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"NMFS also proposes initial General category retention limits and a schedule of Angling category retention limits for the 2006 fishing year as follows: General category 3 BFT per vessel; 01 June 2006 – 31 August 2006;73 inches or greater. Angling category; 3 BFT per vessel; 01 June 2006 – 31 May 2007; 47 inches to less than 73 inches. Comments on the proposed initial 2006 BFT quota specifications and effort controls should be sent to: Email: 06BFTSPECS@noaa.gov; Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: http:www.regulations.gov; Mail: Dianne Stephan, Highly Migratory Species Management Division, Office of Sustainable Fisheries (F/SF1), NMFS, One Blackburn Dr., Gloucester, MA 01930; Fax: 978-281-9340. Written comments must be received on or before April 11, 2006. NMFS will hold four public hearings to receive comments from fishery participants and other members of the public regarding these proposed initial quota specifications and effort controls. The public hearing dates and locations are: 1. March 17, 2006, 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., Northeast Regional Office, NMFS, 1 Blackburn Dr., Gloucester, MA 01930; 2. March 22, 2006, 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., West Islip Public Library, 3 Higbie Lane, West Islip, NY, 11795. 3. March 24, 2006, 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., Worcester County Public Library, Ocean Pines Branch, 11107 Cathell Road, Berlin, MD 21811. 4. March 27, 2006, 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., Crystal Coast Civic Center, 3505 Arendell Street, Morehead City, NC, 28557. This notice is a courtesy to BFT fishery participants to help keep you informed about your fishery. Official notice of Federal fishery actions is made through filing such notice with the Office of the Federal Register. For further information contact the HMS Management Division at (978) 281-9260. "
Does this mean that angling category can only take 3 BFT 47"-73" per year and also are prohibited from keeping 1 giant (>73" ) per year?
__________________ Capt. George Full Strike Anglers
F/V Lady Diane
2005 2325 Pacific Plate Alloy Boat
USCG 50Ton Master
Maine Tidewater Guide
but good luck finding many 47" fish this side of the canyons.......
They are kicking a lot of numbers around. They are also talking about a days at sea rule, and closing the angling category to all days except fri-sat-sun.
No matter what they choose, there won't be any sub 47" keepers.
__________________
Terry Jason 35, Yanmar 370 hp, Lots of fun at a leisurely pace
I think this is a good proposal. I am all for an increased size limit for BFT. There are PLENTY of 47" fish around "this side of the canyons"...Just might not be able to take one home on nearly every trip like the last few years...
MORE INFO: This is from an East Coast Tuna email today.
NMFS has published the proposed 2006 bluefin tuna category quotas and as expected they are sizable due to the poor performance of the fishery under unnecessarily tight and outdated management catch restrictions on most categories the past few years. The category quotas are:
General 1,182.8
Harpoon 124
Purse Seine 624
Longline 285
Angling 339
Reserve 282
Trap 5
The total quota is 2,843 mt which is almost double our total annual ICCAT quota of 1,490 mt. The size of the quota will cause serious political problems for the U.S. Delegation to ICCAT next Fall. The problems will fall largely in three areas: 1. demands to transfer U.S. quota to other Nations (with less catch, seasonal or size restrictions on industry) such as Canada and Mexico (the latter a perennial complainer for more quota); 2. a new and probably bad stock assessment influenced largely by declining U.S. catch per unit effort indices and; 3. pressure to accept a cap on rollovers of unused quota forcing the U.S. to give up a serious volume of recent uncaught quota.
I will discuss these issues with other tuna recreational and commercial industry representatives to the U.S. ICCAT Advisory Committee prior to the March 26-28 meeting in the interest of developing a common strategy and voice.
Along with the proposed quotas, NMFS also announced their intention to have closed fishing days for every Saturday and Sunday from November 18 to January 31 and also close November 23 and December 25. Proposing days off in the face of so much uncaught U.S. quota makes absolutely no sense, will deter planning to participate in a late season/winter fishery and demonstrates how far apart industry and NMFS are regarding interpretation of Magnuson Act and ATCA law mandating reasonable opportunity to catch the U.S. share of Atlantic bluefin tuna.
