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Random Quote: The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to return soup at a deli! ( George Costanza )
your problem is not icatt,,nmfs, or mexico or the med.,, it is the japanese,,,if they would buy fish from say 80 inches and up,,, you would have enough recruitment left for good spawning,,,you can not kill the little ones and expect big fish.. it doesn,t work,,,and it isn,t!!
those of us that saw the 60 minutes episode saw the fishermen in the Med harvesting small fish. I said this before, if it takes one person to pick up a fish then its too small.
We aren't going to get anywhere soon concerning ICCAT's lack of action.
The Japs are the resolution to the problem? That's laughable. That will not happen...
What we can do is deal with the mess in our on back yard concerning the Gulf of Mexico and the longline bycatch of spawning BFT?
Also, you did not address the issue concerning the difference in the age of a spawning fish from the med compared a spawning fish from the gulf of mexico? The East/west spawning stocks?
i understand all the other things going on but you need to hit a home run here,,, ALL TUNA GO TO JAPAN !!!!!! no were else,,,,control them,,,,,,, then micro manage the fisheries,, they want the fish and they know there is a stock problem,,,, you can not control the fisheries in 100 other countries but the JAPS can ,,, if they tell the world they accept no fish under a certain size,, then you control the other countries,,, the JAPS control the price !!!!!
Mike you got it backwards. STOP taking the breeders. In every other wildlife management program if you want to control a population kill the breeding stock. I just don't understand why folks are so f-ing stupid when it comes to Bluefins. Sure the Japs are a problem; but they are paying for what they get. Face facts probably less then 1% of the bluefin stock ever gets to breed. This is not because some fools in Spain or Italy are taking small fish. Everything in the ocean eats smaller fish. Trying to save school fish so they grow up is just plain stupid. STOP KILLING THE BREEDERS. That WILL solve the problem.
CB Haws - 3/23/2008 6:15 AMTrying to save school fish so they grow up is just plain stupid. STOP KILLING THE BREEDERS. That WILL solve the problem.
Yep- worked real good with stripers, eh?
The problem is the massive removals of(all size) fish in the Med. by the 300 or so seiners....
Taking smaller fish, here, will only ensure that those fish never breed, even once.
I realize that some folks are just trying to stay afloat in the fisheries, however, if we just start allowing smaller fish to be removed to keep the "fishery" afloat, there will be no fishery left.
A NMFS that will stop playing softball with the Europeans is what we really need.
Shut off trade with the countries who are consistently committing the overages.
I agree with Mike and Loligo. The issue isn't the taking of the brereders, the issue is that the fish do not get to grow up. We only see the smaller fish that eat sand eels for the most part. The number of fish we see now is very high, however they are almost all under 70 inches. Canada is catching insane amounts of giants, more every year, those fish swim right by our waters and keep going there. They don't come in here becuase their favorite forage (herring and mackerel) is gone. The fall of the bluefin fishery here has a direct relationship to the rise of the midwater trawl fleet. And along with the midwater trawl fleet we have the dogfish problem. The overabundance of dogfish probably puts as much pressure as a second midwater trawl fleet of the same size on the herring. That said, the longliners waiting out by the hague line anihilate the 100-200lb fish. The Med issue is huge, but not nearly as big as the dogfish/midwater trawl/forage issue. Also the fact that ICCAT is going to take our quota away is going to make this null and void anyways. I don't understand how so many people can go out and spend ridiculous amounts of money in tackle, fuel ect. and not donate any money or time to the organizations trying to keep the US fishing. The recreational sector doesn't seem to understand that when we lose our quota, thats the angling category as well.
John Mike,
What do you think about the angling category slaughter from the past few years, at least commercially there is a quota, that is mandatorily reported by the dealers, not just by some dockside survey....I know most of the reputable charter guys report their fish, but every Tom Dick and Harry do not report their catches...and that amounts to a lot of fish...so I am a fan of splitting the quota and allowing only general guys to retain a medium...at least it keeps the domestic market alive and allows for a few fish to be shipped...and there is a quota so like bass once its caught its caught....
I don't understand how so many people can go out and spend ridiculous amounts of money in tackle, fuel ect. and not donate any money or time to the organizations trying to keep the US fishing. The recreational sector doesn't seem to understand that when we lose our quota, thats the angling category as well.
That is because, unfortunately, a lot of folks in the fishery, don't need the money.
Many do, but the majority, at least in the GC, do not. Yes, it has always been that way, but now, the only folks who can afford to keep chasing the fish, don't actually need to.
Keep pressuring NMFS for better and tighter control over the herring/mackerel fisheries, let the fishermen thin down the dogs and start playing hardball with ICCAT.
One thing that kind of stinks, is we have played by the rules, we've done what we can to be "conservative", but we don't get credit for that from ICCAT, instead we get screwed. Kind of ironic, isn't it?
Sashamy - 3/23/2008 4:02 PMJohn Mike,What do you think about the angling category slaughter from the past few years, at least commercially there is a quota, that is mandatorily reported by the dealers, not just by some dockside survey....I know most of the reputable charter guys report their fish, but every Tom Dick and Harry do not report their catches...and that amounts to a lot of fish...so I am a fan of splitting the quota and allowing only general guys to retain a medium...at least it keeps the domestic market alive and allows for a few fish to be shipped...and there is a quota so like bass once its caught its caught....
I think a lot of little fish end up in restaurants as something else....[img]../images/emoticons/rolleyes.gif[/img]
I disagree with you about the mediums, I'm afraid that it will only serve to provide un-needed income to the guys who will keep fishing, whether they make money or not. I don't even bother getting a permit anymore, I stopped renewing in '02.
