MAKING WAVES - Summer 2016

MakingWaves Waves Summer Summer2016 2016 Making

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M A K I N G

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The Official Publication of the Recreational Fishing Alliance

Meet Crazy Alberto - RFA Member The Great Cobia Fiasco of 2016 Farwell to an RFA Champion MRIP Worries and Catch Shares When Cod was King!

SUMMER 2016

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Making Waves Summer 2016

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M A K I N G

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MakingWaves Waves Summer Summer2016 2016 Making

The Official Publication of the Recreational Fishing Alliance

FROM THE PUBLISHER’S DESK

By Gary Caputi INSIDE THIS ISSUE

YOU LIKE US - YOU REALLY LIKE US!

From the Publisher’s Desk

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The latest statistics are in from the Spring 2016 Issue of Making Waves and it garnered the largest readership of any issue to date. Literally thousands of our members, non-members and folks in the press are reading it and hopefully learning about the issues effecting recreational fishing.

Making Waves combines marine fisheries politics and regulation with interesting stories about members, fishing and fisheries. It keeps you abreast of what the Recreational Fishing Alliance, the leading political action organization for anglers, to protect your right to fish. We must be doing something right because the readership just keeps on climbing.

Please pass the link along to your friends, fishing club members and anyone else who partakes of our favorite sport. The more people we reach with our message the strong we all become. Not a member, get off the couch, go to your computer, click on www.joinRFA.org and do the right thing.

Executive Director’s Report: It all Comes Down to the MSA

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Environmental Bullies!

by Dr. Molly Lutcavage

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The industry is also getting more involved with the RFA as new companies come on board as corporate sponsors. Companies like Yamaha, Contender Boats, Regulator Boats, Salt Life Optics, Viking Yachts, AFW/Hi-Seas, Electrics Fishing Reel Systems, Inc., International Paint, HMY Yacht Sales, Maxel Reels and more. We hope to announce some new corporate sponsors in the next issue, but look for their ads in our pages and remember which companies are fighting the good fight right alongside us.

Check out this issue for great information and some very interesting reading. We're sure you'll like this one. It's been a labor of love.

Memoriam to James Winn

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More on Catch Shares with guest editorial by Nils Stolpe

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Breaking News: MRIP Worries for NE anglers

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Meet Crazy Al - RFA member and angler extraordinaire

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REGULATORY NEWS: The great cobia fiasco

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When Cod Was King!

A must read on the history of the cod fishery

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News from NOAA

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Trip of a Lifetime Returns: Wild Strawberry Lodge Take 2 - Details in the next issue

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On the Cover: Montauk Dreaming Photo by Alberto Knie

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Executive Director’s Report

By Jim Donofrio

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO MAGNUSON-STEVENS

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ake a fish managed under the current version of the MagnusonStevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, pretty much any one of them, and you will see a fishery that is being managed using a formula designed to fail. Fishery management is not rocket science, but since the MSA was reauthorized with a host of new triggers, caveats and new assignments of committee power it has pushed one healthy fishery after another to the brink of being off limits to recreational fishing. Just look at red snapper, black sea bass and most recently cobia. That surely was never the purpose of the Act, but that's what's happening.

decades. Fishermen and the businesses that rely on fishing to survive are shouldering the brunt of over regulation while the NGO's dance their dance of joy. Regulation for regulation’s sake has become the goal of a host of Pew funded groups and others like the Environmental Defense Fund, Ocean Conservancy, Wild Oceans, and the Ocean Champi-

power to the Science and Statistical Committees of the eight regional fisheries councils to dictate directives to council members to shut whole fisheries down when arbitrary triggers are reached.

This occurs even when data is poor or nonexistent, even when fisheries are robust. The RFA predicted many of the fish that recreational anglers pursue would have restricted access as the stocks rebounded and grew. It only got worse with NMFS continued use a of fatally flawed data collection systems coupled with zero flexibility to manage. It leaves anglers and industry in a tough spot.

Cobia, Sea Bass, Summer Flounder, Red Snapper and grouper are all treated the same under the broken Magnuson Stevens Act.

Proponents of the “don’t fix Magnuson, it’s working” mantra do have a legitimate point. The law has helped to rebuild stocks of many species of recreationally important fish; however, it has failed to allow access to many of those fisheries that are now healthier than they have been in

ons.

During the 2006 reauthorization of the Act, the RFA was a lone voice in the wilderness rebelling against the some of the newly proposed provisions in the law.

We fought valiantly against passage, but the deck was stacked from the onset.

One of the big problems was the reauthorization gave absolute

Our industry and community of anglers supports the tenets of HR 1335. This legislation, if passed by both Houses and signed into law by a new President, will save our fishing and our industry. We must continue to keep the pressure on Congress and then the new administration in 2017.

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Environmental Bullies!!

How Conservation Ideologues Attack Scientists Who Don’t Agree With Them.

When science is selectively used for pushing an agenda, you see the ugly side of conservation activism for the Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Editors Note: Dr. Molly Lutcavage is a widely recognized oceanographer who has spent the better portion of her many years of reseach specializing in studying Atlantic tunas with particular emphasis on Atlantic bluefin tuna. She is the director of the Large Pelagics Research Center at the School for the Environment, University of Massachusetts Boston. She is one of the most approachable, knowledgeable and approachable researchers in the field, always willing to share the latest discoveries from the field and never afraid to be outspoken when her research findings are contrary to the pat answers provided by so-called scientists under the sway of the environmental groups pushing doom and gloom scenarios.

The following was published as an extensive blog in the Large Pelagics Research Center website and was reprinted extensively in the media. I am sure you will find it of particular interest.

I

'd like to think that it’s not personal. I like to think it’s because an environmental writer needs to make a living and sell his books, any way he/she can. And needs to rack up awards for saving the planet, or the fish, or the sea turtles…

In science, there’s always disagreement among experts and well-respected, conscientious nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working on tough questions. We are used to that. And we work things out as a team using objective scientific meth-

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ods and evidence. A good scientist should be ready to google him. make mistakes, to be wrong sometimes, to be called out, or to miss something obvious that someone else runs with and gets credit for. Or to get lucky with research, to be in the right place at the right time - we experience it all. And women scientists that make it all the way to professional positions most likely have already been hit on or harassed or received unfair treatment, because there are fewer of us. Women scientists know plenty of these stories. We receive training for that too, even though it rarely helps.

But I was not trained how to respond to environmental bullies. Or scientific fraud. How do you react to false, deceitful accusations from non-experts, from unethical individuals, from persons or NGO’s with books to sell, or a point of view to peddle to an unsuspecting public or community, or politicians. Points of view, that when challenged by facts and data, get in the way of fund-raising campaigns, messages to the media, book sales, rich donors, and perhaps the most insidious - attempts to influence US fisheries and ocean policies.

In 1993, after learning that Edgerton Research Lab scientists of the New England Aquarium (NEAq) were working with commercial bluefin fishermen and spotter pilots to “sea truth” the availability and distribution of tuna schools in the Gulf of Maine by conducting cooperative aerial surveys, the attacks began. The most blatant was a letter from Carl Safina to Greg Stone, then the Director of Conservation at the NEAq, copied to other members of the ocean conservation organization of which the NEAq was a member.

These were the early days of the Pew Oceans Fellows Program, housed at NEAq. Apparently NEAq scientists could not work in research partnerships with fishery stakeholders without being duped, or used, or something.

Although I still haven’t physically located my copy of the letter, essentially, it chastised us, Edgerton Research Lab (ERL) scientists, for conducting aerial surveys of tuna schools. Safina’s usual quote was that bluefin were being fished, like “the last buffalo, to the brink of extinction”. He used that analogy often, usually in association with “fishermen’s greed”. And so it was easy to attack the NEAq ERL for allowing a lowly female whale volunteer, “leading a misguided project”, to be manipulated by the fishing industry. Why would NEAq scientists want to count the tuna, to see what was really going on - it might disrupt the campaign to stop commercial fishing and shut down the historic New England tuna fleet.

In case you don’t know who Carl Safina is. Just

As early as 1992, Carl Safina tried to get bluefin tuna listed under Appendix I (i.e., endangered) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). His staff writer at the Blue Ocean Institute, the former brand of the Safina Center, Denis Devin touted:

The fish conservation movement took a giant leap forward in 1991, when Carl Safina roiled the stagnant waters of international fisheries management with a bombshell of a proposal to save bluefin tuna.

With the help of a grant from the Packard Foundation, Safina investigated how to get fish recognized as wildlife by conservation groups and regulatory agencies alike.

Safina’s strategic choice for getting conservation groups to recognize fish as wildlife and to shake regulatory agencies from their insular complacency was to focus on bluefin tuna, a member of the “charismatic megafauna” (big, compelling animals) representing everything that was wrong in fisheries management…

This strategy struck gold, when then National Marine Fisheries Service director Bill Fox named Safina to the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council from 1991 to 1994, giving him visibility, influence and financial leverage.

Back in the 90s, bluefin fishermen said that spotter pilots could see, in a single day, as many adult bluefin that were supposed to exist in the entire western Atlantic in just a few surface schools in the Gulf of Maine alone. No federal fisheries scientists would fly to validate the fishermen’s observations, so Dr. Scott Kraus, director of the right whale research group and whale aerial surveys, stepped in to find out. And he hired me to run the surveys after an inquiry about his sea turtle data. I’d completed an oceanography

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Page 10 PhD, two postdocs, and recently left a job in the Dept. of Interior as an endangered species scientist to get back to research, which I loved. I had been studying leatherbacks, a warm bodied turtle, and bluefin tuna were a warm bodied fish. And incredibly interesting. My UBC postdoc supervisor, Dr. David R. Jones, was an expert on their blood. And there were huge gaps in biological understanding - in other words, a scientific frontier to explore!

Above. Giant tuna school from the air, taken when film camera was the best tech in the 90s to shoot from the air.

Below: And It’s always a thrilling (especially when you are claustrophobic) experience to ride on an Aeronca Champ plane.

And down below. The Atlantic bluefin tuna, an iconic top predator. (C) Paul Murray Photography

Making Waves Summer 2016

In his clumsy communication to discredit our survey work, Carl Safina made no attempt to confirm the scientific credentials of the scientist running the study (me), nor her highly respected collaborator, Dr. Scott Kraus. In fact, by doing our job as scientists, using aerial survey methods to investigate real-time, surface abundance of bluefin schools, we were disrupting the ocean conservation group’s efforts, especially that of Safina, to list Atlantic bluefin tuna as an endangered species. Apparently, by whatever means necessary.

