Please Help our Swordfish

[Flyin By]

Got the formal announcement todat from Dept. of Commerce.
Apprx 13 vessels would be permitted to long line off the east coast of florida.
This is the WORST case we did not hope for. I ask ALL members to hep us in florida. The opening of this type fishing will distroy swordfishing and the bicatch of dolphin turtles and many more fish we so value.
Please help us by sending an email as I described below and explain concerns. I also ask you to be diplomatic in your composition of the letter you will get more flys with honey. We are running out of time. This cant happen to us.
Thank you all in advance to whom ever responds.
I would ask the Mods to assist me in getting the word out to the forum.
HMS will receive comments till 4/11/07
submit to :
Michael Clark, HMS Management Division (F/SF1) Office of Sustainable Fisheries.
NMFS,1315 East-West Highway, Silver Springs MD 20910
fax 301-713-1917
email SF1.030107C@noaa.gov
include in the subject line of your email the following identifier I.D.030107C
For a copy of this announcement you may call Michael clark at 301-713-2347

Thanks team Bill AKA "Flyin BY"

[fishpicker]

You don't realize it yet and I understand your fears. But if we don't catch a $hit load of swords in the next three years We won't have the option of saving them. Once we lose them we ain't getting them back , So unless you would like to see other countries wipe out the fish that we all worked so hard to rebuild I would suggest that you research this a little more.

By stopping the US fleet your helping other country's that are far less conservation minded.

I can't stress this enough WE the U.S Comm/REC needs all of the recorded Landings possible. Since the Rec landing amount to less then 10 % ya best hope that we have 3 banner years of sword fishing. Keep in mind that the LL fleet has been shrunk into next to nothing proportions due to all of the Restriction that have been placed on us over the last 15 years. So catching our quota is gonna be hard.

[Flyin By]

I do understand and have active about this for several years. We the US have not made quota since 1992, and for sure this was an issue. But, that is not what this about. They want to do what they are calling reasearch which amounte to BS. We have a nursery in our area and weather or not its effected is up to us. 13 LLrs boats will put another 6500 hooks in the water. Its not just the swords effected but the bicatch of tuna dolphin and sea turtles will also be in danger. Here is the info I was sent a few days ago, I would hope i could count on the group to help us out seeing that there are several people from florida on here. I know as a one time Long Islander many years ago if there was an issue there you could count on the south to help with letters or emails how ever we could. This effects all of us. We have a giant population of dolphin down here, it would suck to see them being bicatch. Anyway here it is in a nut shell.

This week or early next week, we will see a public advertisment for comments on a proposal by Blue Water Fishermens Association to fish 13 longline vessels in the closed zone, at this time, we believe it is for North of Ft. Pierce, and East of the axis of the Gulf Stream. Supposedly this "research" is to catagorize or test the new circle hook rules on bycatch, etc. Last time this EFP was published, it was not limited to the area North of Ft. Pierce, and was the subject of a great response by the recreational swordfishing community. I believe the area to be fished is 28 Lat to 32 Lat from the axis East. Remember the last concern was the fact that nothing about the research, requires any use of the closed zone. Obvously this is the rebirth of last years proposal to get recreational support for a permanent opening of the area from Ft. Pierce North and from Marathon South. No mention of the south zone was made in my briefing. I'm sure nothing has changed about the proposal except the geographical limits.

Second EFP application is for the "research" mentioned at the SFC meeting last week. It is for one longline vessel to catagorize bouy gear catch and bycatch. The reason it needs an EFP, is the proposal is to keep the longline gear on board during bouy fishing, and also to allow more than 33 bouys in possesion or to be fished.

The last issue is a non issue I believe for our local area and it has to do with the new circle hook rule for tournaments. NMFS will temporarily suspend the circle hook rule so they won't be required in tournaments until next year. Most of us have fugured out how to catch just as many sailfish with circles, but the rule suspension will allow dead bait without circle hooks, to be used in upcoming BBC events, and of course the NE and Carolina guys will be able to fish their tournaments unchanged for another year.

[lazyfatass247]

This is a classic catch-22... this really sucks...guys lets remeber to call all are swords in this year. this makes me sick, lets kill fish to make sure someone else doesn't kill fish.

