Blue Fin Tuna, ????

[Fritz]

Fritz - I love your idea. I think trolling only for BF is the way to go. I've brought it up before and many people baulk at the idea. Try telling a guy from Jersey that they can't chunk. Ha! It would be an interesting discussion.

I'm just saying! No quotas, no shortened season, no apples for dear approach AKA chunking, just bring your game.

OK, let the firestorm begin. It is winter you know!

[atlanticblue]

They should stop the seiners, pair trawlers and long liners and stick with rod and reel only. Less fish will be killed and there would be more money in the fishery. They put pressure on stopping a fishery to protect it, and it hurts the little guys. Where is the pressure on the border to protect AMERICA.

[KP161]

Here is a non-PC question. How many bluefin do you think the recreational fleet, just in the mid-Altantic, kills on a given Saturday during the summer season? A couple hundred, a couple thousand? Now add in weekdays and Sundays and multiply that by the amount of weeks fished. Still think recreational anglers don't have an impact? Let's be honest with ourselves, the recreational community is having an impact.

Add in the hundreds or thousands of juvenile (small fish) the recreational fleet catches in New England every week all summer and fall. It has an impact on our fishery. No question. Now everyone will jump and say the U.S. doesn't catch a fraction of what foreign fleets do. Yeah, yeah. Thing is every bluefin in U.S. waters doesn't head to the Eastern Atlantic. Some do yes. But not all and not every year. Ofcourse the Eastern Atlantic overfishing has to be cut way back and policed properly but I still don't understand the wide open U.S. juvenile bluefin fishery. No quota on small fish. Just runs wide open up here in New England. These small fish are the lifeblood of the fishery, have not spawned yet and we just hammer away at them. Sure there should be a fishery for them but have a set season that closes at some point so we can gauge what is caught and keep it under control. You want to fish go do some catch & release. These fish are good sized, why do people need to bring in 100lbs of meat every time out?

I say let the fish spawn once (atleast 80") commercial or rec so there is a chance at a sustained fishery. If there are tons of small fish around sure a monitored small fish fishery that opens & closes makes sense. Someone is going to jump on and say killing the breeders is wrong. I've had this arguement too many times in the past few years. Grown tired of it. I hope I'm wrong but I feel I might be the one saying I told you so in 5 years.

[Mokarran]

I don't know much about this subject but after reading all the post's I felt I might contribute a couple of observations I made;

I'd say the chances of the U.S. having a say so in the management over in the Med are about as good as them having a say so in how we manage our fisheries b/c some of their fish migrate over here.

Suppose the fishery in the med gets wiped out completely, what do you think will happen to our stock? The prices would probably skyrocket. The US would sort of have a monopoly with the exception being the Mexican back door. If prices did skyrocket you can be sure that the mexican government will be getting some serious money from the eastern harvesters to set up shop in the gulf. Seems to me that it would make sense to start leveraging with Mexico now to try and prevent that from happening or else the GOM stock will be gone the same way. I also wouldn't be surprised if they convinced our own government to invite them over either.

[JAYBIRD]

The funny thing is everyone knows how bad it is, but people will continue to destroy the entire species into extinction, unless there is a world wide ban on seining. Seining removes more than just the school it cuts off any reproduction. The japs will have a major part in killing off a species. Greedy.

[Mokarran]

So let's go talk Bob Barker and the Chili Peppers into financing action on a second front. Hey Discovery what do you think about "TUNA WARS" All we need is a POS little ship a fanatical captain and some young impressionable activists. I've got the perfect plan! We'll put a huge tank on the ship with a huge tube extending out past the side of the ship. Pull up to the seiners while the are working and drop several 12' Tigers into the nets. They will bite holes in the nets and all the tuna will get away. Or they will eat tuna until they are full, throw up and start over again. Okay, a submersible with a saw that can cut holes in the nets from underneath.......

[Mud Hole]

I'm just saying! No quotas, no shortened season, no apples for dear approach AKA chunking, just bring your game.

I dont think that would do anything...More bluefin are caught trolling than chunking now from delmarva to new england.

Some of my best days for bluefin in the past 5 years have been trolling.