https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY3VfsHlapg
Handguns
Subscribe
Home› Conservation Front
yurifishman
Posts: 55 Deckhand
Red Snapper in the Dry Tortugas 260' underwater video
yurifishman
Posts: 55 Deckhand
Finally! Highly elusive, endangered, overfished red snapper caught on tape. Somehow we did manage to find a few. It took us minutes to get our limit of 6. The stocks definitely look depleted to me.
Replies
"Soon" some shyster will try to step forward and take credit for solving a "crisis" that never existed.:rolleyes
No one has said that the fish are not rebuilding...or stocks exploding. Its just the Stock Assessments being
"Years Behind" as you've said and the likely 18mp quota in a few years with less access that's the problem.
Maybe that's the problem that those pushing SS/IFQ/CFH should be spending their capital on. Would'nt
getting a chunk of the whole pie be better than that of only a slice (to borrow a very well defining analogy)?
Why get locked into an artificially low number now rather than fighting to fix the Real problem that you
identified? This seems to only work out for your group if the millions of recreational anglers are locked out
of our fishery. Is that what your group really wants?
Read it - you will see too many similarities that happened up there and what is happening down here that CANNOT be ignored - the people pushing Amendment 40 WANT you to ignore this since both actions were initiated/pushed by their benefactors; The Environmental Defense Fund. Remember, this is from the largest CHARTER ORGANIZATION in Alaska and they have ALREADY live the nightmare of Sectors/IFQs.
AGAIN, take a look at the following bullet points from the letter - if this is not a blueprint that is being followed today, I don't know what one is;
* “TODAY, as we sail to fish, a strong movement is under way to erode your opportunity to enjoy halibut fishing in Alaska. This effort is a continuing push by the commercial halibut fishing industry to restrict your access and catch...Please bear in mind as you read this article, that YOU OWN THE HALIBUT RESOURCE. It is a federally owned fish that we all have equal right to. However, your rights are being methodically stripped from you by the commercial fishing industry.”
* “The commercial effort started in 1995, when the federal government gave selected commercial fishermen permits to harvest your halibut year after year, and authorized the commercial fishermen to sell their permits without any compensation to the public, who owns the resource. This resource handout has a current value approaching $1.5 billion.”
* “The issuance of fishing rights permits is known as Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) program for the commercial fishermen. This action changed the whole dynamic of the commercial- recreational fishing relationship.”
* “Prior to the IFQ program, all recreational anglers were treated equally, and the recreational fish “came off the top”. Recreational fishermen are recognized as having a higher priority to the resource over commercial fishermen. Unfortunately, this has been allowed to change.”
* “In Alaska, harvest of the halibut resource is allocated by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council, or NPFMC). The Council makeup is such that there was and remains support to segregate the recreational fishermen into two classes, those that are unguided, and those that are guided (fish from charter boats).”
* “The intent of this action was to divide the recreational sector into a predominately “Alaska resident” angler, who could in fact provide their own access, and a non-resident class that had to rely on a charter fleet to provide safe access. It was believed by the commercial fleet that non-resident angler demand may increase at a faster rate than the resident angler, and consequently from the commercial fisherman’s perspective, the guided recreational angler must be limited and controlled in order to ensure the maximum amount of fish being available for the commercial harvest.”
* “With the recreational sector split, the commercial fishermen focused their energy on limiting the harvest of the guided recreational fishermen.”
* “The GHL in halibut harvest Area 2C, (southeast Alaska) was set too low by the NPFMC to accommodate the recreational angler demand for fishing. The GHL was being exceeded from the day it was implemented, and continues to be exceeded today. It is simply an unrealistically low number.”
* “The commercial fishermen insisted that the GHL number should be treated as a hard allocation, when in fact it is not. They asserted that exceedence of the GHL was a de facto reallocation of commercial fish to the recreational sector.”
* “This action appears to be discriminatory in that for the first time in history, halibut recreational anglers are being treated differently based on their choice of means for accessing their resource.”
* “But, if the new assessment was used, a CEY of 6.51 million pounds could be derived, which would trigger recommending the bag limit reduction. And so the new assessment was implemented to ensure forcing the guided recreational angler to a one fish limit in southeast Alaska. This is a very serious case of changing the way to measure the amount of fish to achieve a very pointed purpose- reducing the bag limit to one fish, not as a conservation measure, but simply as a means to ensure stopping the recreational fisherman from seeking their public resource, because it becomes a very expensive venture when the bag limit is one fish per day.”
