NMFS Proposes New BFT Regs

[bigmahi]

NMFS has published a new proposed rule for the BFT General and Harpoon Category.Public hearings will be held in Silver Spring MD Dec 14, and Gloucester, MA, Dec 15th for those who wish to comment publicly.
You may fax your feedback to Sarah McLaughlin FAX 978-281-9340.
See details in link below.
Recreational quotas of "one under and one over" are still in effect until Dec 31, so catch em up while you can.
Jan 1 the recreational quota reverts to ONE BFT 27"-under 73" and this rule will remain in effect until the fisheries unit has a chance to review all catches and propose a new reg like they did earlier this year.
Link:
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/hms/fis...4_FR_57128.pdf

[relentless]

I have read this three times and it appears to me that the proposal is to help our friends out in the Carolinas with nice long January fishery and allow the harpoon boats to retain more medium fish. What happened to the proposed smaller fish at 65" and to allow charter boats to land both giants and school during the same day. It also looks like they can change the ruling to allow five giants to be landed in a single day which will be nice for those commercial general anglers wiht larger boats. I am sure I am confused here but I do not see many changes that will add lots of fish to the quota.

[backman]

I am amused by this statement:

The intent of this proposed rule is to
enable more thorough utilization of the
available U.S. BFT quota, while ending
BFT overfishing, rebuilding the BFT
stock by 2019, and minimizing bycatch
and bycatch mortality to the extent
practicable

and curious how adding/removing/changing quota can possibly address conflicting goals like the above.

[Reel Pursuit]

Sounds like same ol' same ol',
Shortchange the rec's quota and let the comms have at it. That'll solve the overfishing problem.

[twofinbluna]

I am amused by this statement:

The intent of this proposed rule is to
enable more thorough utilization of the
available U.S. BFT quota, while ending
BFT overfishing, rebuilding the BFT
stock by 2019, and minimizing bycatch
and bycatch mortality to the extent
practicable

and curious how adding/removing/changing quota can possibly address conflicting goals like the above.

What it means is that when they decided on what rule changes could be made they took into account the science and the rebuilding/management plan. In other words, they are saying that these are the changes that we can make without affecting the rebuilding progress. They took out many of the things people asked for- like the lower commercial size limit- because they would have affected that progress, according to NMFS analysis. But allowing a general category boat to land a couple more per day will have no negative affect on the rebuilding progress, as the category already has a hard quota. Rules like that were put into place to slow down the fishery and they are unnecessary right now. If ten thousand boats start going all summer and the quota starts getting caught too quick, they will go right back to the way it was.

[twofinbluna]

Sounds like same ol' same ol',
Shortchange the rec's quota and let the comms have at it. That'll solve the overfishing problem.

That has nothing to do with it, at all. All these changes do is affect how the commercial fleet catches its allotted quota, and has nothing to do with 'shortchanging' rec fishermen. There is a certain amount of small bluefin that are allowed to be taken by the science and that is already easily maxed out by rec sector of the fishery each year. This rule is strictly about the commercial fishery and these are good rule changes that dont impact the rec fishery one bit.

Given whats going on with ICCAT right now in Brazil, the last thing we need is for this to be falsely labeled as a rec vs commercial issue.

[twofinbluna]

I have read this three times and it appears to me that the proposal is to help our friends out in the Carolinas with nice long January fishery and allow the harpoon boats to retain more medium fish. What happened to the proposed smaller fish at 65" and to allow charter boats to land both giants and school during the same day. It also looks like they can change the ruling to allow five giants to be landed in a single day which will be nice for those commercial general anglers wiht larger boats. I am sure I am confused here but I do not see many changes that will add lots of fish to the quota.

It is not all that surprising that they did not lower the commercial size limit, both because this is NMFS we are dealing with here, and also because it makes sense that such a move could affect rebuilding. When the run their calculations they have to take into affect the size of the fish and when you take smaller fish, that means more fish are killed per a given amount of quota. They dont like the idea of more small fish being killed, either. In terms of them not changing the rules for charter boats, I am not sure why they did not do that but my guess is it could have been an enforcement issue that stopped it. Unless I missed it though I did not see the reasoning given here. They took out other stuff besides these two things, as well, but again they did not spend much time discussing why things were not included in this p.r.

I think this will really help the commercial fishery catch its quota. The hook fleet could have really used a 5 fish limit all late summer and fall. The 3 day limit is unnecessary and was simply a rule to slow down the catch when there were many more boats going (not to mention less dogfish). And it will not allow the harpoon fishery to catch mediums, but more large mediums, which is a big difference. We have been limited to two a day between 73 and 81 in recent years, something the general fleet doesnt have. And of course the winter fishery wants more access to the fish, instead of the strict regs they have had in recent years. All of these rules were put in place, again, to slow down the fishery. But now they are simply stopping people from catching the quota. So any little bit we can get will help. And if things heat up more and more over the next few years, they will put these rules back in and slow things down again.

But none of this will matter if CITES happens, so lets hope we get to another year and are able to see these good rule changes in effect. The ICCAT meeting is taking place over the next couple weeks in Brazil, and so everyone should be crossing their fingers right about now because what happens in the coming days will make or break the US fishery. We need ICCAT to make some real changes so that this CITES effort can be avoided.

[relentless]

Chris,

I certainly hope my comments did not appear to be a rec vs comm thing. All I am saying is many ideas were thrown out at the meeting in Gloucester and I did not see too many changes for a series of meetings up and down the coast. I have no problem with the increase of fish for the harpoon quota or the five giants for general. I have no problem with the winter fishery having a longer season either. I was selfish in thinking that if a charter boat landed a giant they still might have a chance to bing home a 48" fish for the customer for dinner. Then again, live by the sword, die by the sword, CHB Catagory is a choice and regs are regs which when implimented need to be followed.

[Junior11]

Not that I have an issue with it, but the only boats that this rule is going to affect are the boats that harpoon but are in the general category. I don't see many trips where it is going to be possible to catch 5 on rod and reel. It may also allow some harpoon boats to join the general category instead of the harpoon category. With 5 fish it may be enticing to be able to throw a rod out now and then. This is why allowing the retention limit to go up to 5 a day is not going to affect the rebuilding progress because it is going to result in a very small (if any at all) increase in the amount of fish being caught. It is NMFS way of being able to say we gave the fisherman something.

[twofinbluna]

Dave- Was not directing that comment at you at all.

Junior- I heard from guys out off Chatham this fall that the 3 fish/day limit stopped a lot of fish from being caught. Who knows, though, at least they are doing something to help. Better than nothing.