The published spotter survey results eventually provided independent observations that rebutted Safina’s portrayal of western Atlantic bluefin as an endangered species down to a few thousand individuals. The study established the local assemblage as larger than one hundred thousand giant bluefin, at the surface alone.

Since our first research projects over 25 years ago, my lab and our collaborators and students have built a diverse body of peer reviewed science covering extensive aspects of the biology, life history, physiological ecology, reproduction, diet, oceanographic associations, and fisheries dynamics of Atlantic bluefin tuna.

We published over 75 research studies on western bluefin. Most of it was new, or challenged the status quo of bluefin biology used in stock assessment. We documented a lower age at maturity, extensive, Atlantic-wide mixing, complex annual migration patterns, and effects of prey dynamics and ocean conditions on their movements. This holistic body of research showed the western Atlantic bluefin population to be far more resilient and larger than that being represented by some NGO’s. Yet this substantial scientific body of evidence, most of it noted by historic studies

by Frank Mather and Peter C. Wilson, has been conveniently ignored by those with ideological agendas, even today.

Click here to see a great video about Frank Mather

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Enviro Bullies rarely confront their targets face to face.

Since the 1990’s, they’ve made pretty impressive attempts to mislead about bluefin science. And to influence US fisheries managers, politicians and the direc-

Back in the heyday, researchers and volunteers of the Large Pelagics Research Center, Gloucester, MA.

tion of research funding, all the way up to the White House. We stuck to our research goals, but when Congressional earmarks funding the Large Pelagics Research Center (LPRC, Univ. of New Hampshire), and its role model, the Pacific Fisheries Research Program (Univ. of Hawaii), went away, we faced vastly downsized research budgets. Actually, just when the Centers had amassed a substantial body of credible, cutting edge fisheries science, and established their true worth, both pelagic fisheries science Centers went off the cliff, into real extinction. Meanwhile, major funding began streaming in to some ocean–focused NGO’s, and their spokesperson scientists.

In 2013, former students, collaborators and I witnessed the Pew Oceans Campaign and partners mislead, in their press releases and statements to US and Canadian fisheries managers, experts’ consensus regarding the status of the Atlantic bluefin population in Pew’s Fact Sheet representation of Best Available Science. And more specifically, that LPRC’s peer reviewed research that challenged their take away message, that the Atlantic bluefin population trajectory was downward, and that they were in danger. They labelled our work as well as consensus science from the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), as “unsubstantiated hypotheses”. Amanda Nickson, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Bluefin Campaign, phoned from Vancouver to berate my colleagues and me for responding to the Pew Fact Sheet, which dramatically misrepresented science. We had corrected it with our own fact sheet, and they were not happy to be called out by credentialed bluefin experts.

na reality show, on roll out, put me up against Safina’s video blurb about the overfished, endangered bluefin on the show’s website. What can you do when a lauded environmental writer, one with a PhD in seabird ecology, that receives accolades and is often the go to authority on Atlantic bluefin for the New York Times, National Public Radio, high media profile journals Science and Nature (even though he’s not exactly running a research lab, is he?), lacks the ethics most of us practice when we conduct science. To claim to be an expert where you are not, to mislead the public, to falsely disparage those that don’t support your ideology, to repeatedly and falsely allude to a woman scientist being bought by fishermen, “in their pockets”, whatever works, when his ideology or views expressed in books or blogs or lectures are shown to be false. Is this what conservation leadership has become? Incidentally, another blatant attempt to disparage and mislead was accomplished by Pew and their scientists in Quicksilver, by Kenneth Brower, published in National Geographic Magazine March 2014 story on Atlantic bluefin tuna.

The quotes look pretty familiar:

Tuna science, always politicized, has recently become much more so. As it is no longer possible for ICCAT to simply ignore scientific advice, there is now an effort to massage the science. “There are inherent uncertainties about these stock assessments,” Amanda Nickson, director of global tuna conservation at the Pew Charitable Trusts, told me. “We’re seeing a mining of the areas of uncertainty to justify increases in quota.”

Industry-funded biologists propose that there might be undiscovered spawning grounds for Atlantic bluefin. It is possible, of course, but there is no real evidence for the proposition. The idea seems awfully convenient for an agenda favoring business as usual.

Wow, “awfully convenient for an agenda”, in this Nat Geo story repeating Pew’s positions and only their scientists that support it, Drs. Barbara Block and Safina. So now we have even more evidence that their representations are wrong. Gee, National Geographic Society Research and Exploration had actually funded two of my research projects.

By the way, Brower did conduct a phone interview with me, but at the end, chose not to include my perspective in his story. Let’s see if they print a correction.

Here we are again, Carl Safina. Yes, you’re certainly not the only enviro bully out there, not the only one wrong again, but this time, I’m calling you out. Let the Maybe it’s because National Geographic’s Wicked Tu- ocean conservation community represented by Pew

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tuna campaigns and their chosen scientists see the latest, the peer reviewed science finding on Atlantic bluefin tuna spawning areas in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, early edition on 7 March 2016, “Discovery of a new spawning ground reveals diverse migration strategies in Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus)”, by Richardson and coauthors.

fishing industry, with which she enjoys a cozy relationship, would love it if there were. That’s because they think it would help their denial that the bluefin is really as depleted as every other independent academic and government scientist and even the Atlantic tuna commission say it is.

Judge for yourself. See what an environmental bully says, in his own words.

Oh, and Carl, I didn’t spend my whole career doing what you said I did “pie in the skying”, etc. etc.

There are other examples, but we’ll save those for my book!

Lutcavage has spent much of her career pie-in-theI’d be happy to discuss my 36 years in sea turtle reskying about unknown holy grail spawning areas. The search and conservation, but you’ll ignore that too.

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RFA MOURNS THE PASSING OF

JAMES WINN

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n March 29, 2016 Jim Winn passed away at the age of 79. A fixture at hunting and fishing shows in the New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania region and volunteer with the Recreational Fishing Alliance since the organization's inception 20 years ago, Jim was known for his passion for fishing and for striking countless sparks of interest in the next generation of anglers while coaching children of all ages.

Despite his sometimes feisty personality, Jim had thousands of friends and was always ready to

give you an earful on fisheries issues and the importance of anglers working together to protect their right to fish. Jim was always looking out for the recreational fishing community.

"Jim has been a loyal friend to me and the RFA for 20 years and his dedication to fighting for the rights of anglers was apparent at every event he attended," stated Jim Donofrio on losing his friend. "Jim will be missed by all of us at the RFA and the thousands of people who looked forward to seeing him at fishing events."

Members of the RFA everywhere will miss Jim's smiling face, his warm greeting and his love of the sport. Rest in peace friend and colleague.

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GET THE MESSAGE

By Jim Hutchinson, Jr. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you back.”

to

I’m notorious for letting voicemail messages pile up. Friends and family – as well as The Fisherman sales staff - have gotten to the point where they don’t leave many messages on my voicemail anymore, knowing that I’ll eventually just hit redial anyway without actually listening to the message itself.

“Didn’t you listen to my voicemail?”

Umm. No. But at least I call back promptly. Most of the time anyway.

the kids. He was mentor to each and every one of ‘em that ever sat in that fighting chair - thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of future big game fishermen who battled big gamefish at those outdoor shows. When it came to the rights of sportsmen, Jimmy Winn could be as mean and cantankerous as a spring blue, yet as a cute and as cuddly as a blowfish when it came to the next generation. He was a mentor to his own grandson Owen who he spoke of often, and a fixture at the hunting and In the week leading up to the prior Greater Philadelphia Outdoor Sports Show, Jim suffered a stroke fishing shows. and was unable to man the RFA booth. Folks had a Jim loved fishing Absecon Inlet, working the bridghelluva time just trying to find five or six volunteers es and sod banks at night on his little tin boat, like to handle what Jimmy has done alone over the some character from a Hemingway novel. We course of several days at a show! I called him the spoke often about fishing together, but never actuweek after and wasn’t able to get through. But I ally got a chance to do so. I always assumed that continued to get regular updates about his status in he was only being cordial anyway – like many the weeks after, as he was getting shuffled in and nightshift anglers, I think he enjoyed that alone out of a couple of South Jersey rehab centers. We time too much, bucktailing for trophy stripers which all knew this was the same son of a gun who beat never came to the scale. the tar out of cancer years before, so we figured a “I lost a monster last night,” he’d say from time to stroke was a walk in the park. time when dropping by my office.

God I hate cellphones. During that Suffern Show, I “Yeah, well you should’ve seen the one I lost at the left the phone in the charger and missed Jimmy’s jetty,” I’d respond, two Jims trying to out-jive one call, and now I’m kicking myself today because of it. other on mystery fish, won and lost.

Sure, I laughed later at his 2 minute message of If life is an endless series of lessons, I’ve learned an muffled silence, surely his way of digging at me knowing I never listened to my voicemails anyway. important one this year - if there’s someone you’ve always wanted to fish with, or always wished you On March 29th, my friend Jim Winn died. could fish with more, put down the cellphone and Jimmy was a longtime RFA volunteer, as gruff and go. as ornery as anyone you’d ever meet - until it came Life is short, fish hard with family and friends.

On March 11th, I did not. That was the last day my friend Jim Winn called me. I was working the World Outdoor Expo in Suffern, NY, tied up at the booth at the time. For many years, Jimmy ran the kids fighting chair at the show inside the RFA booth, and I figured he was probably calling to bust my hump because I was working a weekend show and he was not.

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ANOTHER PUSH FOR CATCH SHARES Reprinted Courtesy FishNet-USA/May 11, 2016

by Nils E. Stolpe Editors Note: The RFA has been consistently opposed to the use of "Catch Shares" in U.S. fisheries that have a recreational component. The assigning of valuable public resources to individuals or corporations as we have seen most recently in the red snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico is a dangerous and grossly unfair management practice! Catch shares have been used with less public outcry in select fisheries in Alaska and for fisheries like surf clams, which have no recreational component, in the Atlantic. We thought our reads might like to explore the opinion of one of the leading commercial fisheries advocates on the subject. Nils E. Stolpe has been exploring the motives and activities of NGO's for years and we think you will find his most recent blog interesting and quite informative.

The only problem with this story is the title because according to RFA Managing Director, John DePersenaire, "This is not another push, but a long-term goal of the environmental coalition." And he has the data to prove it.

