Some Catch Share / IFQ Facts

[Mike Jennings]

when i speak of us or we , i am speaking of recreational fishermen , i am still a recreational fisherman as are the customers who step aboard my boat to enjoy a day of fishing on the Gulf .over the last couple of days i have allowed a Pig to drag me into his wallow and for that i apologise i should have just pointed out the facts , ignored the propaganda and the finger pointing . We live in a time that has trapped us in a place so dire. The combination of bad economic times, outdated management systems, and unwillingness to adjust to the new century is giving us the 1-2 knock out punch.It is the system that we are being managed under more than the Law that is denying us access to the Gulf.It is unaccountability more than stock assessments that have reduced our seasons.It is the unwillingness to realize the importance of our place as a user group that slowly chokes us out of the access to the gulf.So read, learn and understand the issues.You owe it to your self. No longer take anyone's word for it (including mine) Here are some tools for your knowledge base .




To help you understand our recreational plan for the charter for hire industry
www.saveoursector.com this talks of the issue of changing the entire system that NMFS uses to manage our industry and our recreational anglers. Notice this about managing the industry, THIS PLAN IS NOT ABOUT CATCH SHARES


Due to a couple of comments by a SOS supporter or two ,there have been attempts to confuse the SOS plan with the catch share issue read here for the real catch share debate. SOS is not part of this debate!
If you want to learn and read about the real debate and issues of catch shares at the national and regional levels including commercial and recreational fisheries http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/domes_f...hare/index.htm


This entire issue is bigger than one MAN and even bigger that one ORG , regardless of what the propagandists tell us

the wording in this this thread is not entirely of my doing , but more a short compilation of some emails i have sent and received . regardless i felt it was worth the read , and strikes to the heart of the debate.

now as soon as some see this ,the conspiracy theories and name calling will abound , i will simply refer you back to the links above , they speak for themselves better than i can. it is right there in BLACK AND WHITE . i don't care what a couple of individuals on either side of the debate have to say , even this ole dumb fisherman can read for himself and come to an informed opinion.

I hope everyone has a safe trip to Mobile , i will see yall there on Monday

[Levelwind]

Well put Cowboy. I have long advocated that everyone become as informed as possible on this complex issue. I have noted on this board that I have changed my opinion on some of the issues as I became more informed and began to rely less on what someone else said.

We will all become emotional and frustrated at times.

For example, I've never been able to fish with Hilton, but we did share a duck blind on a very slow morning once. Besides being treated to the sight of a wild swan, the best part of the morning was visiting with Tom.

Hope to see you in MOB.

[manintheboat]

do we include EDF in with the propogandists?

[Mike Jennings]

Please Include anyone you want MIB , contrary to popular opinion the SOS plan was written by a group of charter boat Captains plane and simple ,NOT EDF and yes as it moved west across the gulf coast we discovered the differences in regional needs and made some concessions to meet what was best for the industry and the fishery as a whole all the wile considering the constraints of current management plan . , those decisions were made by the core supporters and will continue to be made in the same manner , it was written by fishermen who are definitely fallible and i have no clue what works in Florida , no more that say Gary Jarvis knows what will work for Texas , that was the purpose for or the need for gulf wide input , some of the changes or concessions along the way may have led to the current confusion and conspiracy theories , but i will refer you back to the core supporter list , if you find EDF on that list , plese let me know.

Mike

[wacker]

No disrespect there mike but

"Secure our allocation. We would begin by obtaining a “control date” from the NMFS which would freeze the current percentages of recreational sector allocation between the private recreational anglers and the For-Hire Sector based upon landings history. We don’t want anything more than our fair share: only that what we have historically caught. Then we would obtain an agreement from NMFS that the percentages will remain fixed for a minimum of two years to provide enough time to get the proper monitoring tools in place by NMFS and the industry."

Pretty much sums it up for me, You want to make a profit off of rec tac and you do not even want to compete with the true rec anglers for it on a daily basis. You want me to give it to you?
Is it just me or am I not reading right? So 2 years down the road I say I catch more tuna or whatever than you now your potential catch should be given to yo me?

added for clarity:

just because the for hire boats have over fished a species does not give them the right to own that amount per year from now on.

I am not affiliated with any group or ORG an I really never fish for snapper but I have just seen you on your soap box kinda puffed and I gotta say I don't get it.

[MikeWilson]

Originally Posted by Mike Jennings

but i will refer you back to the core supporter list , if you find EDF on that list , plese let me know.
Mike

Captain Cowboy you need to go to D.C. and join the Obama staff he needs help with 'spinning" in order to push his agenda and your statement quoted above is pure horse manure spin.

