Menhaden Boats off Ocracoke inlet

[dolphinfrenzi]

This was posted on another site I thought it would be nice to share it here. This is a shame and NC Fisheries are too corrupt to care but something needs to be done. The Brunswick County beach stopped it from happening off their beaches with a legislative bill. You may not agree with my opinion but I just thought I would share this and what this person saw. These boats are coming out of Virginia. Thanks Scott
"on our ride yesterday from Hatteras to Morehead, we passed the entire Omega Proteins menhaden netting fleet. There were at least 10 mother ships, each with their catch boats. Their airplane was circling overhead. They were absolutely vacuming every single pogy out of the ocean off Ocracoke inlet. The 10 boats were covering an area that had to be 2 square miles. Looked like the Normandy invasion. I don't know what the Morehead Bluefin's will be feeding on this winter but it won't be pogies. They're all gone."

[Capt. Jon Tennant]

heard the same from some of the guys fishing the oifc east side king tournament this week. said on the way by drum inlet running from Hatteras it looked like a fleet of warships... airplanes flying all over and a total massacre of the pogies.

[Gettinwet]

thus the cycle of destruction begins

[Sea Draggin]

Thats too bad. The big green boils out in the deep used to be a sight to behold, with 2lb pogies that you could get on a snag rig. They were tuna candy.

[dunn6253]

That sucks to hear. Happened up here in the Gulf of Maine with the herring fleet, wiped out the bait, now the giants go up to PEI where there is a ban on herring up there. Also happened this year with the pogy boats, they were fishing a local beach down the street for me, the fisheries managment boat would come by, and give them a $50 fine and tell them to leave. Then they would be there the next day doing the same thing. Was very hard to get the pogies this year for tuna, and the seine boats were a big reason because of it. Sucks they are wiping out the pogy population so fast.

Anything being done to ban these boats down your way?

[dolphinfrenzi]

Looks like there will be a grassroots effort to start up a campaign the problem is a certain senator and the DMF are in the pockets so it will be a fight.

[Robja]

Scott,

Thanks for posting this. I read it on FPT yesterday. The only Two counties that have banned the boats are Dare and Brunswick. I know since they were banned from fishing off Brunswick the pogies have rebounded and finding bait has been much easier since the ban. Good thing is their abundance has helped make the fishing better than it has been in a long long time. I wish the other counties in our state would work together in banning the Omega fleet altogether. I know Rube McMullen at OIFC worked hard to get the ban off Brunswick. I sent untold numbers of emails to House and Senate members that I knew as well as to people I knew in other parts of the state to pressure their legislators.

[FinRazr]

They crush the heck out of them off VA beach they have a very strong lobby force.

[seapower]

If they are "destroying" the fat back population, where did the fatback's come from they are decsimating now??? They've been fishing these water's and more for as long as I can remember. These guy's are after nothing but pogy's, that's it. There's way, way, way less effort by longliner's, gillnetter's, shrimper's, pound netter's, etc, now than there was 30 year's ago. There's not even 25% of the boat's in my area than there was back then. Guess what there were load's and load's more fish back then. I'm not saying go out and catch the last fish, but come on. We have fish kill's in NC every year that take absolute untold number's of pogy's.You know the one's that will never make it to the ocean food chain. Maybe we should be addressing water quality, just saying. Frank

[N2theBlue]

Frank obviously there are lots of issues, but you can't tell me those pogy boats aren't having an effect on the pogy population. They are one of the reasons there are less fish nowadays, and one of the reasons stripers in the chesapeake are having problems. If there is no bait there are no predators. Pogy's are also filter feeders, so they help clean our waters. The commercial operation isn't the only problem, but it is a big one.