fun times in the derby

does anyone have the stones to get back up here next fall?

Trawler Season Open! In Which NC Has Learned Nothing

remember this?

Yesterday, January 17, North Carolina opened its striped bass trawler season by decree of our old friend Dr. Louis B. Daniel III. If you remember last year’s travesty of miles-long trails of dead striped bass around Oregon Inlet and it pissed you off to see such wanton waste, take a moment to see what changes NC Fisheries management have made this year: instead of a 50-fish/day limit, it is now a 100-fish/day limit. So a netting process designed to ensnare thousands of fish at a time is now limited to a single century per day and all bycatch must be given the heave-ho overboard, which will surely eliminate the embarrassment the state suffered last year. We can be assured that the thousands of dead fish floating in state waters will be happily plucked from the sea by the same flocks of birds surf fishermen once saw as an auspicious sign of live fish. Since there is no daily weight limit, the trawlers will continue to legally cull their catch to maximize profits and do their legal duty of tossing undersized dead fish overboard while destroying the ocean floor.

An article from last year’s fish kill described it like this: “The kill was so large that no one, including the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries, has ventured a guess as to its size.” Since the NC Division of Marine Fisheries doesn’t seem to recall the black eye it got last year, it’s time for us to remind them again. If you read the posts we had on the site last year (this one and this one), then it should be a no brainer to see that this is no way to run a fishery. It’s irresponsible at best, and a flagrant middle finger to those of us who actually give a shit about the state of the marine fishery in the Atlantic. For those of us who had a bad season, and there were a lot of us, don’t think that incidents like these in NC aren’t a factor. Forget for a moment the division between commercials and recs, the trawlers are allowed to do this by law. The trawlers are legally bound to dump overage and undersized fish over the side. In this instance, the law is the problem.

If you remember last year, then you hopefully also recall that the furious backlash the DMF received, primarily in the form of letters, emails, and phone calls from people like you and I, actually made them take notice and change their policy. (You may also remember the grassroots effort a few months ago to pass new legislation regarding menhaden, a movement spearheaded by the Pew Environmental Group, which resulted in a victory for the fish.) Unfortunately, money talks, as they say, and the millions of dollars pouring into the coffers of state representatives, and other appointees who make these decisions, makes for short memories and it’s up to fishermen and women to remind them. I’m going to contact Jamie Pollack (recall the FSIA and possible changes in the Magnuson-Stevens Act in this post) at Pew tonight to see what she can offer as far as info and work out a form letter you can email to the people who are supposed to be responsible for the state fishery. I know that a lot of you think it’s bullshit to send these, but it really only takes a few minutes of your time, and, as the two earlier examples showed, it can make a difference.

For now, here are the names and contact info for members of the NC DMF.

Director’s Office
Louis Daniel – Director
Dee Lupton – Deputy Director
Catherine Blum – Contact
Morehead City Office – (252) 808-8013 or 1-800-682-2632
Via E-mail: Catherine.Blum@ncdenr.gov

Fisheries Management
David Taylor
Morehead City Office – (252) 808-8074 or 1-800-682-2632
Via E-mail: David.L.Taylor@ncdenr.gov

Lead Bioligist: Striped Bass, Central/Southern
Katy West
Washington
(252) 946-6481
Katy.West@ncdenr.gov

—mkl

some reading material for y’all

New issue of Zeno Hromin’s Surfcaster’s Journal is up. Check it out here. Also, I picked up Paul Greenberg’s Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food from the bookstore yesterday. It’s a “food” book, akin to Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemna, but specifically about the history and future of fish as food. There’s a great quote in the beginning of the book from some fish monger at the Fulton Fish Market in the 1940s. “Fish is the only grub left that the scientists haven’t been able to get their hands on and improve. The flounder you ea today hasn’t got any more damned vitamins in it than the flounder your great-great-granddaddy ate, and it tastes the same. Everything else has been improved and improved and improved to such an extent that it ain’t fit to eat.” I wrote briefly about Greenberg’s blog post for the New York Times in this post last month.

