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North Carolina bluefin fishery a huge success
North Carolina bluefin fishery a huge success
By JOHN GEISER • March 16, 2008
North Carolina bluefin tuna fishermen enjoyed fishing this winter that the Jersey Shore once participated in during the summer and fall.
It is only a memory these days. The bluefins that migrated along the coast — stopping in the Mud Hole, 17 Fathom Bank, and Monster Ledge — are being caught elsewhere.
North Carolina anglers have developed a fishery that is drawing locals and visitors.
Alan D. Risenhoover, director of the National Marine Fisheries Service's office of sustainable fisheries, said 230 bluefins with an average weight of 340.4 pounds were taken in January alone.
These fish had a gross weight of 35.5 tons, and all were caught on rod and reel in the general category. Last January only 66 fish were caught with an average weight of 302.3 pounds and a gross weight of 9.1 tons.
The only other bluefins caught were 19 fish with an average weight of 463.9 pounds taken by longliners. Seven of them were caught in the north with an average weight of 256.9 pounds, and the remainder were taken in the south with an average weight of 584.6 pounds.
The National Marine Fisheries Service has estimated that recreational fishermen exceeded the 2007 angling quota for large school and small medium bluefin tuna by 150 percent, and responded by tightening the regulatory noose for this year.
The government determined that anglers landed 362 metric tons of large school and small medium bluefins against a quota of 144 metric tons.
It had originally been decided that anglers could harvest two tuna in this size class this year, but that has been changed to one fish.
This is a wonderful one-sided conservation gesture to the International Commission for Conservation of Atlantic Tunas. United States fishermen will cut back to allow eastern Atlantic fishermen to catch more.
Europe, Asia, Africa and South America must delight in U.S. attempts to rebuild bluefin tuna stocks for others to catch.
There is ample evidence in New Jersey that altruism in fisheries does not work. New Jersey tried to conserve striped bass in the 1950s with restrictions on its recreational and commercial fishermen while other states were landing 12-inch fish.
There was some weak applause from a few observers, but the other members of the great debating society of the day, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, kept right on pulling their haul seines and pin-hooking panfish.
When push came to shove, and New Jersey, sharing two significant spawning estuaries, wanted to continue taking a single slot fish along with a fish 28 inches or over, no one who voted remembered its earlier conservation efforts. The slot fish was denied.
The National Marine Fisheries Service continues to think unilateral bluefin tuna management or conservation by example is the answer; quota limits on Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishing is a wish.
The Mediterranean landings alone are more than 50,000 metric tons yet ICCAT scientists claim that the maximum sustainable yield at present is only 25,000 metric tons.
NMFS began trying to save the bluefin tuna in 1976, by putting restraints on U.S. recreational bluefin tuna fishermen. Thirty-two years later they are still forcing U.S. anglers to harvest fewer fish, and the stocks are in worse shape than they were when the first regulations were imposed.
John Koegler, longtime tuna fisherman and chairman of the Jersey Coast Anglers Association's large pelagics committee, laments the situation.
"NMFS continued unilateral conservation of an ocean-crossing fish has been an international farce and a domestic economic disaster," he said.
"Why should U.S. recreational fishermen be eliminated when the U.S. is way under its ICCAT quota?" he asked.
"ICCAT rules have never been imposed by the European and African nations on their fishermen," he pointed out. "Why should U.S. fishermen suffer when for 32 years European nations have yet to observe ICCAT rules?"
NMFS has reminded that fishing tournament operators must register for highly migratory species events this year.
Risenhoover said registration is necessary to collect important recreational catch and effort data which will then be used to analyze the impacts of potential fishery management actions, assess the status of Atlantic highly migratory species, and to assist the U.S. in complying with international fishery management obligations.
NMFS registered 294 HMS tournaments as of Oct. 29, 2007, for this year. The mandatory registration is for all events in which prizes or points are awarded for tunas, sharks, swordfish and other billfish.
Registration must be made with the government at least four weeks prior to the start of a fishing tournament. Further information can be obtained by telephoning the HMS management division at (727) 824-5399.
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Originally Posted by capt. jakeg
