Bluefins make the front page

[Miles Offshore]

In our local paper- the Va. Pilot today- heres the link to the article-

http://content.hamptonroads.com/stor...057&ran=112009

[carom]

cool read there Miles, thanks for sharing!....hope someone does something to save these magnificent fish.....too bad the don't come south, around here

[Jared D]

The sad thing is, this issue has been swept under the rug since I was in high school back in 90-94. I remember a very bleak show airing about the plight of the BFT and this was 92ish. Every year, they stick it to the commercial guys, and every year, the big time harvesters go about their business unabated.

Its sad that with the amount of votes rec fisherman make up, we cant get our act together to over turn crap put out by politicians who have their pockets lined by lobbyists! Unfortunately, this issue isnt on a scale of importance enough for our leaders to put real pressure on foreign countries to get this fixed before its too late.

Sadly, if things continue, I may never get to tangle with one of these! Maybe I should quit putting it off and go now!

[chumtini]

NMFS called me last spring for an inteview. They asked all sort of questions; what, when and where. But also about how much I spend for this, that and the other things.

I may be way off, but one has to assume they are trying to get a handle on the economics before enforcing any sort of policy change. Lets face it. It's about $$$, period. If rec fishing (boats, fuel, gear, bait, charters, etc, etc) provides more to a local economy's bottom line than commercial fishing and puts less pressure on a fishery, the answers may be obvious...or clear as mud. I dunno the answers. I'm not that smaht. I just like to go fishing.

[Caveman Sportfishing]

I lived in Narraganset, RI in the early 70's and experienced true Giant Bluefin fishing out in the Butterfish Hole using fresh Whiting from the draggers as bait. We only chunked them in those days. The fish off the OBX were peanuts compared to the stocks back in the day. I saw two over 1000 lbs come back to the dock at Pt. Judith, RI in early Sept and then hauled back out the next and dumped as there was no market for them then. I will never forget standing only a few feet from two bluefin over 1000 lbs and was in total awe at the size of these fish. I was primarily a striper and cod fisherman then and these fish flat out amazed me. Around this time the Japanese commercial fleet started working the Gulf of Mexico and by the early 90's the stock was 10% of what it was in the 60's-70's from what I have read. This also happened to the striper populations as everyone I knew including myself sold their fish to the co-op at Pt Judith. This past summer I had a delegate from the French Embassy who working with our government in Washington, DC to develop some type of arrangement to share farming techniques between us and France but previously was involved with France's commercial fishing industry. He was on vacation down in Cape May, NJ with his family and wanted to tuna fish so I was able to get in on a charter that needed an extra person. We caught our legal two bluefin 47-73 inches and made a move to an area where we would have a shot at one of the smaller bluefin 27-47 inches. He could not believe we limited our charter boat catch to a maximum of three Bluefin per day as this would never happen anywhere else in the world. He told me that in most countries the bluefin provide so much income to local politicians, law enforcement plus the local fisherman they will never enforce any regulations even if the counties governments agree to new regulations that the USA is suggesting. He compared it to prohibition in our country in the 30's and drugs in our current world. He thought it was just another insistence of the USA being big brother to the rest of the world and there is no way on the local level at least will people buy into the stock assessments provided to ICCAT by the USA. He thought the only countries that will actually enforce any regulations would be us and Canada. Even our neighbor Mexico has so much corruption that they too would laugh at us as well as the Mediterranean countries. If big money still can be made most will opt to get a piece of the pie and no enforcement will very happen. Paying off local law enforcement and other officials is how business is done and nothing we can do will change this. It is a pretty sad scernio overall for the future of bluefin tuna worldwide. I personally feel that rod and reel fishing will not hurt the bluefin stocks but when whole schools are caught by modern factory ships there is no way we will ever be able to see the numbers that once existed in my younger days.

[alex n]

Well said, it's just an absolute shame that those big 1000lb fish are ,for the most part , gone.