[Flyin By]

That would have been the answer a year ago but we are down to the wire now, I ask again it will only take a few seconds to draft a letter to the above address. I spoke to HMS today and they are not happy right now with me. I must say it was intense but again they said they have not gotten much response to this. PLEASE give a fellow fisherman a hand here the first post all the info take a second and send in comments... Thanks Bill

[waterman482]

I do understand and have active about this for several years. We the US have not made quota since 1992, and for sure this was an issue. But, that is not what this about. They want to do what they are calling reasearch which amounte to BS. We have a nursery in our area and weather or not its effected is up to us. 13 LLrs boats will put another 6500 hooks in the water. Its not just the swords effected but the bicatch of tuna dolphin and sea turtles will also be in danger. Here is the info I was sent a few days ago, I would hope i could count on the group to help us out seeing that there are several people from florida on here. I know as a one time Long Islander many years ago if there was an issue there you could count on the south to help with letters or emails how ever we could. This effects all of us. We have a giant population of dolphin down here, it would suck to see them being bicatch. Anyway here it is in a nut shell.

This week or early next week, we will see a public advertisment for comments on a proposal by Blue Water Fishermens Association to fish 13 longline vessels in the closed zone, at this time, we believe it is for North of Ft. Pierce, and East of the axis of the Gulf Stream. Supposedly this "research" is to catagorize or test the new circle hook rules on bycatch, etc. Last time this EFP was published, it was not limited to the area North of Ft. Pierce, and was the subject of a great response by the recreational swordfishing community. I believe the area to be fished is 28 Lat to 32 Lat from the axis East. Remember the last concern was the fact that nothing about the research, requires any use of the closed zone. Obvously this is the rebirth of last years proposal to get recreational support for a permanent opening of the area from Ft. Pierce North and from Marathon South. No mention of the south zone was made in my briefing. I'm sure nothing has changed about the proposal except the geographical limits.

Second EFP application is for the "research" mentioned at the SFC meeting last week. It is for one longline vessel to catagorize bouy gear catch and bycatch. The reason it needs an EFP, is the proposal is to keep the longline gear on board during bouy fishing, and also to allow more than 33 bouys in possesion or to be fished.

The last issue is a non issue I believe for our local area and it has to do with the new circle hook rule for tournaments. NMFS will temporarily suspend the circle hook rule so they won't be required in tournaments until next year. Most of us have fugured out how to catch just as many sailfish with circles, but the rule suspension will allow dead bait without circle hooks, to be used in upcoming BBC events, and of course the NE and Carolina guys will be able to fish their tournaments unchanged for another year.

Listen buddy i comm longline and don't really agree with what they are doing as far as opening that area up i do believe that there needs to be an area that is closed for nursery reasons but don't try and pull the dolphin,turtle bullshit,i have never seen a dolphin bite a 400lb leader in my life and for that matter ever seen one come up on the gear and since the circle hook rule went into effect the turtle bycatch is next to nothing i guarantee more turtles lose there lives being run over by boats than on a nlongline,its alright to try and get this shut down because of the nursery issue but don't try and bullshit people for the other reasons and tuna is not a bycatch we sell them try to get your facts straight.but yes i am infact in support of keeping this particular area shut down.

[Flyin By]

Thanks for your reply, In response to Bs'ing people, Tuna are a secondary bicatch because you sell them. But they are not the targeted species. As for dolphin..I can tell from personal expirence that my last trip out a schooldolphin came through our spread and ate 3 out of four baits on 300 lb test. This is not the first time this has happened to me either. I also know peope who set buoy gear and have caught several marlin, sail fish and turtles. The main point is out of my last 12 trips I boated 13 swords of which 9 were under sized and revived to swim and breed again. I do thank you for your support, take a second and send an email for us.

[DH 111]

OK I AM A LIITLE LOST.....IF WE ARE NOT GOING TO MEET OUR QUOTAS THROUGH OUR COMM. GUYS THAN......FOREIGN COUNTRIES WILL HAVE THE RIGHT TO CATCH OUR UN FILLED QUOTA?
PICKER FILL ME IN?

[reel fool]

Missing a Major point here. When the area was closed, there were about 11-13 commercial "bought out", because their opportunity to make a living was being taken away--could no longer fish in the new restricted zones. SO--just as predicted, give it a few years, let the stocks rebound, take that fat ass buyout (over $1 million per vessel) & purchase new gear, etc....open the area to "research" (the kind of "research" that destroyed the fishery b4) and have at it.
another boning up the a$$ by the man.

[Sea Draggin]

The only thing I can tell you for sure, is that since they closed that area, the marlin and dolphin fishing off NC has gotten progressively better every year.