ICCAT. The result, US anglers will be destroyed with tougher bluefin tuna regulations. Thanks, NMFS.
Anglers must get together with congress and cut their pensions and benefits like they have cut our tuna quotas!
NMFS HMS division’s recent surprise June 12 rule changes have totally changed NE bluefin tuna fishing rules. NMFS reduced the maximum size BFT permitted all angler categories to a 59” length. This is a huge size reduction from the previous angler limit of 73” length. This change went into effect on June 12.
Charterboats have in the past been able to book very few customers on their boat for a single tuna per trip. As a result they received the same number limits as 2009, which was 1 school BFT up to 47” and one large school up to 59”.
Recreational boats are limited to one bluefin tuna from 27” to 59”. This is a clear sellout to the commercial sector. Commercials can now sell the BFT they land from 59” to 73”. This is a very large and strong year class now being targeted before spawning even once! What a terrible change in the regulations.
Some recreationals have landed their single BFT the last two weekends along the south Jersey 20 fathom line. This is a big improvement from the last several years when few BFT were landed in June. A big factor this year is a super abundance of sand eels that were present in a vast area along the 20 fathom line. Sand eels were so abundant that they showed up 50 foot deep on fish finders for tens of miles. Such bait abundance has not been seen for many years. As had been normal in the past, June fishing for bluefin found large schools of super sized bluefish in the same area.
The Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010, H.R. 3619, contains a new provision, sec. 301. The 301 section authorizes state and local governments to levy new “sales taxes on goods and service on navigable waters unless the vessels are primarily engaged in foreign commerce.” H.R. 3619 passed the Senate in May without the Sec. 301 provision. The differences between House and Senate bill will be reconciled in a conference committee in the near future. If the house version prevails then new taxes and fees are authorized on services on US navigable waters, meaning the long-time exception of charter boats and head boats from local sales taxes is eliminated.
Everyone should call their members of both Congress and the Senate and ask them to keep the language in Sec. 301 of H. R. 3619 out of their conference bill. Everyone should do this because anglers already pay a huge sales tax for the tackle and bait they purchase. To now impose another new tax on anglers should be unthinkable!