I’m entering into my winter phase when I start reading 4-5 books at the same time and finish three of them. I was talking to John Majer about John Skinner’s new bucktail book (“Fishing the Bucktail”) that I want to get. I think John M. already has it; maybe he can offer a review. I already have Doc Mueller’s book on bucktailing, but you can never read too much about the greatest lure ever invented. Speaking of which, Skinner has some really cool fishing videos up on YouTube, a couple of which I’m posting below. What else are you guys doing and reading this winter? I’m starting to put together some dates for our next fishing boat trip… I’m thinking middle of May might be a good time to head back to Sheepshead Bay and the Marilyn Jane V. We’ll see…

fishing the LA River

I was messing around in YouTube just now looking up weird fishing videos and found the one above. In a special case of synchronicity, as soon as I started watching the video, this song “Expectations” by Belle and Sebastian started playing in the background, and I thought, “OK, what kind of hipster films some old crackhead fishing the LA River with Belle and Sebastian as the soundtrack?” This feeling was reinforced as the fish unhooked itself and started to flop back in the water and the old guy yells at the camera man to grab the fish, to which the cameraman responds, “I’m not going to grab that thing, what do I look like?” And I was so ready to filet the guy and say, “You look like a total fucking nancy who’s too scared to pick up a fish and uses Belle and Sebastian as the soundtrack to film crazy guys fishing the LA River.” Well, I was only half right, because I soon realized that music was coming from my own computer, and I was that hipster asshole. Totally busted. I’ll still grab a fish, though. Looks like a good spot for some more Fish Bum stories, if I can ever finish issue #2.

Anyhow, the whole reason I was on (at?) YouTube was to look at this video that my friend sent to me a while ago.

This is pretty crazy. I have to meet a guy like this somehow. Look at the shopping cart moored by the pillar. It’s probably full of lucky rocks.

—hipster asshole, mkl

december fishy-news

Clean up your stuff, the new whitefish, RFA changes its mind on the Fisheries Science Improvement Act…

We’ve entered what we are calling December, though the temperatures are still hovering in the upper 40s. The striped bass season is over and personally, I’m thankful for that since this has been one of my worst years. I won’t get into how many fish I didn’t catch, but I will say I didn’t lose another plug bag to the water or any other things this year. I’m actually trying to unload some gear I’ve acquired over the years here in my NYC rat’s nest and ended up giving my nephew the Shimano Sustain 5000 for Christmas that he can use to catch fluke and snappers. It should be a fun summer for him.

There are a couple news items worth reading this month. The first of which is an article in the NYTimes by Lisa Foderaro concerning the dangers to birds from discarded line and hooks. I’ve always heard this from older fishing figures growing up, with monofilament and plastic six-pack holders the biggest culprits back then. Mono and other line is still a big deal to wildlife and too many fishermen are too careless about letting their loose line fly around the spot or tossing it back into the water.

Bunches of line left on the shore — with or without a hook — can tie ducks, shorebirds and even turtles in knots, while other birds are injured after nibbling a bit of bait left on a hook and swallowing it. Lead sinkers, too, can poison birds that ingest them. Fishermen also cut lines that get snagged on trees, leaving hooks and lures to drift menacingly in the breeze. And some birds will even use fishing line as nesting material, which can ensnare their young.

The problem is not new — or limited to Prospect Park. Birders in other city and state parks report similar cases. The Ocean Conservancy in Washington points out that monofilament fishing line, which is made from an individual fiber of plastic, has been in use since World War II, and as the decades pass, it has accumulated in the water and on land. For a quarter-century, the conservancy has organized coastal cleanups throughout the world on a single day in September. Over that time, 1,340,114 pieces of discarded fishing line have been collected, according to the group.

“Plastics in general are the most persistent forms of marine debris,” said Nicholas Mallos, a conservation biologist with the conservancy. “Once monofilament line becomes loose in the marine environment, it poses a serious threat.”