* “This concerted effort to strip you of your fishing rights will continue, unless you along with all other recreational fishermen who value their freedom to fish for halibut, protest this blatant power play by the commercial fishermen.”
We MUST ask ourselves; Is THIS is REALLY the direction we want to go with our Gulf fisheries?
I say NO! - our fishing heritage and our kids’/grandkids’ fishing future is on the line here.
ALL GULF RECREATIONAL FISHERMEN NEED TO SHOW UP AT THE PUBLIC HEARINGS NEXT WEEK ON AMENDMENT 40 TO STATE YOUR OPPOSITION TO THIS HOSTILE TAKEOVER OF OUR FISHERIES!
When you work in percentages you don't get locked into anything, when the TAC does increase your percentage increases also.
You are not getting the point - this is nothing more than a mechanism to drive US - Private recs and charter off of the water USING BOGUS DATA so they can profit even more from our Public Trust Resource.
Percentages, yeah. Like the 50% of federal reef permit holders that likely would not qualify
for your Alabama EFP? Guessing that would be reflective of a Gulf wide Recreational IFQ also,
since that seems to be the norm where IFQ's are imposed. Guess the percentages also mean when
you get "locked in" to nearly half of the Recreational anglers ARS quota, which is based on a
historic time that ,ore than twice as many boats participated, you will benefit even more by eliminating
that large percentage from eligibility and then divvy up the percentages to an ever smaller group of business
owners?
How does this benefit and create more access to "All User Groups"? That has been the mantra for some time
of those pushing this scheme after all. It certainly does not give more access to the majority of recreational
anglers that fish on their own boats, or friends or family members boats. In fact, it would likely end their
access. Do you think those that fish both CFH and Private will continue to book charters once they learn that
a handful of boats were granted exclusive access while they, their friends and families were shut out?
Since stock assessments are likely "Years Behind", then you would agree that the numbers being used
by the NMFS to manager our fisheries are pretty much useless and not reflective of the real health of
our fisheries? Why then not the same effort and money and time working on fixing this root problem
that does indeed limit access to all user groups? Who is going to pay for your expensive management?
We heard that 'It pays for itself' before and also learned that is far from reality. Since we have heard
your group echo the NMFS words as to why data is so poor as a result of budget shortfalls, actually your
words, their broke, how can they afford this new cost of management?
With your goal of IFQ's, WHO, WHO would be the "Harvester" that holds harvest rights under MSA definitions
in your scheme? Is not the recreational angler that hires you to transport them to the fishing grounds the
"Harvester". As such, in the required referendum....WHO would get the vote? The Harvester or the Business
owner that does not harvest?
Gulf Council’s own Red Snapper Advisory Panel rejects sector separation
TAMPA, FL (7-30-14) – Even as the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council fast-tracks a highly controversial plan to break the recreational red snapper fishery into private boat anglers and charter/for-hire operators, the Council’s own Red Snapper Advisory Panel voted today to reject the concept entirely.
The Advisory Panel’s recommendations are non-binding and it remains uncertain what impact, if any, the panel’s decision will ultimately have on the Gulf Council’s deliberations. The vote by a panel comprised of three charter/for-hire representatives, four private recreational anglers, two commercial fishermen, one representative of the Environmental Defense Fund and one academic would seem to signal that the concept of sector separation needs much greater scrutiny, even as public hearings are set to kick off next week on Amendment 40 – Sector Separation.
“It seems clear that there are forces at work here trying to ram this separation scheme through the process as fast as possible to take advantage of all the confusion and frustration over federal management of red snapper,” said Bill Bird, chairman of Coastal Conservation Association’s National Government Relations Committee. “The Council spent the last 18 months on an amendment to reallocate the red snapper fishery between the commercial and recreational sectors, and then decided rather suddenly to shelve it. Then they fast-tracked this amendment to create a whole new sector in just a few weeks, but their own advisory panel doesn’t support it. This is just pure chaos.”
For more information on the controversy over Amendment 40, visit www.JoinCCA.org.
My posts are my opinion only.
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. Will Rogers
We've always had them. Just because we don't talk about them doesn't mean we don't have them.
Now they are becoming a nuisance.
Rob
Hero's Don't Wear Capes....They Wear Dog Tags.
Just been busy fishin'. I have some down time spread through this month, so you'll see me here more.
Rob
Hero's Don't Wear Capes....They Wear Dog Tags.