D

on’t get the idea from this that I oppose any fisheries management regime.

What I do oppose is having the future of particular fisheries determined by people and/or organizations and/or corporations with no meaningful ties to and no concern about the existing industry and the people in it. Irrespective of whether the decisions have their roots in in corporate, ENGO or foundation board rooms, the halls of academe or “investment” seminars, as the ongoing debacle in the New England groundfish fishery so clearly and tragically demonstrates, if the fishing industry doesn’t have final say in the imposition of measures that its members will be working with, the affected communities will suffer.)

anniversary of its passage, the proponents of catch shares in general and individual transferable quotas in particular, are mounting a public relations barrage in a continuation of their efforts to “privatize” our fisheries.

Most recently, the April 19 New York Times Opiniator column How

Dwindling Fish Stocks Got a Reprieve by freelance journalist Sylvia Rowley, touted the benefits of catch shares by citing the example of the West coast groundfish fishery. It also quoted catch shares proselytizer and NOAA ex-head Jane Lubchenco, back on the Environmental Defense board after her brief sojourn in the almost-real world of the federal bureaucracy, on catch shares: “If you have 5 per-

cent of the pie, you’d like to see the

With talk in the air of an upcoming pie grow.”

Magnuson Act reauthorization Implicit in all of the pro-catch which is coincident with the 40th shares rhetoric, as Ms. Lubchenco’s

quote above amply demonstrates, is the idea that this particular form of fisheries management is necessary for healthy fisheries. She apparently believes, or wants us to believe, that fishermen who don’t own a part of a fishery aren’t interested in having a larger part of that particular pie. In fact nothing could be further from the truth.

“Successful” fisheries management requires only three things. The first is an accurate determination of the significant sources of mortality on a fish or shellfish stock and the relative magnitude of those sources.

The second is ensuring that all of those sources of mortality that can be controlled are controlled. The third is determining on an ongoing basis what the acceptable (sustainable?) levels of harvest are and assuring that those levels are maintained.

Of course this is hardly possible in

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the context of so-called fisheries management today, which is in reality fishing management. In that context, which we seem to be stuck with, the three requirements are a bit different. The first would be an accurate determination of what the sustainable level of harvest is (i.e. the quota). The second would be the design management measures that insure that the quota is caught but not exceeded. The third would be the enforcement of those management measures.

As far as the fish or shellfish are concerned, how the quota is divided up is irrelevant.

cluding Ms. Lubchenco both while she was there, when she was in charge of NOAA and now that she’s back at EDF, so bullish on catch shares if it makes no difference to the critters in question? Perhaps because it allows them to use their tax exempt millions to finance fishing operations and dictate how the fishermen they are financing have to fish, sort of like having fishermen owe their souls to the company store (See The California Fisheries Fund, EDF’s unique way of controlling fishermen and fishing, at).

Or perhaps it’s to fatten the bank accounts of EDF and/or its friends, In fact, Ms. Rowley’s words reflect directors, members, etc. From the this. She writes that in the years transcript of a talk by then EDF from 2000 to 2015 “the tally of fedWest Coast Vice President David erally managed fish populations Festa to the Miliken Institute Global that have been rebuilt went from Conference in 2009: zero to 39” and then a few paragraphs later “the total number of “You know, so how do I – you

federal fisheries using catch shares rose from five in 2000 to 16 in 2015.” In its annual Status of the

know, but I know that if I fix all that, I can be profitable in the future. So I pull together investors and I buy (fish and shellfish) Stocks report to the factory and I sink a whole Congress for 2015, NOAA Fisheries bunch of money into it and, you reports on the overfishing status of know, retrain workers and then get fish and shellfish stocks. From 2000 paid back on the profits on the othto 2015 the stocks managed via er end. catch shares increased from .5% to 5% but the number of stocks where overfishing was not taking place remained at 91%. The proportion of fisheries managed by catch shares went from an insignificant level to a minimally significant level, yet the overall health of the stocks, as measured by the proportion of them in which overfishing was occurring, didn’t change at all. Could it be that Ms. Lubchenco’s “catch shares revolution” is, to quote Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice, “full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing?” (Note that NOAA Fisheries recognized 905 stocks in 2000 and 313 stocks in 2015.)

So why are the people at EDF, in-

Well, why can’t we do that with fisheries? Well, first – and I hope David will address some of this – first, we have to have commitment from the government to the regulatory change.

And then, second, we have to have capital. And that’s where I think public-private partnerships come in because the government has the mandate and the authority to change the rules, but it doesn’t have as much capital as it once had.

it’s a perfect partnership.

So that’s the second thing that I think needs to happen.

How much money is to be made out there, and how do we think about the risks associated with this?

You know, that’s where we need your help.

Just one statistic, in all of the catchshare fisheries that have transitioned over, the value of that fishery tends to increase by – or the shares in that fishery tend to increase by a factor of four. That’s an average. The current U.S. industry is a $5 billion industry.

So, you know, it’s not – it’s not telecommunications-size money, but it’s real money.”

Now there’s a novel idea – turning over the ownership of a heretofore public resource to private sector investors so they can profit from the harvest and sale of that resource. Of course Mr. Festa didn’t mention that the world’s seafood supply has become so large and that the transportation of seafood from anywhere to here has become so cheap that the U.S. fishing industry has little or nothing to do with setting prices anymore. So where’s Mr. Festa’s investor’s profits likely to come from? Out of the holds of the fishing boats and out of the pockets of the fishermen, it would seem.

But even more troubling is the control that “outside” groups would gain over fishing – or not fishing.

As EDF’s California Fishing Fund does such a good job of demonstrating, it’s not who owns the fishing permits, it’s who – or what – controls them that matters. SupThe private sector has the capital but, of course, doesn’t have the re- pose that an ENGO serving as the sponsibility of defending the public “company store” for a large numtrust way the government does. So ber of permit holders in a particular

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fishery decides that boats should not be fishing in a particular area. If the agreements that the permit holders had with the ENGO allowed it, the ENGO could simply dictate that the boats could no longer fish there. Bye, bye fishing community (or communities)! To suggest that this wouldn’t happen would be to ignore the devastation that various ENGOs have, with no qualms or compunctions, inflicted on logging communities in the Northwest for almost three decades.

Catch shares schemes are supposed to be designed so that no person or other entity can own over a certain number of permits in a particular fishery. In the first place, over several hundreds of years, corporate law has been evolving more and better ways of protecting the privacy of corporate owners. Piercing the corporate vail isn’t a trivial legal exercise, nor is the ability of a federal agency to do it successfully a foregone conclusion.

But that’s not the worst case scenario. We’re all far too familiar with the apparently unbridled thirst for power and profit that afflicts many of our largest corporations, as we are familiar with the increasing competition for ocean access by a host of industrial interests for mineral extraction, energy development, transmission cables/pipelines, offshore aquaculture, transportation and who knows what else. Many of these corporate interests could afford to acquire – then shut down – fishing rights in large areas, perhaps allowing them to dispense with what to some corporate leaders must be those annoying distractions, fishermen.

As a purely speculative what if, what if the people at Microsoft de-

Making Waves Summer 2016

cided that a large part of their business in the future was going to be in offshore, submerged data centers (see Microsoft Plumbs Ocean’s Depths to Test Underwater Data Center}. Obviously such data centers would benefit from being close to the demand for them – users of the so called “cloud.” And what if the optimum locations for some of these data centers, the wave/tide generators that powered them, and the cables that connected them to onshore internet hubs were in prime fishing areas? What would it take for Microsoft – or a foundation with close ties to Microsoft – to gain control of the permits of those bothersome fishermen who wanted to continue fishing where they had for generations and to have them fish elsewhere, or to have them ride off into the sunset with their saddlebags stuffed with Microsoft dollars? How divorced is this scenario from what Mr. Festa and EDF, ex NOAA Head Jane Lubchenco and, perhaps inadvertently, Sylvia Rowley and the New York Times are pushing.

but weasel words, Ms. Rowley wrote ‘overfishing is often seen as a

And what’s to stop them?

“primary directives in this election season.” One of his three directives was “to resist the urge to put ratings, clicks and ad sales above the imperative of getting it right.”

(2015 revenues for some larger corporations: Walmart - $482 billion, Samsung - $305 billion, ExxonMobile - $268 billion, Apple - $233 billion, Amazon - $107 billion, Hewlett Packard - $111 billion, Microsoft - $93 billion, Google - $74 billion, Dell - $59 billion, Intel - $55 billion, Sunoco - $44 billion. The across the dock value of U.S. commercial landings in 2014 were $5.5 billion.)

It’s interesting to note that Ms. Rowley saw fit to include W.F. Lloyd’s Tragedy of the Commons, which was popularized by ecologist Garrett Hardin in 1968, as a pro-catch shares argument, though she made it by using what it would be difficult to classify as anything

classic case of what economists call the “tragedy of the commons.”’

What Lolyd and Hardin were describing could only be considered unregulated commons, with no limits in place to control their use.

Such is hardly the case in U.S. fisheries (or in many other fisheries around the world).

Our domestic fishermen and our domestic fisheries are among the most regulated in the world, and anyone who thinks he or she can draw parallels between any of our federal fisheries and Lloyd’s/Hardin’s unregulated commons should spend an half an hour or so doing some rudimentary background research.* Even the Wikipedia entry for “tragedy of the commons” states in the second paragraph “commons is taken to mean

any shared and unregulated resource….” (my emphasis).

Jim Ruttenberg, media columnist for the NY Times wrote in his 05/05/16 column that political journalism had lost sight of its

While he was writing about coverage of national electoral politics, this directive should apply to every kind of journalism, and it should apply every day. I hope that Ms. Rowley was paying attention. ____________________

*Background research is something that print and broadcast journalists used to do, or used to have done, in those olden times when “getting it right” was as important as Jim Ruttenberg still thinks it is.

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Making Waves Summer 2016

NOAA’S RECREATIONAL CATCH ESTIMATES OF REAL CONCERN TO NEW ENGLAND’S ANGLERS AND CAPTAINS Commentary by Capt. Mike Pierdinock Chairman, RFA Massachusetts Chapter

It often seems as if we’re traveling on a perpetual rollercoaster when it comes to the stocks of many species of fish that recreational fishermen target, which range from plentiful to points of collapse. There are many factors that impact the rise and fall of fish populations, some of which have nothing to do with overfishing and can be attributed to other factors that could be the subject of numerous future articles. In many instances, our observations on the water are inconsistent with a supposed lack of fish and the resulting “need” for emergency measures to be implemented by state or federal regulators.

upcoming year may be significantly overestimated, resulting in unnecessarily Draconian restrictions, and don’t always make sense.