It’s tough when you have a snag and have to break off, but we should all be conscious about keeping the spot clean and free from loose line and fish guts, and that’s all part of being a responsible human being. Too often we hear about spots getting closed because of litter and it comes down on all of us. It’s not infrequent to see people winding up other people’s loose line at the common fishing spots, but I still can’t understand why they have to. Lots of people will blame immigrants or whatever you want to call the guys keeping short fish and leaving their trash all over the beach (see Jamaica Bay in the spring—that place is a goddamn disgrace to all of us), but it reflects back on all of us as fishermen. The point of it is all of us should be responsible enough to, at the very least, clean up after ourselves.

Another interesting read is a look at the rise and shifts in sourcing of whitefish in the global diet. It’s also from the NYTimes and it’s by Paul Greenberg, the author of Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food. While the cod industry frets over the prospect of increased regulation in the face of what some fishermen are saying are population numbers unprecedented in the last decade, Greenberg says they shouldn’t even worry because cod, as a food staple, is on its way out, to be replaced by tilapia and Pangasius. These two fish are farmed much easier than their wild whitefish relatives. In the case of Pangasius (“a catfish-like creature” from Vietnam—I didn’t know what it was either), the fish can live in extreme close quarters without expensive aerating systems because, when the oxygen is depleted from the water, it just sticks its head through the surface and breathes air. Seems built for industry.

From the article: This irrepressible biological trait (combined with cheap Asian labor and lax environmental standards) has allowed Pangasius to undercut Italian rainbow trout farmers and Greek branzino farmers and has even presaged a re-entry into the American market with the mysterious new name “swai” — now the ninth most consumed fish in America.

What’s curious about both the tilapia and the Pangasius is that they surged in the Western market when the classic fish of the Western whitefish sandwich were encountering troubles. In the late 1980s and early ’90s, the world saw a series of wild whitefish collapses, most notably in the North Sea, the Grand Banks of Canada and the famed Georges Bank off Massachusetts. Today, tilapia and Pangasius often account for more than eight billion pounds of whitefish annually — somewhere between a third to a half of all whitefish production, depending on the vagaries of the wild catch.

So whither whitefish in this next weird century of ours? If I were to bet, I’d say the odds are with the warm-water Asian upstarts. Yes, America still harvests two billion to three billion pounds of Alaskan pollock every year (the keystone species in today’s Filet-O-Fish).

Lastly, the RFA vs. Pew Environmental Group row I mentioned in the last post has been resolved, for now anyway. The RFA has changed its position and is now backing the bill’s opponents, though I’m sure there’s no shortage of things for the RFA and Pew to fight about in the near future. From the RFA: “Species like haddock, cod, summer flounder, black sea bass, porgies, amberjack and even king mackerel, these have all been assessed within the past few years so none of them would qualify for statutory assistance under this particular legislation,” said Jim Hutchinson, managing director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA). “East Coast fishermen especially who’ve spearheaded efforts to reform Magnuson, making national headlines through rallies and organized protests, they’ve suddenly found themselves boxed out of the process by Beltway insiders masquerading as reformers.”

Check the last post for information on how to contact your Congressman concerning the FSIA.

Possible changes coming for the Magnuson-Stevens Act

There are a couple bills floating around in the House and Senate that seek to make changes to the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA), the 1996 law reauthorized in 2006 by the Bush Administration that governs fishing in the country’s oceans. The MSA, which aims to end overfishing and rebuild depleted stocks, requires regional fishery management councils to put in place annual catch limits and accountability measures for every fishery by Dec. 31, 2011. The bills, known as S.1916 in the Senate and H.R. 2304, both refer the the Fisheries Science Improvement Act (FSIA), an amendment aimed at, among other things, extended this deadline to 2014, as well as attempting to make fisheries more accountable to scientific data when determining catch limits. According to a FSIA fact sheet, the bill will:

• Direct National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries to set annual catch limits and accountability measures only on those stocks of fish for which they have up-to-date scientific information to inform that decision.