Go to the SoS website http://www.saveoursector.com/AboutUs/GaryLetter.aspx and read about EDF's involvement with SOS or you can read it where I cut and pasted it below. Based on below text EDF would be considered a core supporter since they are paying for trips to DC and all that.
------------------------------------------------------------
A letter from Capt. Gary Jarvis - August 2009

Thanks for checking out the SOS web site. I appreciate the fact that you care enough about your businesses to research for yourself what will be the best course of action to protect your investment in time, money and life's passion to become a professional fisherman. The whole time SOS has been involved together as individual Charter boat owners and Captains we have stayed true to the concept of truth and transparency. As we got together to try and formulate our individual ideas on a better course for the charter for hire industry to go in and bring it into a cohesive plan that would benefit all charter for hire fishermen, we knew that there would be resistance to our ideas on ways to make our plan even better. The SOS plan as it now is called, has continued to evolve as individuals like you have gotten involved with the politics of fishery management and helped formulate practical ways to improve the long term outlook for the Charter for hire industry.

We have, through the development of good ideas and hard work, gotten the Gulf Council to take a hard look at the unsuccessful status quo fish management practices to see if there was a better way to manage our fishery. The discussion about data collection, sector separation, and allocations have been the most proactive that we have seen in a quite some time. A new attitude on how to and how soon we can improve the fishery and the charter for-hire industry has given some of us o'l salts a glimmer of hope that our industry has a chance to benefit the next generation of men and women that want to work and make a living on the water.

Unfortunately, as one of the spokespersons for our plan, I have been the target of detrimental comments and accusations about my character , my professional abilities as a fisherman, and my associations with people and organizations, and even if I am the author of these agonizing one finger at a time e-mails and statements. The last accusation is the one that really hacks me the most, just to get this far in this letter has taken me about 25 minutes.

As we began this plan just 2 years ago we understood that it would be hard, time consuming, frustrating and at times, over our heads when it came the politics and procedures of the NMFS, but we were so desperate as businessmen that we began anyway. During the early process when we were communicating back and forth about different ideas and plans I wrote a few e-mails to the few captains I know about my ideas concerning the demise of our businesses. You can see one of them here, I wrote them and made them public in Feb -March of 2007, that was about 8 months before we presented the SOS plan to the Ad Hoc Recreational Red Snapper AP panel in New Orleans. A short time after, I sent those e-mails to Capt David Krebs of Arial seafood who then forwarded it to Pam Baker of EDF. Pam and David had worked together to come up with a plan to stop the insane fishing derby that was negatively impacting the commercial fishing industry.

In late June almost 4 months after my e-mails began our discussions and before we had our plan on paper, Jeff Barger who works with Pam at EDF contacted me and wanted to meet and talk and learn more about the ideas presented in my letters and to see if there were any common issues that we could combine resources on. He stated that our ideas not only had conservation oriented plans but that it was the first time that anyone in the recreational sector came up with ideas to be accountable for what they harvest and desired sound scientific applications to accomplish it. It was through these discussions and follow-up meetings that involved several captains from Orange Beach, Destin, Panama City and surrounding areas that gave rise to the SOS plan, a comprehensive plan to turn our ideas into a workable solution to the serious problems facing our industry.

If you have followed fish politics and know the difficulties and procedural applications that any group or person has to go through, it is easy to see that we need any advice we can get to speed things up because of the impending issues with ACL and AM's. And in these economic times we are in, any delays that could be avoided by making mistakes from lack of knowledge of the NMFS process is critical due to our industry withering away on the vine due to fishing regulations and the economy affecting our industry.

In the fishery management process you will not have much success with the Gulf Council, NMFS or the environmental groups unless you have a sound conservation minded plan. Our plan is sound and with help from EDF we have stayed front and center with this council trying to resolve years of frustration to accomplish something that will benefit us. For this, those opposed to our plan have taken shots at me at a regular basis. I am now getting used to it but had to write this letter for those who desire to know the truth, these are the facts:

1. EDF came to us to offer help in putting a together a plan that they could support;
2. We vetted them out and examined their track record. When it comes to helping fishermen make more money, fish more efficiently, and overall be more successful, their successes are well documented – see for yourself, go to their web site – www.edf.org;
3. They gave us help only when we asked for it, they offered opinions, some we listened to other we did not;
4. I have not received any paid salary or job compensation from EDF for my efforts, however, have squeezed some beers and a few meals out of Jeff for putting up with him;
5. EDF has paid for travel expenses for some of us to go to Washington twice to meet with our elected representatives to help get our message across;

Mike

[Swells]

Hey have y'all run the math on that? Seems like you got:

• 6.9 Mp total catch (ACL)
• 3.2 Mp recreational allocation
• Half of that for CFH is 1.6 Mp
• 1,100 estimated CFH
• 1,454 lb of fish per boat (averaged)
• Approx. 4.5 pounds per red snapper, average wgt.
• 323 fish per CFH boat, if evenly allocated

Sounds good, except I don't know what NMFS is going to do when it says the recreational sector went over by almost 2 Mp last year - mainly because the fish were larger. I suspect we'll get hammered yet again, even though there are more red snapper than ever.