The NOAA Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) “counts and reports marine recreational catch and effort.” MRIP is administered through NOAA as well as via many state agencies such as the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF), which often take the lead in recording recreational landings. The total amount of fish landed by the commercial fleet and recreational anglers each year are one of the main, but not the sole, factors in estimating quotas and bag limits for the upcoming year. The annual recreational quotas and bag limits apply to for-hire vessels (charter and party boats) and private recreational anglers. The commercial fishing sector has its own quotas and trip limits, and their catches and landings are somewhat easier to track through dealer records as well as dockside and at-sea monitoring.

Why the disconnect? Recreational anglers and fishery regulators generally agree that the methods used to estimate how many fish are landed by recreational anglers for select species (cod and haddock here in New England, for example) continue to be subject to poor data that sport fishermen must accept as statistically valid in supporting fishery management decisions based upon “best available science.” As a reContinued lack of accurate and sult, the landing data that we start credible private recreational angler with to develop bag limits for an landing data annually for a number

of species results in fishery management decisions that can unfairly affect the entire recreational sector.

This flawed data often results in emergency closures or reduced bag limits on the for-hire fleet that have a detrimental impact on those captains trying to make a living. This has motivated some captains to promote complete separation, and separate quotas, for the for-hire fleet.

However, I would recommend a concerted attempt to improve the overall recreational landing data means and methods prior to implementing separation at this time, and would consider different bag and possibly size limits for for-hire vessels and private recreational anglers that would be acceptable to both sub-sectors. I would not recommend complete quota separation unless all else fails.

The for-hire fleet is required to complete vessel trip reports (VTRs) on fish landed for vessels holding a Federal Northeast Multispecies Permit (which includes cod, haddock, pollock, etc.). State- permitted forhire vessels complete applicable state reports. There are also other reporting requirements, depending upon the species, for other NOAA

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offices. Paper copies are forwarded to the appropriate fishery management office via fax or the U.S. mail, which is cumbersome and time-consuming.

Is there a better way to file reports? Proposed revisions to MRIP include providing the for-hire fleet the ability to electronically file VTRs. There have been pilot tests conducted with select charter boats to electronically record and file VTRs. Electronic filling of VTRs will result in timely landings data that can be utilized to implement in-season fishery management changes, if necessary, and ultimately streamline the process associated with the development and implementation of annual quotas and bag limits.

As mentioned, there are multiple federal and state agencies that need to be notified in the event of landing certain species. For example, a charter boat with a Federal Northeast Multispecies Permit that lands a bluefin tuna must not only report the landing to NOAA via a VTR, but must also report the landing to NMFS’ Federal Highly Migratory Species (HMS) office. Ideally, the proposed electronic filing of VTRs noted above could result in one report that would notify all applicable federal and state offices of fish landed, avoiding the need for multiple reports and notifications.

The commercial and recreational landing of bluefin tuna is a process that has worked well to date. Landings are reported daily on-line or via telephone to the HMS office. This straightforward process results in the prompt recording and generation of landings data, and provides NMFS with the ability to implement timely fishery management changes to quotas and bag limits in the middle of the season as well as annually. This avoids making significant adjustment to quotas or bag limits well after the season has ended, when it becomes difficult for for-hire operators to plan their coming season and market their trips.

Accurate historical landings data from private recreational anglers is lacking, and subject to significant variability. The recent landing data used by NMFS for cod and haddock from each New England state for private recreational anglers had a percent standard error (PSE) ranging from 25% to 102%. This means that if an estimated 100 fish are landed with a PSE of 102%, the model estimates could actually be

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102 fish higher (204 fish) or lower (-2 fish) than estimated. NMFS agrees that a PSE of greater than 25% “should be viewed with increasing caution” and PSEs above 50% indicate “high variability and low precision.” The MagnusonStevens Act requires that fishery management decisions be based on the “best available science,” but unfortunately, year after year, we are told that this flawed data is indeed the “best available science” and we must accept and live with the results.

Such poor landing data, subject to PSEs higher than 25%, is largely a result of the flawed means and methods utilized to record private recreational landings. For example, for many years phone calls were made by NMFS to Massachusetts residences and those in other states, which were randomly selected from the phone book. The likelihood of contacting a private angler in the western part of Massachusetts who did much saltwater fishing was slim, as participation decreases the greater the distance people live from the ocean. Many phone calls were made, but they resulted in contacting few individuals that fished, so a poor data set was the result. In addition, our society has moved towards mobile phones, which results in fewer people responding to land-line calls. MRIP has recognized this increasing problem, and now targets those private recreational anglers with saltwater fishing licenses that furnish mobile phone numbers, which is clearly an improvement.

Making Waves Summer 2016

various locations (launch ramps, for -hire docks, etc.) and times throughout the season, which vary from state to state. Historically, Massachusetts’ DMF did not conduct a robust enough number of intercepts to create solid data, and the interpolation of this data resulted in skewed landings estimates.

But in 2015 the DMF significantly increased the number of dockside interviews in an attempt to obtain better information. Increased dockside interviews in other New England states have not yet been implemented, but should be considered a priority.

The increase in dockside interviews conducted in Massachusetts, however, had an unintended consequence. Some party and charter boat captains eventually refused to continue to participate in the interview process, as they felt that the catch and landing data details provided by the VTRs they are required to fill out after each trip, were sufficient. Future electronic filing of VTRs will hopefully streamline the process so that multiple reporting obligations can be eliminated.

Another problem has been that dockside interviews of both the forhire captain and anglers on board his vessel, in many cases, has resulted in a total disconnect as to how many fish were landed or released back into the water. The lack of experience by anglers on the boat, many of whom may only fish once a year, can results in trip details that are not close to reality or to what is reported by the captain.

Dockside interviews of recreational This adds to the poor data set, and anglers are randomly conducted at is a problem that needs to be

solved.

MRIP is undergoing a needed overhaul, but many of the changes are not projected to be implemented until 2017 through 2019. In the meantime, recreational fishermen and the for-hire fleet continue to suffer from poor landing data that has triggered significantly reduced quotas and daily bag limits for some of the key species we target – and depend upon -- in New England.

Capt Mike Pierdinock has been a charter boat captain on the vessel “Perseverance” (www.cpfcharters. com) for over 15 years and fishes north and south of Cape Cod for groundfish, striped bass and large pelagics. He actively participates in fishery management issues and serves as the Massachusetts Chairman of the Recreational Fishing Alliance and is on the Board of Directors of the Stellwagen Bank Charter Boat Association. He is presently on the National Marine Fishery Service, Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel; New England Fishery Management Council, Recreational Advisory Panel; and Recreational/Charter Boat seat on the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council. He can be heard Sundays on FM 95.9 WATD on Capt Lou’s Nautical Talk Radio show discussing fishery management issues that impact recreational anglers and charter boat captains.

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This Man is Crazy!

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Making Waves Summer 2016

CRAZY ALBERTO KNIE His Life, His Work, His Passion!

By Gary Caputi

I

f you fish and you’ve never heard of Crazy Alberto you’ve apparently had your head in the sand. He is a surf fishing legend in the Northeast. A world traveling, world class angler with roots in Asia, South American and the USA. If you looked hard enough you might find him catching largemouth bass in the morning and giant tarpon from the surf at night in his newly adopted home state of Florida. He is a lure designer and manufacturer, has had his own series

of surf rods made by a top U.S. rod maker, a photographer, wildlife artist and featured speaker at fishing seminars, and tackle and boat shows all over the country and that’s just the half of it.

I am lucky to be able to call Al a friend because while he is friendly to everyone and always willing to take time to talk and teach fishing his true friends are those he holds closest. We’ve fished for trophy trout and walleyes on Long Island, yes

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Long Island, New York; bluefin tuna, blackfish and stripers and I am dying to get out with him to catch some of the monster snook, tarpon and redfish he has been terrorizing in the Sunshine State since he moved there a few years back.

And he does most of that at night, from the beach, with surf tackle, using lures of his own design that his company, Tactical Angler, Inc., manufactures and sells nationwide.

Here’s Crazy Al’s back story, which might give you some insight into why he is called Crazy. Alberto was born in Hong Kong and raised in Brazil. At the tender age of one his parents left China because it of an increasingly hostile communist regime and it was a very unsettling world to live in, never mind raise kid with an intense curiosity for the natural world around him and a penchant to be free. In Brazil he walked barefoot in the jungle and develI am also oped his pasproud to say sion for fishhe is a very ing. He would public supcut school to porter of the fish, no surRecreational prise there, Fishing Alliand his fishance. He ing technique was a cheerwas very leader for primitive. He and in atused a bent tendance at pin for a hook both of the and any old RFA’s Fisherpiece of monmen’s March ofilament line on Washinghe could get ton. He has his hands been featured in full Few anglers have caught more big stripers from the surf than Alberto. coiled around a stick. He pages ads He rules the dark on the East End of Long Island! loved hand promoting lining and he was good at it.

He caught sardines the RFA and he is frequently on our behinds on issues of import, most recently the massive toxic near Rio, tilapia and the occasional robalo discharges from Lake Okeechobee into the Indi- (snook) and peacock bass. an River that we highlighted in the last issue of Making Waves.

When he was 12 his father moved the family to the United States right around the time the Beat-

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les were introduced to America on the Ed Sullivan Show and Neal Armstrong took his first steps on the moon. Most of his teenage years were spent growing up on the lower East Side of Manhattan, which was called Spanish Harlem back then. It was a very dangerous environment for kids, but he avoided the pressures of the gangs that wanted to engulf him, groups like the Ghost Shadows and Dynamite Brothers, because he was just too busy fishing.

Making Waves Summer 2016

merit badge, which, as you might imagine, was for fishing without having to take the test. That bothered me because I wanted to take the test, which was to catch three different species of fish on lures, clean and cook them.

When I asked the Scout Master why he wouldn’t give me the test he said, “Albert, go down to the lake and catch enough fish for everyone for dinner, clean them and cook them.” And I did! As I got older he spent a lot of time fishing around the Tri-State region prowling beaches and back bays hunting for trophy fish. You might not realize it, but this area is the Surfasting Capital of the World—my personal Mecca!”

“Fishing literally saved my life,” Alberto told us.

