FISHERMEN/FISHERIES MISMANAGMENT

[hammer4reel]

IMO the only reason sea bass float away is your not taking the time to vent them .all boats fishing for them should be required to vent them so they don’t go to waste . No different than when you throw hundreds of sub legal fish back every day during the spring season . If you don’t want to vent them dont fish for them

[1captainron]

Originally Posted by hammer4reel

IMO the only reason sea bass float away is your not taking the time to vent them .all boats fishing for them should be required to vent them so they don’t go to waste . No different than when you throw hundreds of sub legal fish back every day during the spring season . If you don’t want to vent them dont fish for them

Sorry Dan but I don't believe that for one minute, popping the air bladder may help them go back down and out of sight but there's no way that could be good. Pop a human bladder and see what happens.

[hammer4reel]

Originally Posted by 1captainron

Sorry Dan but I don't believe that for one minute, popping the air bladder may help them go back down and out of sight but there's no way that could be good. Pop a human bladder and see what happens.

You don’t have to pop the swim bladder , though many say you do
You vent with a hollow needle barley under the skin . You will hear the gas release by just barely nicking it . . Punching too deep enough to vent the swim bladder many times causes more harm than good , and could easily miss it damaging other organs .

It’s used for many types of baratrauma fisheries to allow fish to easily go back down .
It takes less than a second to do .
Many states require it .
Nj did quite a bit of testing and tagging sea bass and proved it works very well .
We do it right next to you all spring and don’t have a ton of floaters .

Really care about the fisheries we still have you honestly should learn how to fo it .

Is it a little extra time , absolutely.
But it’s better than giving the fish a 5 % chance watching them float away

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by hammer4reel

You don’t have to pop the air bladder .
You vent with a hollow needle barley under the skin . You will hear the gas release . Punching deep enough to vent the swim bladder many times causes more harm than good
It’s used for many types of baratrauma fisheries to allow fish to easily go back down .
It takes less than a second to do .
Many states require it .
Nj did quite a bit of testing and tagging sea bass and proved it works very well .
We do it right next to you all spring and don’t have a ton of floaters .

Really care about the fisheries we still have you honestly should learn how to fo it .

Is it a little extra time , absolutely.
But it’s better than giving the fish a 5 % chance watching them float away

He's running a head boat.. I can imagine trying to vent fish for 30 guys using triple hook bottom rigs.. He'd need to hire 3 extra mates just to vent sea bass...

[hammer4reel]

Originally Posted by bulletbob

He's running a head boat.. I can imagine trying to vent fish for 30 guys using triple hook bottom rigs.. He'd need to hire 3 extra mates just to vent sea bass...

So instead kill a few thousand fish a month per boat then cry there is nothing to fish for .
Venting doesn’t take much more time than dehooking does .

.

[Broad Bill]

U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) includes spending by recreational fishermen because the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) tracks the outdoor recreation economy as part of its GDP calculations, with value added from activities like recreational fishing measured in the Outdoor Recreation Satellite Account. These expenditures on fishing trips, equipment, and related services are considered economic activity that adds to the national GDP through value-added contributions, jobs, and income.

Here's the simplest way of breaking down fisheries management. Recreational fishing is managed based on spend, commercial fishing is managed based on catch. The problem starts at the top with the Department of Commerce and their report card of GDP every month. They could care less if recreational anglers catch one fish as long as we spend. Commercial, on the other hand, adds value by catch which is why more decisions than not favor commercial catch quotas.

Waste of any kind doesn't help fisheries but waste in recreational is driven mostly by ridiculous regulations. Waste in commercial fishing carries an almost 90% mortality rate and is driven by by-catch and smaller sizes of the targeted species that are tossed back dead because they bring lesser catch values. They're both problematic but as less and less fish are available to the recreational sector, what are owner operators or recreational anglers supposed to do. Do commercial operators vent their discards, of course they don't as they're almost all entirely dead by the time they hit the deck and even if they weren't, they just sweep them overboard like trash so the chances of anything caught in the nets surviving are slim to none. No amount of recreational waste will come close to the carnage commercial fishing has on stocks and critical habitat.

[Detour66]

The Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act of 2017 needs to be pushed into action and help out the recreationally fisherman! NOW!

[Gerry Zagorski]

Seems like every species they manage is in the tank with the exception of Seabass, which according to their own science is 2X the targeted sustainable biomass.

If we don't get some significant improvement in our regs for Seabass, it's obvious they'll come up with any excuse possible to keep us from accessing an abundant public resource and it's time for NJ and other states to revolt.

Going to be a very interesting winter for us and the fisheries management entities as the 2026/2027 regulations are set. Stay tuned as this unfolds and lets hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

[Capt John]

I've been saying for years...once NOAA became part of the Department of Commerce, recreational fishing was dead.

The originators of NOAA wanted that department to be part of Department of the Interior, but President Nixon (remember him?) denied that request and put NOAA under the Department of Commerce..why? MONEY.

Want to find waste in government funding?.... look no further than fisheries management

[Broad Bill]

Captain Ron.....I feel your pain and the pain of everyone involved in the travesty called "Fisheries Management". I blame EVERYONE involved in the process from the Department of Commerce, NOAA, NMFA, ASMFC, MAFMC and states which can't get out of their own way. These agencies don't give a shit about stock health anymore, all they care about is the money involved in the exploitation of the resource. Anyone who disagrees would be wrong.

While I agree with Dan about venting sea bass or any fish coming up from the depths that can't be harvested, commercial operators routinely kill 100 times that many fish every trip between sub legal targeted fish, legal targeted fish which have lesser market values back at the docks which get thrown back dead to maximize catch value and incidental by-catch of non targeted species. Does it make that level of waste right, no it doesn't but at the same time it's hypocritical to have different standards for different sectors regarding the same resource. It's no different than what happens to fluke "shorts" every year, thousands pf anglers and party and charter boat captains do their best to release them in the three month season we essentially have only to have them literally slaughtered year round including getting hammered during their offshore migration in the fall when they're spawning by the commercials. EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Every fishery with a commercial presence is literally at risk and will continue being at risk until it's existence is no longer possible.

Dan you said many years ago it won't be long before the oceans bounty will become exclusively "catch shares" driven to the highest bidder, well the sad reality is we're already there.