Purse Seining in CCB?

[Tyke]

So while i was at work today i was telling my boss about a GBFT i saw at one of the wholesalers in New Bedford the day before and we got talking about tuna fishing and the CITES listing and all that stuff and i was talking about western atlantic stocks and eastern atlantic stocks and all this stuff i'm not even close to being an expert on but have learned a lot about on here. So he tells me......"they purse seine BFT out in CCB" ....... " the season only lasts for two days" , so i reply "really?????" () "i have never heard of purse seining in CCB, (again) not that i'm an expert but i talk to a few guys that tuna fish and i'm on a couple on-line forums and i've never heard anything about that going on" he tells me that the last he heard, about ten years ago roughly, it was going on. said he used to go into a place called Atlantic in New Bedford and they'd have these huge brine tanks with slush that were maybe knee deep or so filled with bluefin tuna of all sized that were purse seined in CCB. so after all that windy explanation i pose my questions..... has anyone actually heard of this going on? is it true? does it still go on today? if not when did it end? if so when does it actually happen? lastly WTF???????

[twofinbluna]

The seiners used to fish in the Bay a lot. They were never allowed in until the end of the season. They used to do very well in there. But a few years ago the state of MA made some rule changes and as a result the seiners cannot fish in there. There was a court battle over it, last I heard nothing had come of it. So as it stands right now they cannot fish in there. They are allowed to fish everywhere else after July 15 but only one boat has been going the last few years.

[Tyke]

thanks for the clarafication twofin. let me ask another question. arn't these the guys that are wiping out the stocks across the way? and if it is purse seiners that are killing bluefin tuna over in the med. why the hell do we allow it here in the states if we are the ones devoted to conservation and protecting the species? personally (now this is just my opinion) it seems like a good way to wipe out fish stocks when you fish like that, granted one boat probably can't have that effect but if other started......

[bampy]

I'm not a fan of the method of PS tuna. I have fished for almost 40 years for the tunas and spotted for 21 for tuna while working with general and harpoon boats. I can remember seeing so many schools of giants off shore that I believed there always would be enough for every one. More recently, when it became evident that fewer schools became available I felt that the western PS fleet catches impacted smaller boats ability to land fish. But I don’t for one second believe the western PS fleet are the ones that caused the situation that we are in now…CITES. That blame belongs to the uncontrolled eastern PS fleet in the med. that fed the farms with enormous landings/over quota.

Generally, it is the opinion of many in the scientific community that approximately 2/3 of our landings in the west could be of eastern origin and the quickest way to rebuild our western catch back to historical levels is to get the east under control so we benefit from eastern contribution again.

[Fffiisshh0]

I watched a PS boat in the middle of CCBay in the early 80's pull its net. We were coming back from bluefishing at the Pamet heading to the canal, came across this boat, so my dad pulled up, and we watched them haul an absolutely pack full net of giants, as they closed the net and pulled it close to the boat, all the tuna were thrashing around. I have the picture in my head, wish I had a camera or vid of the massacre. But it was common practice back then for the White Dove to clean the Bay !! Irony to what the meaning of that boats name is!!

[sushi42]

well the purse seiners sure made harpoonin easy some days.

[KP161]

I'm not a fan of the method of PS tuna. I have fished for almost 40 years for the tunas and spotted for 21 for tuna while working with general and harpoon boats. I can remember seeing so many schools of giants off shore that I believed there always would be enough for every one. More recently, when it became evident that fewer schools became available I felt that the western PS fleet catches impacted smaller boats ability to land fish. But I don’t for one second believe the western PS fleet are the ones that caused the situation that we are in now…CITES. That blame belongs to the uncontrolled eastern PS fleet in the med. that fed the farms with enormous landings/over quota.

Generally, it is the opinion of many in the scientific community that approximately 2/3 of our landings in the west could be of eastern origin and the quickest way to rebuild our western catch back to historical levels is to get the east under control so we benefit from eastern contribution again.

When those tuna farms started/got hot I knew that was going to be a complete black hole of landings. No one had/has any idea what was going in those pens or coming out. Soooo easy to fudge the data. All those fish as you know are wild caught fish. Some people in the world actually act as if they are farmed fish and don't realize they we caught out of the wild and held in pens for x amount of time.