“I used to get on the “F” and “D” trains to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn to fish on the party boats for fluke, blackfish, bluefish and sea bass or off the Al wasn’t just a Coney Island great fisherman Pier and jetties at a young age, for blues and he was a motistripers. I would vated student. bicycle to City After graduatFishing his new home waters in Florida Al still owns the night as Island, the Huding high school he brings northeast surf techniques to the Sunshine State's son River waterhe went to the front or Central prestigious Park fishing spots inside the city limits. I joined the School of Visual Arts where he earned a Bachelor Boy Scouts (Troop 213) and spent a lot of time at of Fine Arts degree in advertising and design and Ten Mile River Camp where I was given his first immediately started work freelancing for a major

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Making Waves Summer 2016

NYC advertising agency eventually opening his tions to help protect our wild waters, fisheries and own company, Knie Advertising and Design. That to share his passion with newcomers to the sport. didn’t last too long as he was offered a position in Alberto met Jim Donofrio, executive director of the broadcast industry as an assistant art director the RFA, early in the organization’s development and then as the head of advertising and creative and liked what he heard and saw. He felt the services. His RFA’s mission group was statement was presented an direct and to array of covetthe point and ed industry he wanted to awards includbe a part of it. ing an Emmy.

“Every saltwater While working fisherman, rein broadcastgardless of how ing he folyou fish or lowed his where you fish, dream of travshould be a eling extenmember of the sively to exotic RFA,” he tells locales and people at semifishing every nars and shows. spare minute.

He has been Freshwater, featured in print saltwater, surf, ads promoting inshore, offthe RFA, someshore; he did it thing we are all catching a quite proud of. wide variety of With 45 years trophy fish. of fishing under This eventually his belt and no led to sponsordesire to stop, ships from Crazy Al curtackle comparently resides in nies and a Florida where place on their he is fishing pro-staffs more than ever where he and working eventually behard so he can came a tackle In his spare time, if you can believe he has any, he has been gaining a keep fishing designer in reputation as an accomplished painter. Are you surprised by the subject? hard. He has addition to also been developing his penchant for outdoor helping promote and even create advertising and wildlife photography as you can see by the campaigns for some of the top brands. cover of this issue and some of the images accomHis call to follow his passion compelled him to panying this article. He still holds the IGFA 8-lb. leave the suit and tie world so he could fish more line class striped bass; writes for various fishing and freelance using his talents in the fishing inand trade publications; is a featured speaker at dustry. He also became involved in the issues that the Saltwater Sportsman National Seminar Series plague fishermen getting involved with organiza- and other regional seminars; is a photographer,

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Alberto's Tactical Anglers Inc. lures are as deadly, tough and universally liked as the man who created them. The author caught this 75-pound Venice, Louisiana yellowfin on a TA Junior BombPopper, one of dozens caught that day on the lure.

It tried in vein to destroy it, but it just wasn't happening!

painter, design and marketing consultant; on the prostaffs of St. Croix Rods, Penn Reels, StormR, Fins Fishing, L.L.Bean, Pure Fishing; is the founder and owner of Tactical Anglers Inc., which Al says, “Creates innovative fishing mouse traps for avid anglers with premium components and features at a very reasonable price point.”).

see some of his latest photographic and fine art works.”

If you didn’t before you know about Crazy Alberto know. If you did, you know a lot more about him. If you haven’t already check out his Facebook pages and be sure to stop by www.tacticalanglers.com to check out his amazAl also has two massive Facebook pages - Alberto ingly innovative Power Clips® and line up of devKnie and Crazy Alberto - which he says are, astatingly effective lures. And remember what the “Social media hangouts where you can communi- Crazy one says, “Every saltwater fisherman, recate, share, contact, follow his adventures and gardless of how you fish or where you fish,

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Making Waves Summer 2016

BREAKING REGULATORY NEWS THE GREAT COBIA FIASCO OF 2016 NOAA OVER REACTS TO BAD DATA - DEMANDS CLOSURE North Carolina & Virginia Salvage 2016 Recreational Season Tells South Atlantic Fishery Management Council to Stick It!

H

ere we go again. Bad data driving an bad management decisions and it should be of no surprise that MRIP is the culprit. In typical flawed fashion MRIP (Marine Recreational Information Program), NOAA's highly vaunted, nine-years in the making replacement for the MRFSS (Marine Recreational Fishery Statistical Survey) has spit out another set of anomaly data that indicates that the MidAtlantic States went over their cobia harvest limit by several orders of magnitude.

Any sane statistician would look at the numbers and immediately deduce there was something wrong, an outlier with no basis in fact, but not the brain trust at the National Marine Fisheries Service. Instead they decided to institute an a June 20, 2016 closure of the recreational cobia fishery in Federal waters and made a demand that the States follow suit with closures of instate waters. This snap judgement decision has heavy economic implications for North Carolina and Virginia. Cobia is a hot fishery in these states, especially Virginia, where large numbers of these fish enter Chesapeake Bay to summer over and spawn intermittently throughout June, July and August.

It doesn't matter that the cobia stocks are not overfished and aside from the outlier indicating Virginia in particular exceeded their harvest target with a number that is so excessive it simply can't be so. But in a rush to judgement, NOAA

and the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council sent letters to the Atlantic Coastal States "requesting" total closure of the recreational fishery in their territorial waters on June 20, 2016 at the height of Virginia's fishery and impeding North Carolina's seasonal fishery.

In a letter dated April 13, 2016 from Jim Donofrio, executive director of the RFA to Eileen Sobeck, Assistant Administrator for Fisheries at NOAA, he made the case that the data was flawed, the fishery was not overfished and overfishing was not occuring. The decision to close was due to a combination of bad recreational landings data based on a very limited number of intercepts combined with a management anomaly that did not allow for three year averaging of the catch data. He noted that the closure was unnecessary and an economic hardship for those states in direct violation of tenets of the MSA. Here are the salient points made in that letter.

Dear Assistant Administrator Sobeck, The Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) writes to you regarding the pending recreational closure for cobia that is scheduled to commence on June 20 for federal waters off the states of Georgia to New York through the end of year. RFA believes this pending closure is unnecessary and would cause undue socioeconomic harm to recreational fishermen and the coastal communities in the affected states.

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According to SEDAR 28, cobia is not overfished or experiencing overfishing. Increased recreational cobia catch and the number of recreational trips where cobia were encountered (directed trips) are typical signals of increased stock size which most anglers would view as positive. However, mandates in the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA) work against the recreational fishing community. Instead of punishing the recreational sector for increased availability of cobia, the recreational cobia catch limit should be revised upward. RFA understands that revisions

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No. 970728184-7184-01, published in 1997, RFA believes that the Secretary of Commerce has the authority under MSA 305(c) to take emergency action and promulgate regulations or interim measure necessary to address the emergency. In the case of the pending recreational cobia closure, the emergency is the negative economic impact associated with that closure. The NOAA policy guidelines for emergency action provide justification for when an emergency exists in a fishery. Citing criteria 3, the policy guidelines indicate that emergency regulations can be used when the immediate benefits

The seasonal cobia fishery is important to anglers and businesses in North Carolina and Virginia. Local fishermen have little else open during the summer months and visiting anglers come to the region to enjoy the action on fish that can reach 100 pounds. to an annual catch limit requires and assessment update and the reconvening of the councils respective Science and Statistics Committee (SSC) which is unlikely given the time constraints of the looming closure. With that in mind, RFA requests that NOAA exercise its legal authority under MSA to implement regulations to keep the recreational fishery open through the end of the year.

After reviewing the NOAA policy guidelines for the use of emergency rules, 50 CFR Chapter VI Docket

outweigh the deliberative public consideration that is expected under normal rulemaking process. RFA believes that the benefits of avoiding a recreational cobia closure outweigh the value of a going through a lengthy amendment process. Noting the importance cobia to the recreational fishing community, RFA firmly believes that a closure of the cobia fishery in federal waters represents an emergency. Again citing the NOAA policy guidelines for emergency action, item 2 under emergency justifi-

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cation states that NOAA can use emergency action under MSA 305(c) “ to prevent significant direct eco-

nomic loss or to preserve a significant economic opportunity that otherwise might be foregone.� It goes without saying that a recreational cobia closure would cause significant direct economic loss and foregone recreational fishing opportunities.

Many of the problems facing the recreational sector at the federal level are driven by the shortcomings in recreational data collection programs. Recreational data collection continues to plague both the monitoring and management of recreational fisheries across the nation and cobia is just the latest example. RFA contends that the recreational data used to project recreational cobia landings and that is promoting the closure is not the best available. The landings projections are based on a just a handful of MRIP intercept. If that was not enough of a concern to question the use of the data, MRIP was not designed to accurately estimate rare-event species such as cobia. If NOAA affirms that the recreational cobia landings information is the best available then NOAA cannot be permitted to use that same data to hurt the recreational sector twice. If NOAA claims that the recreational cobia

Making Waves Summer 2016

catch data is the best available NOAA needs to immediately convene an assessment update to revisit cobia biological reference points including the annual catch limits. If recreational catches are as high as NOAA reports then stock abundance is also much higher and the annual catch limit needs to be updated. If NOAA does not believe that the recreational cobia landing estimates are good enough to drive a reevaluation of the cobia annual catch limit then they should not be used for monitoring recreational landings or pursuing mid season closures. This double jeopardy use of recreational catch data is not consistent with a science based management approach and in no way is fair to the recreational fishing community.

In closing, the RFA simply cannot support closing the recreational cobia fishery in federal waters beginning June 20th, 2016 and lasting through the end of the year. Cobia is an exceptionally resilient and productive fish that is not overfished or experiencing overfishing. RFA cannot support the use of the existing recreational landings data for cobia to develop a date, June 20, 2016, when the recreational annual catch limit is projected to be met. However, if NOAA deems this landings information as the best available then it

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should immediately revisit the annual catch limits.

RFA respectfully requests NOAA to implement measures in the recreational cobia fishery to keep the fishery open through the end of the year.

Respectfully submitted, Jim Donofrio, Executive Director Naturally the RFA request for an emergency action to prevent the June 20th closure in went without comment and unheeded by the AA and no efforts were made to mitigate the negative socioeconomic impacts that a closure with so little warning to the angling community, for hire vessels, tackle shops, marinas and others who benefit from visiting anglers who participate in the fishery. That was to be expected from this administration and the horrible way that the Magnuson Stevens Act was rewritten in 2007. Changing those tenets in the Act and the miserable job NOAA Fisheries does at collecting recreational catch data have been a quest of epic proportions that RFA has been involved with for almost ten years!

