20biminitwist

Starting Jan 5th 2021 electronic reporting for Hire Charters in the South Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. This is gonna be a PITA and soon all for hire boats will be sector separated like they already are in the GOM. 24 hour surveillance and hourly reporting of the permitted vessel is in the courts for the GOM permit holders. Most likely the Atlantic side will be soon to mirror as they usually do.

I can almost gurtantee catch shares are coming to the for hire sector. The goal is to shrink the fleet just like they did in the commercial sector.

Did any of you charter guys get your little gift from NOAA yesterday?

Merry Christmas.

bunger79

I read about this back in September and it is complete bs. I don’t know what crimes the charter fleets are committing that they need ankle monitoring bracelets and need to call in to mom and dad to make sure they are not violating and thing. Agree this is just the start and hope the courts find it is unconstitutional for a boat owner to have to call mom and dad to ask permission to take their personal property out on the water.

tampapete

So given commercial guys are taking a public resource they dont own for essentially free (you dont own the fish in the ocean, they are not cows you bought and raised). Do you have a problem with being regulated and monitored? I know it sucks for YOUR personal income, but what would you think if a guy bought a tree permit for $1000 and then just started cutting down trees on public land near your house and complained the govt wanted to know where he was cutting trees down and how many? If we didnt have monitoring and regulation commercial fishing, fish stocks would be decimated. Please explain your complaint.

bunger79

So say you own a business and bought yourself a company truck. Now every time you drive that truck you are required to call in to the gov and tell them where you are going and what you are doing with that truck. This mean even if you are taking that truck which you own on a family vacation to the beach. That is what this is requiring the charter fleet to do. I am ok with reporting catch if it is done realistically and those report are put to good use, but this is bs.

tampapete

Thats exactly what happens if you drive a truck. And thats a CDL truck driver using public roads which is far LESS consumption of public resources, yet they track you everywhere (digital driver logs). You should expect way stricter standards than a truck driver given you are actually harvesting free goods from public land. I realize it sucks for you, I understand that and I can see why it would be very annoying.

If you ask me fisherman should have the same thing (GPS tracker/monitor) and have to log every fish catch into an online system before they reach port. If the digital log doesnt match well -- remove license for a period. We would have more accurate numbers and be able to mange better-- plus it would reduce the bad actors who arent follwing the rules and wrecking it for the good guys that do.

bunger79

Saying you want monitoring on all boats is “laughable”!

tampapete

if you want to fish and take more than 2 fish per trip sure. Can I go into a public land forrest and just chop a tree down? You need a "permit" to fish in many States and even fresh water, whats the purpose of a permit if you dont actually know how many they are catching? If you actually really want to mange the resource thats the only real way of doing it properly. We have technology now and you can just enter your catch into an app before port. Its not very hard, nor does it take much effort. You can still do whatever you want. You dont need to talk with anyone or check in, just enter a number into an app, done.

Flying_Norseman

This is what stopped me from doing a charter now and then. I was fine with the licensing, safety gear, inspections, etc etc. But the cost of these permits and the monitoring just killed my idea. I bet the value of those permits will drop significantly with this implementation, and the public will no longer be able to charter a fishing trip offshore in GOM without paying a price that extremely few can afford.

doctor_ake

Sounds like a decent idea.

Lu 1967

What are " catch shares "?

Lemonbayboating

wow did a five second read will have to read through later out of pure curiosity I'm just recreational but seems like a whole lot of work

Southeast For-Hire Electronic Reporting Program | NOAA Fisheries

tunawahoo

Among other things, they want to know how much was the charter fee and how much fuel we burned and it's cost. If you want to monitor fish stocks, why do you need to know what I charged for the charter ?? Also I fuel my boat every 8 to 10 trips, my fuel burn varies due to distance travelled, speed travelled and load carried. I use a stick to check the diesel level, I have found fuel gauges to be really inaccurate, and don't have them on my boat. My tanks are rhomboid shaped and the fueling port is off to the side, so even the stick just gives me a rough idea,( 3/4's full, half full, 1/4 tank). I have to sign off on each trip that the report is accurate when I am just going to guess what the burn is. I have been debating this problem with Southeast Noaa people for a year and their response is the economics people want to know the economic impact of the trips. So they are extrapolating off of my guesses....sounds like the weather forecasters !!

Re-Bait

The only people who approve of Catch Shares haven't studied the ramifications....or are commercial fishermen looking to benefit. I am 100% AGAINST catch shares. So should ALL recreational fisherman!

Rjh1960

If it is a 9 mile natural resources boundary or 24 mile to international waters,how can they have jurisdiction in international waters?

If that is the claim,any country can claim the fish in the sea as a public resource.

I do not know I am asking.

If I go 50 miles out to the pipeline out of fort desoto that is not US territorial waters?

So if one catches a trout out of a mountain stream,you have to give up 1/2 because it is considered a public resource?

Macrophylla

US Exclusive Economic Zone extends 200nm from shore or until it hits another country’s national waters. This was put in place to keep Japanese Chinese and Russian factory fishing operations from decimating cod and tuna after US imposed fishing limitations on our people. Came a little late to prevent most of the damage.

20biminitwist

Plane and simple. This^^^^^^


The process is to shrink the fleet and make a select few sea lords of a natural resource. Just like what has happened for commercial fisherman. Go and look what catch shares have done to small operators. They are toast!

And, Tampa Pete,

Your truck is using the road and ain't harvesting shit!

The bottom line is this. A boat for hire does not sell fish but provides opportunity for others to enjoy and harvest fish from a resource that belongs to all of us.

Charter boats don't sell fish, they only provide opportunity to catch fish that every recreational angler is allowed.

The feds want to make that different.

Every soul that has stepped on my boat is allowed a recreational limit. No More and no less.

bsh102

I know of two very successful Captains that have sold their permits and no longer do offshore charters because of this crap. The expense is quite eye opening. The captains have to pay for the service to monitor their boat. They just no longer charter past the 9 mile line.

20biminitwist

3K for the install of VMS plus the monthly fee for monitoring and the associated BS.

As I said, the plan is to shrink the fleet of the 1200 permits and a select few in the entire GOM from Florida to Texas just like Buddy with ARS will become multi millionaires and never get their feet wet!

I will say this with this convoluted system. I paid and maintained my permits before the moratorium. They started at 25 bucks a year and are 90 bucks a year now and worth 25K plus today.. I even bought into all the Atlantic permits and hold them for a mere few bucks for dolphin/ wahoo and reef for hire. 10 Buck add to my GOM permits.

I may be rich soon!

The system is fatally flawed.

Ryan H.

while it's BS, it was the unethical overfishing and under sized folks who bring this on the industry

20biminitwist

Yep, bad in all users on both sides.


Do you think 12 hundred permitted charter boats compare to 10 million recreational boats in the entire GOM?
Very weak response!

I was boarded today. The FWC officer was shocked. No need to measure a damn thing.