There has been some finger-pointing about who caught all those "extra" fish, with the CFH claiming it was all the private recreational fishermen who did it.

Folks I don't know hoow this will turn out but the math seems screwy to me!
sammie

[MikeWilson]

Captain Cowboy ,

You can't possibly be on this forum stating that EDF -SOS-Catch Shares for CFH are not all interrelated with the advance of the SoS plan?

Read below from EDF website on catch shares for CFH sector. Looks like SOS plan, Smells like SOS plan, and don't get any on your boot cause it will stick to it and track inside just like the SOS plan.

http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=49534

Recreational Fishermen Deserve a Better Management System


In addition to more timely fishing data, recreational fisheries need a management system that will ensure that the sector stays within its limits. There are many types of new management tools that could work, such as the development of for-hire sector catch share plans or the development of tagging systems for select fisheries. Any tool that is used needs to ensure that all fish are accounted for and that annual catch limits are not exceeded, which will empower anglers to be accountable for the fish they catch and help the entire recreational fishery contribute to the fishery conservation goals under the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
Posted: 15-Nov-2009; Updated: 15-Nov-2009

Mike

[Levelwind]

Originally Posted by Swells

Hey have y'all run the math on that? Seems like you got:

• 6.9 Mp total catch (ACL)
• 3.2 Mp recreational allocation
• Half of that for CFH is 1.6 Mp
• 1,100 estimated CFH
• 1,454 lb of fish per boat (averaged)
• Approx. 4.5 pounds per red snapper, average wgt.
• 323 fish per CFH boat, if evenly allocated

Sammy, don't know if your figures are right or wrong. Will take your word.

Sounds good, except I don't know what NMFS is going to do when it says the recreational sector went over by almost 2 Mp last year - mainly because the fish were larger. I suspect we'll get hammered yet again, even though there are more red snapper than ever.

I believe the overage must be deducted from future ACL, but something Dr. Shipp said in one or another of his interviews gave the impression that MSA does not require that, or I misunderstood. I have assumed that overages would have to be accounted for, but perhaps since snapper are no longer considered "undergoing overfishing" we got a break on that. (???)



There has been some finger-pointing about who caught all those "extra" fish, with the CFH claiming it was all the private recreational fishermen who did it.

I think that's a little unfair. The CFH cannot say we catch more than half the fish yet were not responsible for any of the overage. That is what we would LIKE to be able to say, as our own sector, with elogbooks and VMS, but that is not reality now.
What IS reality is the recreational take during the closed Fed. Season in which the CFH may not legally participate. Except for maybe an outlaw here and there, CFH are NOT responsible for that portion of the overage. I don't know how much of the overage that was, though.

Folks I don't know hoow this will turn out but the math seems screwy to me!
sammie

None of us know how it will turn out, Sam. NMFS math has always seemed a little strange to me,as well.

[Mike Jennings]

no disrespect taken Wacker , we have been making a profit off of the recreational TAC ever since that term and that allocation was established . and we will continue to do so in the future , separation or no separation , no disrespect , but i don't get your point

Sammy

just for starters ,your not taking into consideration that most of those permits are not actively fishing and there is no way for anyone to know that number at the current time

but just to ad a little perspective on the Status Quo , the 2009 regional administrators report will be read at the gulf council meeting Monday Feb 2nd. if you look at the red snapper info .Looks like a 51 to 60 day season in the EEZ federal fishery.Even though the government may relax the red snapper fishing regulations by approximately 1,900,000 lbs. Due to over fishing in the recreational sector of over 1.8 million pounds ( not counting yet the TEXAS data) our season will once again be shorter from the AM's used to stop over fishing in our sector.We are fortunate that there is not a pay back provision in this fishery like in the amber jack FMP. Amber Jacks will most likely close sometime in July this will be discussed as well at the Mobile AL meeting.The black hole of no accountability has once again destroyed any benefit that could be realized from the improvement of the red snapper fishery.

now look at your numbers again ! your wild guess is as good as any