The next part of this saga occured when North Carolina and Virginia got the word from on high at the ASMFC and anglers and businesses in those states went ballistic. It's obvious to most that a snap closure based on flawed data was no only unnecessary, but a bad idea all around and it became obvious that a lot of people decided they were mad as hell and were not going to take it anymore.

North Carolina was the first to act holding public hearings and eventually coming up with a very strange set of regulations that put them out of compliance with the ASMFC with the request to close state waters on June 20. The came up with a rather unbalanced set of regulations for the 2016 season that set the size limite at 37" fork length, but broke up the daily bag limit by fishing mode. Charter vessels will be limited to one fish per person per day, with a maximum of four fish per boat no matter how many people are on board. Private boats be allowed to keep up to two fish per day, and will only be able to possess cobia on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. Beach and pier fisherman will be allowed to keep one fish per day, and can fish seven days a week. North Carolina fishery management works in mysterious ways and the new regs, while trying to reduce overall cobia landings did two things. It showed North Carolina was not afraid to thumb their nose at the ASMFC

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and total annual catch limits are exceeded it allows the annual catch limit to be compared over a range of years. However, when the annual catch limit is changed, as it was for the 2015 fishing season with the passage of Amendment 20B, the annual catch Virginia was next and from calls coming in to limit can only be compared to the first single year. In RFA headquarters it was clear recreational and this case, that first single year is 2015 and since the for-hire fishermen were up in arms and requestrecreational and total annual catch limits were exing help. The RFA dispatched their corporate ceeded, there are no other years available to average development director, Gary Caputi, to a meeting landings. RFA believes the SAFMC should have adbeing held by the VMRC at which they would dressed this shortcoming of the plan when they make a decision whether to comply with the adopted Amendment 20B in 2014. That said, RFA closure request or go it on their own. The feelcannot support a closure of the recreational cobia fishing from representatives of the fishing commuery in federal or state waters and believes that recreanity in Virginia was that the VMRC commissiontional fishermen should not shoulder the burden of ers would comply. RFA dispatched the following this management oversight. request while managing to create a furor within the recreational community over the disparate regs between for-hire and private boat fishermen! Way to go N.C.

letter to the commission the day before the meeting and Caputi met with members of the for-hire sector and private fishermen prior to the meeting before putting the RFA position on the record.

Regarding revisions to Virginia’s recreational cobia regulations and acknowledging that recreational cobia landings in 2015 do appear to be higher than the target, RFA would support a modest reduction to the existing regulations and suggests a 4 fish per boat bag limit coupled with a 37” minimum size limit with only Dear Commissioner Bull: 1 of the 4 fish allowed to be over 50”. RFA does not support any seasonal closure for this fishery and beThe Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) submits the following comments on Agenda Item 13, public hear- lieves it should stay open to recreational anglers in Virginia waters through the end of the year. Our raing to consider adoption of higher size limit, a vessel limit and closed season for the recreational cobia fish- tionale to keep the fishery open in state waters is based on the fact that this issue is primarily a manageery in 2016. The recreation cobia fishery is an exment problem, not a conservation problem and theretremely important fishery for private anglers, for-hire operators, tackle shops and many other coastal busi- fore, recreational anglers should not be punnesses in the state of Virginia. We respectfully request ished. The recreational data collection program that that you and the Commission consider the following produces recreational harvest estimates, MRIP, is not accurate with errors rates at 40% in Virginia and up to comments.

75% in other states. This program can and should not It should be noted for the record that the RFA does be used for quota monitoring or projecting future not support the decision made by the South Atlantic landings. Moreover, with NOAA closing federal waFishery Management Council (SAFMC) to close the ters and roughly 18% of recreational cobia harvest recreational cobia fishery on June 20 and have it recoming from federal waters, this action alone could main closed through the end of the year based on reduce landings upwards of 200,000lbs or 31% of the landings estimates produced through MRIP. RFA be2016 recreational annual catch limit. lieves the closure is a direct result of SAFMC failing to address a management flaw in the cobia fishery man- In closing, RFA respectfully requests that the VMRC agement plan. In 2014, the SAFMC adopted Amend- keeps the recreational cobia fishery open in state wament 20B to the Coastal Migratory Pelagic Resources ters. RFA would support reduced regulations as cited in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Region fishery man- above. RFA believes these measures if adopted and carried through the end of 2016, do not pose any agement plan. The amendment revised the annual conservation threat to the cobia stock but would alcatch limits for cobia in response to the findings of SEDAR 28. The stock assessment found that Atlantic low reasonable access by recreational fishermen to this important fishery. migratory group, which includes cobia from the FL/ GA line through New York, was not overfished or ex- Sincerely, periencing overfishing. The management flaw lies in Jim Donofrio, Executive Director the fact that Amendment 18 contains an accountability measure where in situations when the recreational At the May 24th meeting the topic was brought

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up, head of the State's Marine Division made an So brings to a close the great cobia fiasco of impassioned plea to not go out of compliance 2016, but rest assured it is not over yet. ASand close the season in State waters on June MFMC will respond in some way and the MRIP 20, per the request or plagues would descend data that is compiled during this season could upon the good people of Virginia. Never mind again produce an anomaly that could cause furall he had heard from fishermen and people in ther closures in the future. You see, the root the industry. It was obvious that not complying cause of the problem remains and that's the was anathama to him and it appeared the same most current version of the MSA and the horrifor John ble inacBull, curacies chairthat pop man of up in the comthe mittee MRIP from his procomgram. If ments. those The mic two was overridopened ing facto the tors are public not and evefixed ry perand son that fixed spoke soon bethere seeched will be the commore mission fisheries to grant fiascos them a in the season near funoting ture, not that that coSmall victories helped maintain a 2016 cobia season in North Carolina and Vir- bia was there gina. We can only wait to see what data MRIP spits out for next year. had unique. been no It folshortage of cobia, that they were already prelows on the heels of what has been happening sent in Chesapeake Bay in great numbers with with red snapper in the Gulf, the snapper more coming. After all the wrangling commisgrouper complex in the South Atlantic, black sioners grudgingly went out of compliance with sea bass and fluke in the Mid Atlantic and on the ASMFC request, but not without tweaking and on. Isn't it time you all got on the fix MSA the regulations to two fish per boat per day bandwagon with the Recreational Fishing Alliwith one over 50" overall length and the season ance. Your support can sway hearts and minds would not stay open all season, but rather close and provide the war chest we need to make it on August 1. The decision was better than no happen in 2017! season at all and it was quite obvious that if they were going to thumb their nose at the ASMFC, they were going to do whatever they could to reduce the overall landings just in case.

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Making Waves Summer 2016

WHEN COD WAS KING

by Capt. Barry Gibson

Travel back to the early days of commercial fishing in New England, when schooners plied the banks and cod and other species were plentiful beyond dreams of Avarice!

“Dories over!”

It’s the call Asa Allard and Harland Guidry have been waiting for, and the men hurriedly prepare their little boat. Thwarts are shipped and the bilge plug is jammed in. Oars, pen boards, water jug, bailer, bucket, gaff, bait knife, sail, mast and three tubs of hooks and tarred-cotton line are hastily stowed. The 20-foot dory is lifted by means of a block and tackle secured to the schooner’s shrouds, swung overboard and lowered into the chilly Atlantic.

over the gentle swells. Seven more dories, each manned by a pair of fishermen, are also lowered into the sea. Soon all eight are towing in a string, looking for all the world like a line of orderly ducklings following their mother.

Forty-one-year-old Capt. Jonas Walford swings the bow of the 116-foot Gloucester-based banker Lillian Emmons due east. He likes the water depth he has found with his lead-line, as well as the coarse gravel embedded in the tallow on the bottom of the weight.

After a few minutes he makes the signal for the trailThe two fishermen jump in, and the dory drifts astern. ing dory to let go. The remaining seven are distributed at equal distances over a stretch of nearly four miles.

Its painter, attached to a pin in the ship’s taffrail, The schooner heaves-to as Walford keeps one watchcomes tight and the little craft is towed effortlessly

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ful eye on the weather and the other on those of his charges within view.

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hook by taking a few turns of the snood around his wooden gob stick and twisting it sharply.

Allard ships the dory’s oars and begins rowing, while And what fish they are! Most are cod weighing beGuidry secures the end line of the first tub of gear to a tween 6 and 25 pounds, well proportioned and handsmall iron anchor. some, with mottAnother line runs led olive-brown from the anchor backs, pale lateral to a sturdy woodlines and pearlesen keg that marks cent bellies. The the end of the occasional 30- or ground line.

40-pounder Guidry heaves the makes an appearanchor overboard ance at the roller, and stands in the along with a stern, whirling the smattering of othcoils of line and er groundfish. hooks, each baitUndesirables, ed with a chunk such as skates, of herring, out of sculpins and the the tub with his hated dogfish, short heaving are knocked off stick. All three the hook with a tubs, their lines spirited slap tied together, are against the dory’s finally emptied, gunwale. and over a mile of The hauling proground line fescess takes several tooned with 1,500 hours, and when forty-inch snoods the lines are finaland 1,500 hooks ly in and the gear settles to the sea stowed, Guidry floor 32 fathoms ships the oars below. and pulls for the Two hours creep waiting schooner. by, and it’s time to The painter is haul the line caught, and the aboard. Allard intwo men hand serts a lignumup their tubs of vitae roller in the line and bare gunwale and pulls hooks and prothe anchor and ceed to pitch keg buoy into the their catch— dory. He detaches nearly 1,500 the end line then pounds of cod, stands in the bow plus a handful of and retrieves it, haddock, hake hand over hand. Guidry positions himself behind Aland wolfish—into pens on the schooner’s deck. lard and coils the line in the tubs, knocking off any unBut their day is far from over. Allard and Guidry will touched baits. Each fish that comes over the roller is join the other 14 dorymen in splitting, gutting, washunhooked with a circular motion of Allard’s arm and ing and icing down the day’s catch, which totals over tossed in the bottom of the skiff. Those that have taksix tons of groundfish. After that the hooks must be en the bait deep are passed to Guidry, who frees the rebaited. Cold, damp and tired, the men are finally

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done at midnight, but will be back in their dories before dawn. Sleep is a scarce commodity aboard the Lillian Emmons when seas are calm, the cod are biting and there’s money to be made.