I know the recreational fisherman obviously aren't doing it for the money, but they like fishing for them, and they can spend 200 bucks a day on fuel. Why can't they pay 50 dollars to join the tuna association to give it numbers and money, or show up at a meeting?
Sashamy, wouldn't it be better if they all reported what they caught? that way we would be using our quota instead of letting it go un used so other countries can have it. I mean the angling category is where all the quota is being caught, not any of the commercial sectors those numbers were pitiful again this year. We caught half as many each of the last three years, and we did pretty well compared to most. My view is we might as well catch fish somehow so it shows up that we caught fish to ICCAT.
I agree with Mike and Loligo. The issue isn't the taking of the brereders, the issue is that the fish do not get to grow up. We only see the smaller fish that eat sand eels for the most part. The number of fish we see now is very high, however they are almost all under 70 inches. Canada is catching insane amounts of giants, more every year, those fish swim right by our waters and keep going there. They don't come in here becuase their favorite forage (herring and mackerel) is gone. The fall of the bluefin fishery here has a direct relationship to the rise of the midwater trawl fleet. And along with the midwater trawl fleet we have the dogfish problem. The overabundance of dogfish probably puts as much pressure as a second midwater trawl fleet of the same size on the herring. That said, the longliners waiting out by the hague line anihilate the 100-200lb fish. The Med issue is huge, but not nearly as big as the dogfish/midwater trawl/forage issue. Also the fact that ICCAT is going to take our quota away is going to make this null and void anyways. I don't understand how so many people can go out and spend ridiculous amounts of money in tackle, fuel ect. and not donate any money or time to the organizations trying to keep the US fishing. The recreational sector doesn't seem to understand that when we lose our quota, thats the angling category as well.
Junior- I read it quick but on first look I think I could not agree more with everything you are saying. Although I would add that there were some fish around last year that we had not seen in a bunch of years (since the MW boats came). They were those 90-95 or so inchers and they- at times - were here in good numbers in certain areas. Obviously its nothing like we had a mere 8-9 years ago, but it was an improvement. And there were some areas with small bunches of the real slammers, if you knew where to look. Not denying your point that they are predominantly under 70 inches, especially after June, but just wanted to say that we did see a lot more fish last summer than we had the 9 before it. So a glimmer of hope.
And wanted to reiterate that the problem is not our 73 inch limit. We have enormous amounts of fish under 73 inches, its really sometimes funny how many little tuna are around especially from July onwards. I mean we have days we honestly go through 20 miles of small fish jumping in small bunches. Its ridiculousl sometimes.
There is no doubt that we have a lot of missing fish every year as the 70 inchers never seem to become 75 inchers. My concern is twofold- first, I think that there is not enough food for big tuna here. Last summer was certainly an improvement but it needs to get a lot better. While the small fish can eat krill, inch long sand eels, and those inch long pogies, big ones are not going to stay for that. So, we keep our size limit very high and the fish leave before they get to the catchable size because the MW boats wiped out the thing that the tuna come here for, and Canada is reaping the benefits.
Then, secondly, there is the problem of the tuna leaving our waters and being caught by about 9,000 other nations with no rules. Thats partly due to them leaving for more food, I would think, but mostly because of spawning regs. I would guess our fish go to Canada to eat and luckily Canada is the one nation besides us that follows the science and rules. Everyone knows about what happens in the Med, but I think its more the nations fishing in the Central Atlantic (basically just outside our EEZ) from places like Taiwan and Japan that are the biggest problem. I bet you they catch the crap out of those 70-78 inch fish. And it is even more concerning when you realize that Molly's work (and some other scientist's work) hints at there being at least one spawning area out in the middle.
I could go on but you guys know this all and I just wanted to offer my 2 cents. Bottom line is that I think that we have enough guys that if we could all work together we will weather this ICCAT storm. But guys are going to need to get active even if they are extremely discouraged with the state of the fishing here. If we lose our quota, its gone, and it isnt coming back. I will try and put a bunch of info up in the coming days so guys who want can get more involved.
But the answer is not to increase our size limit. That is the opposite of what we should do. People need to realize that it is way harder to get bigger fish since they are a lot smarter. We could load the boat every single day of the summer if we could get the real small ones. Its much healthier to have us fishing the fish we are fishing now, which is over 73 inches. And keep in mind in the harpoon category we can only catch two a day between 73 and 82 inches, so we are already limited with that rule as is.
loligo - 3/23/2008 4:11 PM
One thing that kind of stinks, is we have played by the rules, we've done what we can to be "conservative", but we don't get credit for that from ICCAT, instead we get screwed. Kind of ironic, isn't it?
Makes you wonder why we even bother at all?
It REALLY stinks. We have been cutting quotas here since 1981, and have followed all the science and every rule that ICCAT could throw at us. But instead of being rewarded for that, we have enviros here at home trying to shut us down and then we have ICCAT trying to take our quota from us to give to some other country. We have strict enforcement and go by the rules but look where we are at now. Hopefully our managers, who are supposed to stick up for our interests, will actually start doing that, and soon.
I think our fish swim across at about 90 inches to spawn...but they are bigger in the gulf I believe....Right Bluefin?
It may be that the bigger fish (90 and up) are the ones to make the trek into the Med but I have no doubt that fish in the 73 range interact with longliners just outside our EEZ.
And I dont know for sure about the Gulf of Mexico thing. But there is mounting evidence that there are multiple spawning areas in the West and Central Atlantic, and as time goes by I am confident that tagging data will end up showing that. Its way more complex than the two spawning area theory and we are just starting to see that now.
well said twofin
as for spawning the are haveing a hard time with that they know 73 inch fish are ready to spawn and not sure if smaller ones can spawn to
molly would like to tag over a 1000 small tuna this year and see where they are going since no one really knows were they are going if crossing or not
tuna 