The proposed quotas also indicate that there is no available Angling quota for any school category (i.e. bluefins under 47 inches or about 66 lbs.) fishery North or South in 2006 because a four year 8% tolerance limit was met in 2005. I have written an article for the Fisherman magazines explaining the history of the 8% rule and Large Pelagic Survey problems relative to estimates of angling catches of school fish which will be published later this week. If you want an electronic copy of the article write back and I will forward after March 2.
Public hearings on the quotas and effort controls will be held on March 17 in Gloucester (3:00 p.m. NMFS Blackburn Dr.), March 22 in N.Y (6 p.m. West Islip Public Library), March 24 in Maryland and March 27 in Morehead City (6 p.m. Crystal Coast Civic Center). Written comments will be accepted until April 11, 2006. Comments can be emailed to 06bftspecs@noaa.gov or mailed to Dianne Stephan, HMS Management Division, (F/SF/1), NMFS, One Blackburn Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930.
So if I have this right I can not keep any fish under 47" as a charter boat or a recreational fisherman. Considering that I have not caught any that big, why buy the permit? Personally, a 47" fish is to much meat for us, I would not keep it anyway.
If permit sales go down, how will that affect the NMFS?
Good luck on the "fillet and release"..Hope you don't have a nice boat because it will be owned by NMFS if you get caught..
For me, I think a catch and release on micro fish is fine--i might change my strategy to target the slightly larger fish (bigger squids, slightly slower speed, etc.) but overall not a big deal for me...
Rich Ruais has clearly pointed out the problem: it's with the 8% that was approved by ICCAT in the early 90's (suggested by the US delegation which at that time also agreed that the Angling catagory ought to be 19.7% of the total US quota...this is what the "historical" rec. catch had been estimated to be). It was a concession in an attempt to get those catching fish in the eastern Atlantic to increase their minimum (commercial) size to 6.4 kg (from something much smaller). If you want to work towards a change, I suggest you/we work towards changing/elimination of the 8% rule. Working with the RFA would be a good place to start.
Very good article in this weeks issue of NE Fisherman magazine on this issue. Seems that the methodolgy from determining actual weight of the taken fish is seriously flawed thus resulting in the alledged overage of the 8% when in fact we are under it.
I was actually met at the dock last year by one of the "independent surveyers" mentioned in the the article and can attest to the measurement being a curved measurement rather than caliper or straight length. She used a standard tape and took the curve length for her records (57")..I agree that the system is seriously flawed to the detriment of us rec anglers...
On the NMFS site, it clearly says STRAIGHT lenght, NOT curved. In fact, it goes on to say explicitly, "NOT THE LONGER CURVED LENGTH.
Anywho, I'm catching, taking home, filleting and eating ANYTHING I wish to. As many, and any size. Because I will win in court. The numbers discussed in ALL of the fisheries from the numbers of fish that exisst, to the numbers of fish which were taken, to the sizes of the average fish .... are all pulled out of thin air. And thin air dos NOT hold up in any court of law, PERIOD.
Now that said, I'd be lucky if I could catch biat this year, besides catching any tuna the law will be looking for me for!!!
A bigger part of the problem has to do with the "two species" theory. It assumes that there are seperate populations in the eastern and western atlantic, and establishes seperate management goals for each. That results in european countries pretty much ignoring limits and quotas while we get them strictly enforced.
The problem sii the theory os bogus. There is only one population. They go round and round, round and round.
So on one side of the atlantic, we have no hunting signs up. On the other side, they sell 12" bft's in open air markets.
We can drop our quota to zero and the problems with the populations wouldn't be solved.
As for there being plenty of 47" tuna, it all depends where you roam I guess. That's almost 4 feet of fish. We just don't see a lot of those in the montauk/block island area except during limited runs. They do come through, but like I said, good luck.
Anyway, I don't mind effective management steps. I just don't like the practices over in europe.
__________________
Terry Jason 35, Yanmar 370 hp, Lots of fun at a leisurely pace
Anywho, I'm catching, taking home, filleting and eating ANYTHING I wish to. As many, and any size. Because I will win in court. The numbers discussed in ALL of the fisheries from the numbers of fish that exisst, to the numbers of fish which were taken, to the sizes of the average fish .... are all pulled out of thin air. And thin air dos NOT hold up in any court of law, PERIOD.
That Scout is going to make a hell of a chase boat for the Feds
2006 Tuna Proposal 