Time Travel Fast-forward 106 years. Chuck Wilts, Mark Wasserman and I are four miles southwest of Maine’s Monhegan Island, an area that once held one of the highest concentrations of cod in the world, in my 28-foot center console. It’s a beautiful, calm July morning, and I alternately scrutinize the screen of the Furuno FCV-585 with its 1,000-watt transducer and that of the Garmin

4212 chartplotter. The bottom contours look vaguely familiar, as do the ridges and valleys displayed on the color sounder, but what I can’t find are the distinctive scratches of cod that used to appear so regularly in the 1970s, etched onto paper by the stylus of my old Ray Jefferson depth recorder.

Perhaps the fish are simply hiding, so we send our 10ounce Vike-E jigs and soft-plastic paddletail teasers to the bottom 210 feet below. We work the jigs. Nothing. We make a move to the northeast and try again over a lump in 186 feet of water where a charter party of mine once took over 300 pounds of cod on a single drift. The spot is easy to find with the high-tech plotter, but there’s nothing there. Frustrated, I move another mile to the south and stop over a spire in 230 feet. Chuck brings in a nine-inch redfish, and Mark foul-hooks a cunner of about the same size.

Making Waves Summer 2016

Finally, on the edge of a ridge several miles to the north in 160 feet of water, Mark boats a cod. But it’s only 11 inches long, so he carefully removes the hook and drops the fish overboard. It floats belly-up, and minutes later two seagulls swoop down and squabble over the tiny prize.

We end the day with two cusk and four legal-size redfish. On the way home from the marina, I stop at a Hannaford’s supermarket to pick up something for supper. I peer into the seafood case at the back of the store. Some grayish-looking, frozen-at-sea haddock marked “product of Iceland,” two “jet fresh” South

American swordfish steaks that look like they’d abandoned all hope of ever seeing the inside of a gas grill, big shrimp from Thailand, crab from Canada, a few farm-raised salmon steaks and a stack of fresh cod fillets at $11.95 per pound all compete for space in their bed of crushed ice. I grab a package of chicken and head for the checkout counter.

Big Business The Atlantic cod was, and still is, one of the most commercially important fish in the world. Although these nutritious and tasty bottom dwellers range throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere, nowhere is their value more revered than in the northwest Atlantic. Portuguese, Spanish, French and English fishermen sailed to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland beginning in the early 1500s to load up on cod, which they dried or salted and brought home to be sold for

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a tidy profit.

In the early 1600s Capt. John Smith launched several expeditions from England to map the east coast of North America from Chesapeake Bay to Penobscot Bay—and became rich from the cod he brought back.

Smith’s fishing ventures off New England helped enhance the region’s early popularity, and soon British fishing colonies were established on and around Cape Ann, Massachusetts, and the Maine islands of Monhegan and Damariscove. When explorer Batholomew Gosnold landed in New England in 1602 during an attempt to find a passage to Asia, he officially changed the name of the spit of land known as Pallavasino to Cape Cod because his ships were continually “pestered” by these fish.

The Pilgrims, who arrived in 1620, had virtually no experience with fishing or even a taste for fish, but in time they learned the business and soon established fishing stations along the Massachusetts coast to take advantage of the abundance of easily caught cod. Most of these fish were salted and “cured” by drying them on long racks, which preserved them for shipment around the world. By the early 1700s fast and able fishing schooners were being built in Gloucester (the very first schooner was built in 1713–14), and the fleet soon swelled to 400 vessels. These boats worked the Grand Banks, Georges Bank and the Gulf of Maine on trips that sometimes lasted weeks on end.

mishes, built fortunes for the so-called “codfish aristocracy” of the 1700s. A “sacred cod” was even hung from the ceiling of the Boston Town Hall in 1747, a testament to the fish’s importance in New England.

Fishing Life Gloucester, Massachusetts, in the mid- to late 1800s was the largest commercial fishing port in North America, and its most valuable catch by far was cod. It was a bustling and prosperous place, home to hundreds of dory schooners and filled with the aromas of salted and dried fish and oakum, a tar used to caulk boats and preserve ropes and fishing lines.

Scores of businesses flourished on the wharves and in the city, including J.S. Tappan & Son Clothing for Fishermen, which sold oilskin outerwear, boots, woolen jumpers, socks and mittens; J.T. Donnell & Co., manufacturers of marine cordage; Tarr & Johnson’s Copper Vessel Bottom Paint; F.S. Thompson’s Watch, Clock and Jewelry Store; Fritz Babson, Jr., Dealer in Lumber; Benjamin P. Chaswell’s Bakery, which specialized in Vienna bread, cake and pastry; Howard F. Ingersoll, Dealer in Beef, Pork, Mutton and Poultry, numerous wholesale fish dealers, and even John Lloyd’s Undertaker’s Wareroom on Wester Avenue that provided “Coffins, Caskets, and Robes – Children’s Dresses Made to Order.” Whatever the need, it could be fulfilled along the Gloucester waterfront Dory schooners were owned by individuals, partnerships or companies—some firms owned upwards of a dozen—that hoped to make a small profit on each trip to pay off the vessels’ mortgages. Few were owneroperated, with most being run by hired captains and crews. Some of these fast, graceful fishing schooners were built right in Gloucester, while others originated from such shipbuilding centers as Waldoboro, Maine; Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and the Massachusetts village of Essex, which turned out more two-masted schooners than any other place in the world (254 were launched there between 1849 and 1853).

Copious amounts of fish were landed, and “cod trade” routes involving the exchange of salted and dried cod for salt, sugar, tobacco, molasses and rum were established, connecting New England with Europe, the Caribbean and Africa. Cheap salt cod became the chief staple of slaves who labored on the Caribbean sugar-cane plantations. Commerce flourished and people prospered, and soon New Englanders—then British colonists—began to feel that they no longer needed the supervision of the royal crown. The catching and trading of virtually unlimited amounts of cod, which triggered numerous political and economic skir- The schooner fishermen had the opportunity to make

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a good living, but their “share”—the amount each crewman made, based on the number of fish landed— varied widely from trip to trip, depending on the vessel’s success. “Broker” trips, where few if any fish were caught, yielded virtually nothing. But successful voyages to the Grand Banks, which ranged from one to three or more months in duration, could pay out as much as $300 per fisherman for a haul of 300,000 pounds of cod and halibut, a fairly handsome sum in the 1870s. Shorter trips to Georges Bank, ranging from 7 to 20 days, might bring a respectable $50 to $170 per man. The ship’s cook normally garnered a 50-percent bonus for his culinary efforts, and the captain’s share was even better, but it was often cloaked in some measure of secrecy.

Dory fishing was certainly not without its perils. In the 1870s and ’80s, an average of 5 to 30 sailing vessels were lost each year, many with all hands.

From 1830 to 1900, 3,800 Gloucester fishermen were lost at sea. Schooners, which were designed for speed to bring the catch home quickly and garner the best price, were especially vulnerable to storms and ice, especially when laden with a full load of fish. The infamous Portland Gale of 1898 accounted for the loss of 150 vessels off New England, many of them fishing schooners, and nearly wiped out the entire Gloucester fleet.

Storms in the North Atlantic were responsible for a good percentage of the losses, but what dory fishermen feared most was fog, which could prevent them from finding their schooner on their return or put them at risk of being run down by another ship (many dorymen carried horns to alert other vessels). A quote from the 1882 edition of the Fishermen’s Own Book, a handbook for commercial schooner fishermen, speaks of this danger: “Eternal vigilance is as clearly the price of safety at sea as it is of liberty elsewhere. Undoubt-

Making Waves Summer 2016

edly many of the fishing vessels which disappear so mysteriously, with no heavy gale to account for their loss, are run down by steamers or other large vessels, while at anchor on the Banks.”

Mark Kurlansky, author of the book Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, also writes about the dangers of nineteenth century codfishing: “Being competitive with each other, dorymen sometimes secretly took off to grounds they had discovered. Many dorymen drowned or starved to death or died of thirst while lost in the fog, sifting through a blank sea for the mother ship. They tried to fish until their boat was filled with fish.

The more fish that were caught, the less seaworthy the dory.

Sometimes a dory would become so overloaded that a small amount of water from a wave lapping the side was all it took for the small boat to sink straight down with fish and fishermen.”

The Fall of Cod Despite the risks involved, fishermen kept returning to the sea, such were the profits that could be made from the apparently inexhaustible shoals of fish offshore. The good times continued right up to the twentieth century, when, in 1906, the first steam-powered net trawler was introduced. The advent of mechanized net fishing, which had been practiced off England since the late 1800s, would ultimately change everything.

By 1930 it was evident that New England’s groundfish fleet, now made up primarily of mechanized trawlers capable of towing highly efficient nets (the last working schooner in Gloucester fished until 1953), was able to catch more fish than could be replaced by

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nature. In addition, the small mesh size of the nets captured tens of millions of juvenile—and thus unmarketable—cod and haddock annually, all of which were shoveled back overboard dead, and concerns about the health of the groundfish resource were soon raised.

World War II reduced the size of the fleet somewhat as fishing boats were requisitioned for war duty, but demand for fish by the military and the general citizenry soared. After the war the return of the vessels to the fishery, coupled with reduced demand for fish, resulted in lean times for the industry and spawned a number of government subsidy programs that would continue for decades.

The early 1960s heralded a new threat—huge foreign factory trawlers on Georges Bank. These ships, capable of both catching and processing fish at sea, hailed from the USSR, East Germany, Spain, Poland and Japan. They scooped up hundreds of thousands of tons of cod and haddock. Some even ventured into theGulf of Maine, and by the mid-1970s te outcry from the U.S. fleet reached a crescendo.

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With the foreigners gone, a rush to build newer, more powerful domestic stern trawlers soon began, and it wasn’t long before U.S. fishing effort off New England exceeded that of the displaced foreign fleet. Stocks of cod, haddock and other groundfish began to plummet. In one notable instance, the spring spawning aggregation of a distinct “race” of cod that gathered off the mouth of Maine’s Sheepscot River was wiped out in the 1970s by just two boats engaged in “pair trawling,” a now-illegal groundfishing technique that consists of two vessels towing a huge net between them. Years later, biologists from Maine’s Department of Marine Resources issued a report concluding that the Sheepscot Bay race of cod, which once populated hundreds of square miles of ocean, would probably never recover.

The fish are just plain gone—the very reason Chuck, Mark and I were unable to catch a keeper that morning this past summer.

