As a lot of you are aware, July 28th, the NMFS will hold a public hearing at the Ft. Lauderdale Library to discuss proposed changes and new rule making related to swordfish and other HMS.
If you read it, the first issue with comment period ending yesterday was some chages in the way PLL's are allowed to handle Blue Fin Tuna. Effectively the chage is to allow the PLL's to keep incendental caught Bluefin Giants with lower catches of other fish in the hold. In theory, its shouldn't increase effort, but allow less throwbacks of dead giants. We could get into this in depth, but it doesn't directly affect the SoFla swordfish community.
The issues facing South florida are the following:
General Category Permit changes: a proposed rule would allow General Category permit holders to catch and sell swords and sharks vs the current rule of Tuna only.
The main reason for this proposed change, as I can determine has been the push by many parties to increase the catch of swordfish to keep our quota. NMFS has been very careful to not allow any increase in PLL permits, and Handgear permits from the original Limited Access in the 90's. But the argument in DC has been that something else needs to be done to increase environmentally sustainable fishing for swords. That is how they originally came up with the buoy gear rule.
The General Category rule change came up thru several HMS meetings and was proposed by the New England fishermen and an alternative to new PLL or Buoy permits. In my mind, something may have to happen since we can't catch our quota mainly due to less boats fishing than in the 70's 80's and 90's. Of course this is one of the reasons we have more fish and easier to catch.
General Category will presumably let rod and reel fishing with no other gear, buoys or PLL's, and limits will be in line with recreational limits. It also would allow may allow charters and commercial fishing from the same boat, but not at the same time, something that is not allowed now. You can't charter and commercial fish off the same swordy boat.
Would it increase commercial fishing for swords, Yes it will! because the permit is $22 but the boat has to be registered commercial to use it.
I have mixed opinions and I respect most recs opposition to this new rule change. My only issue is I think something is going to be done in the future to increase permits, and I know very few of us want any more buoy permits or PLL's. We will be fighting the PLL's soon enough when they try to get back permanently into the closed zone North of us.
The other issue is LAPP or priveliged programs which would effectively assign some portion of the quota directly to individual permit holders. NMFS is trying to use this in all fisheries since its easier to manage, but most in the HMS world do not like this idea. Each permit holder would "own" a portion of the quota and would fish until they catch theri portion.
Another issue similar to above is the proposed assignemt of allowable bycatch limits to individual permits. In simple terms, each permit holder would be allowed a certain number of bycatch, not described yet, but whe they reach their bycatch limit, they quit fishing. The question here is how are they going to keep count of each boats bycatch, the "honor system".
Some other issues which would allow the squid trawl fishery to keep incidental caught swords with a simpler permit process. This is not a direct fishery, but discards a lot of dead fish.
Limited access and the other related issues has rarely been used in a fishery like this. We have no limits now, can't catch our quota, so whats the use.
However,
The data I have been tracking shows that at certain times, we can come very close to catching our quota. A year ago, we caught 92% of our quota in the second season. That leaves me to believe that we are very close to having the fleet capacity we need, and if we loose any quota at ICCAT.
NMFS will be looking at our comments in July and we are the last of a half dozen meetings across the East Coast.
Some inference on another thread seem to imply that this is a proposal from the SESC. It is not, we have tracked it, with no support, or opposition yet.
No support or any comments on this issue have been made to date by the swordfish club, because the issue has only been floated at the HMS advisory meetings by many parties as one possible solution to some issues. Now is the time for public comment.
I'm sure at the July 14th meeting of the Swordfish Club we will dedicate some time to talk about this.
Post your comments, concerns, opposition, support, etc here and I'm sure NMFS will be watching our responses.
NMFS will take into serious consideration, the comments of the South Florida Swordfishing Community.
mtg notice here:
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/hms/new...der_Notice.pdf
A very good power point presentation of the issues is available at this link:
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/hms/ANP...esentation.pdf
The powerpoint presentation will tell you everything, and it is the same one they will present at the public hearing.
No matter where you stand on this one, remember the reason we get the attention of NMFS is the fact that we fill the library when they have a hearing. Don't let the other stakeholders in the fishery from other areas of the Atlantic Coast influence our fishery managment without the input of South Florida Swordfishing Community