The two conditions exempting a fishery from the annual catch limit (ACL) requirements are the lack of a stock assessment in the prior 5 years and the absence of any indication that overfishing is occurring. Under the agency’s interpretation of current law, it is planning to establish ACLs on all stocks under management whether or not scientific information exists on the health of the stock. FSIA ensures the agency can manage to the science they have.

• Transitions NOAA Fisheries and the regional fishery management councils to a science-based fishery management framework. With so many stocks of fish lacking sound scientific data, the agency is currently forced to either remove individual stocks from management or move only selected stocks to an administratively created ecosystem management category. This bill authorizes the administration’s informal guidance and broadens the criteria for the designation of a stock’s inclusion in the ecosystem category.

• NOAA Fisheries is preparing to set annual catch limits and accountability measures for some 528 stocks of fish to meet the deadline of December 31, 2011. FSIA extends the 2011 deadline to 2014 for stocks of fish that are not overfished and allows the agency to implement the act.

The bill has no shortage of proponents. Representatives from New Jersey, Virginia, Louisiana, Florida, Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Maryland, New Mexico, Alabama, and California have signed on as co-sponsors of the bill.

In an article, F.J. Eike of Mississippi’s Coast Conservation Association, said “the act is a way of putting the National Marine Fisheries Service on notice that they’ve got to do their job better.

‘We believe the act is a reasonable amendment to the Magnuson-Stevens Act,’ Eike said. ‘It basically says that when we have good data, use it; when we don’t, let’s put off those management decisions until we get it.’

He said lack of reliable data is not just an issue in the Gulf of Mexico, but is a problem that has plagued fisheries management nationwide.

Eike said creation of the Marine Recreational Information Program, an alternative to what has long been described by scientists as the “fatally-flawed” Marine Recreational Fishing Statistical Survey, could help with more accurate data.

He also endorsed more fishery-independent sample collection by marine scientists on the water as a way to get a better read on the true status of all of the nations marine fisheries.”

However, not everyone sees this as the next logical step in the MSA. Jamie Pollock, of the Pew Environmental Group says the bill will actually create more loopholes in the MSA and actually make it less effective, creating more risks for fish stocks mostly by exempting certain fish populations from science-based catch limits. This specifically refers to the first bullet point above: according to Pew, the bill exempts fishery managers from setting annual catch limits if the populations have not been assessed in the past six years, even if the populations are depleted. “This exemption could risk overfishing on a minimum of 48 species and potentially many more in the future if their assessments become more than six years old.

“This would actually create a disincentive to gather information on these species because managers will focus resources where the catch limit requirement remains.”

Pew also argues the bill does nothing to improve fishery science and instead defers the ACL requirement deadline without a specific plan to increase dependability of data collection. “Less fisheries science will lead to less certain management, which will hurt fishermen and fishing communities that rely on stable, sustainable quotas to run their businesses. Instead of creating a level playing field, this bill caters to a few in the recreational fishing industry who don’t want to play by the same rules that commercial fishermen will have to continue to abide by.”

The Pew Environment Group spearheaded the movement to save menhaden that I wrote about last month, so it was interesting to hear Pollack tell me over dinner at Zaab Elee on Second Avenue (by the way, they have snakehead on the menu there, Ben) that the Recreational Fishermen’s Alliance is often at odds with Pew’s views (In one of their press releases, RFA director Jim Donofrio said, “Pew and the Pew-funded advocacy groups like Marine Fish Conservation Network and Ocean Conservancy are not our friends, they don’t want to allow more fishing.”). “RFA is constantly charging us, saying we’re against fishing, saying we’re trying to take fishing away from people,” Pollack said. It isn’t true though, she said. “Pew’s fishery director is actually a huge rec fisherman.” Regardless, Pew and the RFA are at opposing sides here, mostly stemming from interpretation of the FSIA, which Pew regards as shortsighted and is instead pushing for more investment in data collection and population monitoring.