What lies ahead for the celebrated New England cod? Will stocks ever recover, or has their niche in the ecosystem been usurped by other species? Fishermen remain hopeful, even though drastic efforts to reduce fishing have done little increase the number of fish. (In Canada, where a complete moraIn 1976, Congress passed the Magnuson-Stevens Act torium on codfishing has been in place for over a dec(MSA), which gave the U.S. complete control of its wa- ade, stocks have yet to bounce back, and, according ters out to 200 miles. The act designated all this “new to many scientists, never will.) Only one thing is cerAmerican water” as the Fishery Conservation Zone, tain: Even if stocks do manage to improve, none of us later rened the Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ, and will ever experience the massive shoals of cod and the foreign factory ships were tossed out on their col- other fish that once made New England the fishing lective ears. capital of the world.

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Making Waves Summer 2016

Can We Go Back to Hook and Line Commercial Fishing for Cod?

T

hat’s a question a lot of people have asked over the years. Hook-and-line fishing is far more environmentally-friendly than trawling (dragging) or gill-netting, and fish caught on a hook and then released have a far better chance of survival than those caught in nets, most of which are already dead or dying when brought into the boat.

fishery developed its own share of problems as well.

In 1930, 37,000,000 haddock were landed in Boston, but another 70,000,000 – 90,000,000 juvenile haddock were discarded dead at sea due to the small mesh size in the trawl nets).

Where are we now with cod? Due to the current depressed But can state of enough cod popcod be ulations caught on in the hook and Gulf of line to be Maine profitable and and to Georges satisfy the Bank, the markets? overall The anquota for swer is a cod off resoundNew ing “yes,” England but there in 2016 is is one caa paltry veat: the 1,203 mt, cod rewhich source has will be to be very chased down healthy. and Case in quickly point: caught back in 1892, during the last full decade of schooners up by the most high-powered, high-tech, and highly and dory fishermen, approximately 45,000 metric efficient Northeast groundfish fleet in history. tons (mt) of cod were taken from Georges Bank Compare that to the staggering 45,000 tons of cod alone, and landed in various New England ports. caught by hook and line, basically from “rowboats,” in Steam trawling was introduced in Boston in 1906, 1892. The difference is the health of the cod resource and cod landings began to plummet. By 1930 there back then, and today. were some 300 power trawlers in operation off New England, yet despite all this modern fishing effort, Gets you to thinking, doesn’t it? landings continued to slide as the cod resource beSource: "New England Groundfish," produced by the came incrementally depleted. It wasn’t long before NMFS Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods most vessels began to target haddock, which were Hole, MA, in 1998. more plentiful. (As an aside, the mechanized haddock

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Weird Cod Facts-Not Fiction

T

he largest cod ever recorded was caught on a longline off Massachusetts in May of 1895. It weighed 211 ¼ pounds.

num of England, who was lost in the wreck of the steamer Anglo Saxon off Newfoundland in 1861, was found in the entrails of a cod by a fisherman from St. Johns. He returned the ring to Ms. On July 22, 1873, Miss Fannie Belis of St. Louis caught a 130-pounder during a fishing excursion Barnum’s son and was rewarded with 50 pounds aboard the yacht United States off Eastern Point, sterling for his effort.

MA. A number of cod over 100 pounds were reported in the late 1800s, but few if any that size have been documented in the 20th century.

The current International Game Fish Associationcertified world record for a sport-caught cod is 98 pounds 12 ounces, taken by Alphonse Bielevich on June 8, 1969, off New Hampshire’s Isles of Shoals.

Cod, in one place or another, range from the surface down to at least 1,500 feet. Their air bladders can fill with, or release, gas to adjust swimming depth.

Stones or rocks are often found in the stomachs of cod. It is believed by some that the fish ingest them as ballast in preparation for a migration or in anticipation of rough seas due to a coming storm, but it’s more likely they’re swallowed due to the sea anemones or other edible substances that may have been attached.

Folks in Iceland stuff cod stomachs with cod liver, boil until tender, and eat them like sausages.

Yum!

Sea birds have been found in the stomachs of cod. So have pieces of wood, clothing, and rope, boots, and jewelry, as well as a pair of scissors, a brass oil can, corn cobs, and the head of a rubber doll.

It was reported in the 1884 edition of The Fisher-

ies and Fishery Industries of the United States

that a wedding ring belonging to Pauline Bar-

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Making Waves Summer 2016

NEWS from mercial and recreational fisheries and seafood-related businesses for each coastal state and the nation. Key to the report are the jobs, sales, income, and value added to the Gross National Product by the comCommercial and recreational saltmercial and recreational fishing water fishing in the United States generated more than $214 billion industries. This provides a in sales and supported 1.83 million measure of how sales in the two industries ripple through jobs in 2014, according to a new economic report released by NOAA state and national economies, because each dollar spent genFisheries today. erates additional sales by other The report, Fisheries Economics of firms and consumers. the United States 2014, provides The commercial fishing and the most recent statistics on com-

Commercial and recreational saltwater fishing generated $214 billion in 2014

seafood industry (including imports)-harvesters, processors, dealers, wholesalers and retailers-generated $153 billion in sales in 2014, an 8 percent increase from 2013, and supported 1.39 million jobs. Domestic harvest (without imports) produced $54 billion in sales, a figure similar to 2013, and supported 811,000 jobs across the broader national economy.

Recreational fishing remains an important part of coastal tourism industries around the country. The regions with the high-

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est economic impact from saltwater recreational fishing were Florida's West Coast, Florida's East Coast, California, New Jersey, and Texas.

sary of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, it's fitting that we continue to improve our understanding of these valuable marine sectors in order to guide sciencebased management. This ensures both sustainable fish populations and economic opportunities for those involved in the commercial, recreational, and seafood industries."

Meet Moira Kelly, Our New Recreational Fisheries Coordinator

Saltwater recreational fishing is an enormously popular American Saltwater angling sales inpastime, economic force, and concreased 4 percent from 2013, tributor to conservation. Millions generating $61 billion in 2014 of people access America’s great and supporting 439,000 jobs. outdoors through recreational This year's report includes imfishing each year. Being out on provements in data collection the water strengthens families, and analysis methods for the Fisheries Economics of the friendships, and communities, and recreational sector, which United States 2014 is the ninth contributes billions to the national helped NOAA scientists gain a volume in an annual series de- economy. In our region, millions more accurate view of the insigned to give the public acces- of recreational fishing trips take sible economic information on place each year. Recreational fishdustry's economic landscape. ing contributes $4.8 billion to our fishing activities in the U.S., "Commercial and recreational regional economy each year ($1.3 and is a companion to Fisheries billion across New England and fishing make a significant imof the United States. $3.5 billion across the mid-Atlantic pact on the U.S. economy," said Eileen Sobeck, assistant admin- More on the 40th Anniversary in 2013). For-hire vessels, private vessels, and shore-based anglers istrator for NOAA Fisheries. "As of the Magnuson Stevens Act. harvest more than 75 million we celebrate the 40th anniverpounds of fish each year.

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Making Waves Summer 2016

reational fishing community. In her new role, Moira will make sure that decision-makers understand the issues and concerns that are important to the recreational community, and undertake agreed upon actions to promote recreational fishing.

and enjoyment of, saltwater recreational fisheries through sciencebased conservation and management.

To help reach these goals, Moira will help us address issues such as barotrauma, data collection from recreational anglers and charter Since 2010, we have made substan- captains, and enhanced communitial progress in supporting recreacations and outreach. Her work will tional fisheries on the national and be guided by our Recreational Fishregional levels. In February 2015, eries Implementation Plan. This we created a formal National Saltplan is based on the national recrewater Recreational Fisheries Policy. ational policy that outlines specific To support recreational fisheries in our The main goals of this policy intasks needed to support recreationregion, Moira Kelly came on board in al fisheries in our region. Through clude: April as our Recreational Fisheries Coordinator. Moira has worked with NO- • Support and maintain sustainable this implementation plan and other work, Moira will continue talking AA Fisheries for more than a decade, saltwater recreational fisheries remost recently as the lead policy analyst and working with the recreational sources, including healthy marine for the summer flounder, scup, and fishing community to promote black sea bass fisheries. She also served and estuarine habitats. open and diverse sustainable salton Marine Recreational Information • Promote saltwater recreational water recreational fisheries.

Program (MRIP) working groups that fishing for the social, cultural, and If you have questions, contact Moiare working to use a new, improved economic benefit of the nation. survey method, as well as improved ra at 978-281-9218 or email her at communication efforts, for the rec- • Enable enduring participation in, Moira.Kelly@noaa.gov.

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To enter the all new 2016 RFA Trip of a Lifetime Sweepstakes for your chance to win a trip to Wild Strawberry Lodge Click Here and follow the instructions. Credit cards are accepted.

waves

M A K I N G

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Making Waves Summer 2016

The Official Publication of the Recreational Fishing Alliance

The RFA Mission Safeguard the rights of saltwater anglers Protect marine, boat and tackle industry jobs Ensure the long-term sustainability of our nation’s fisheries.

Anti-fishing groups and radical environmentalists are pushing their agenda on marine fisheries issues affecting you. The Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) is in the trenches too, lobbying, educating decision makers and ensuring that the interests of America’s coastal fishermen are being heard loud and clear. Incorporated in 1996 as a 501c4 national, grassroots political action organization, RFA represents recreational fishermen and the recreational fishing industry on marine fisheries issues on every coast, with state chapters established to spearhead the regional issues while building local support.

“The biggest challenge we face is the fight to reform and bring common sense and sound science into the fisheries management process, says James Donofrio, RFA founder and Executive Director. “Anti-fishing and extreme environmental groups are working everyday to get us off the water.” Despite the threats to diminish access to our nation’s resources, Donofrio says that RFA offers members hope in an organization that’s designed from the ground up to fight back. “As individuals, our concerns will simply not be heard; but as a united group, we can and do stand up to anyone who threatens the sport we enjoy so much – fishing!”

After nearly 20 years working inside the Beltway and within state capitols along the coast, RFA has become known as one of the nation’s most respected lobbying organizations, and our members have a lot to celebrate.

The Recreational Fishing Alliance Headquarters P.O. Box 3080 New Gretna, New Jersey 08224 Phone: 1-888-564-6732 toll free Fax: (609) 294-3812

Jim Donofrio Executive Director

Capt. Barry Gibson New England Regional Director

Jim Martin West Coast Regional Director

John DePersenaire Managing Director

Gary Caputi Corporate Relations Director

T. J. Cheek Southeast Regional Director