It appears extremely unlikely that the requirement for data on all fish stocks by the end of the year will be successful (I can’t help but think states like NY may be partially responsible for that while some communities fought tooth and nail against the saltwater license, the aim of which was exactly to improve data collection on the state’s fisheries.). While FSIA’s backers say putting annual catch limits on all fish populations, including those without recent stock assessments, is unfair and unnecessary, Pew argues the other side of that coin, saying it’s foolish to declare open season on fish populations without having hard scientific data to back up the health of the stock. Taking a step back, it seems both sides can agree on giving a check to the NOAA and the National Marine Fisheries Service. The amendments offered by the FSIA do appear (at least to me) to be shortsighted and nonspecific. It essentially increases the deadline for the requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Act without requiring solutions for assessments in the meantime. “It would do nothing to improve science, but it would undermine the law by exempting scores of America’s ocean fish populations from annual catch limits and accountability measures,” Pew states.

Contact for NY Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles E. Schumer:

Gillibrand:
Jordan Baugh (jordan_baugh@gillibrand.senate.gov ); 202-224-4451

Schumer:
Anne Fiala (anne_fiala@schumer.senate.gov ); 202-224-6542
Gerry Petrella (gerry_petrella@schumer.senate.gov) Gerry is Schumer’s Long Island regional director

—mkl

Can conservation and commercial fishing coexist?

There was an article in the NY Times this week about this very subject. Most of us recreational fishermen hold the commercial fishing industry in low regard, with what we know from Omega Protein Corporation raping the ocean for its fish oil and the trawlers off the coast of North Carolina that were caught last year dumping striped bass over the side, leaving a trail of dead fish miles long. But is it possible for responsible commercial fishing and conservation groups to work together? After all, a healthy fishing industry is not based on quick cash grabs by wiping out a species (though sometimes one must wonder) but rather a perpetuation of an ecosystem that ensures fruitful seasons year after year.

The Nature Conservancy group is one company trying a new model of responsible commercial fishing. Based in California, the group is working with commercial fishermen to expand the knowledge base of the fishery, maintain fish stocks at healthy levels, and reduce damage done by trawlers to the ocean floor. From the article:

Five years ago, the conservancy bought out area fishing boats and licenses in a fairly extreme deal — forged with the local fishing industry — to protect millions of acres of fish habitat. The unusual collaboration was enjoined to meet stricter federal regulations and the results of a successful legal challenge. But once the conservancy had access to what was essentially its own private commercial fishing fleet, the group decided to put the boats back to work and set up a collaborative model for sustainable fishing.

Bringing information technology and better data collection to such an old-world industry is part of the plan. So is working with the fishermen it licenses to control overfishing by expanding closed areas and converting trawlers — boats that drag weighted nets across the ocean floor — to engage in more gentle and less ecologically damaging techniques like using traps, hooks and line, and seine netting.

The conservancy’s model is designed to take advantage of radical new changes in government regulation that allow fishermen in the region both more control and more responsibility for their operating choices. The new rules have led to better conservation practices across all fleets, government monitors say.

Nature Conservancy also forged a cooperative relationship with the fishermen to obtain information and hands-on knowledge of fishing patterns, yearly trends, and habitats—information that only fishermen could provide. While initially wary of the group’s intentions—what commercial guy would want a conservation group to know these kinds of things so they could close more areas to fishing?—Nature Conservancy eventually bought their way in, literally. They paid commercial fishermen for their licenses and boats when the economy was tanking, essentially buying them out of a bad financial situation and leasing the licenses back to them—effectively making the fishermen employees of Nature Conservancy. Then, “[t]he fishermen soon divulged which nurseries and rock formations needed to be protected and which areas where mature fish congregated should be left open. What resulted was a proposal that included large areas of closings — nearly 4 million acres — that most fishermen thought was fair. It was adopted easily by the fishery council in 2006.” After leasing the licenses back to fishermen, the group handed out free iPads to their new partners with which boat captains update information on targeted species. It’s another method at information collection and one in which the fishermen themselves see the benefit: identifying patterns in fish movement and spawning runs, factors of weather and moon, and areas where restricted fish were found, it seems to be a system that can work.

There are other areas of the country that are experimenting with similar relationships between conservation groups and commercial fishing industries, some of them in the North East. The benefits seem obvious, but like most things, old habits may be hard to break.

—mkl

i’m pretty sure this is one of Ben’s ideas…

maybe not this one, but one exactly like it

—mkl

menhaden vote: a win for the fish

Chalk one up for us; the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Management Commission voted Wednesday to decrease the menhaden harvest by nearly 40 percent. See the NY Times article here. Virginia and New Jersey were the two states that voted against the measure—Virginia isn’t much of a surprise as the Omega Protein Corporation, the company responsible for 80 percent of the commercial “reduction” harvest of menhaden, is located there and lobbied heavily against in opposition. New Jersey, I’m not really sure what their reasons were since the recreational fishing industry is huge there for much of the year. Some key quotes from the NY Times piece:
Jack Travelstead, a representative from Virginia, questioned whether the measure would really increase menhaden stocks, suggesting that environmental factors played more of a role.

“There’s an enormous amount of uncertainty,” he said.

Ben Landry, a spokesman for Omega Protein, said the company was disappointed and felt the commission was responding to pressure from environmentalists and recreational fishermen.

“One thing is certain,” Mr. Landry said. “The industry is going to have to face some significant harvest cuts that will lead to a lot of hard employment questions, and a lot of tough questions as to how they’re going conduct their operation.”

Several recreational fishermen at the meeting said they were deeply encouraged by the vote, which came after the commission received more than 90,000 public comments, mostly in favor of steep catch reductions.

“I think it’s great that so many states recognize how vital this fish is,” said Paul Eidman, a fishing guide based in Sandy Hook, N.J. “It’s just a start, but it’s an important one.”

Mr. Eidman, who founded an advocacy group called Menhaden Defenders, said that smaller schools of menhaden off the New Jersey coast had meant a drop in business for him in recent years.

“The general feeling in New Jersey is if we don’t have bunker the fishing’s terrible,” he said. “And in this economy, people just aren’t going to take a day off from work to fish unless they know the fishing’s going to be really good.”

But H. Bruce Franklin, who wrote “The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America,” said a better step would have been to get rid of the so-called reduction fishing industry — harvesting menhaden for the manufacture of meal and oil — altogether.

“There’s no rational reason for this industry to exist,” he said. “If the maximum measures were taken right now, it might still be a little bit too late. But we’re hoping it’s not.”
…
Unsurprisingly, Omega Protein bemoans the loss of jobs in their industry, nevermind that recreational fishing brings in billions of dollars to the overall economy, not just to feed the coffers of one company. This vote is just a start, as Paul Eidman said. For a dose of reality, the vote does nothing to establish methods of how the minimum reduction of 27 percent, let alone the target 40 percent, will be reached. There’s still a lot of work to do to ensure the resurgence of menhaden from overfishing and environmental factors, but if you caught this line from above, “Several recreational fishermen at the meeting said they were deeply encouraged by the vote, which came after the commission received more than 90,000 public comments, mostly in favor of steep catch reductions”—you’ll see that your voice does count. Individually we don’t have the cash or clout of lobbyists, and we don’t always have the ear of politicians, so it’s imperative to remember how small steps like this can make a difference in what’s important to us.

For more information check out the Menhaden Defenders site, the Pew Environmental Group, who spearheaded the campaign, and Save the Bunker. Get involved if you love fishing.

2011 winners!

2011 Biggest Striped Bass winner Damar Douglas

Ricky, the winner of the 2011 Biggest Bluefish award

Geralyn took a bunch more photos from Saturday night. Check out the set from the closing party and final hours here.