Get Ready For Amendment 14!

[Gaitor]

Amendment 14 to the Snapper Grouper Fishery Management Plan (i.e. further hose job to the recs) was approved last week by the SAFMC (big surprise). It establishes 8 MPA's off the South Atlantic coast under the guise of "concern" over deepwater grouper and snapper spawning habitats.
Now ... get this .... a special proviso was made so that commercial fishermen could cross these areas with fish onboard but with all gear stowed.
Hell .... that's like allowing a bank robber to walk down the street with his loot as long as he has his gun in his pocket! (sorry Catchall .... stole your line). Final approval is to be rubber stamped at the council's meeting to be held in Key West June 11 - 15, 2007.
Next on the agenda is to "explore options" for establishing a "Limited Access Privlege Program" for the commercial fishermen in the South Atlantic. Somehow that sounds like they intend to rub salt in the wounds of an already severely restricted Rec Angler fishery. This debauchle is to be tabled at the council's first meeting in April, 2007.
Next is a series of public hearings (cough cough) for amendment 18 to the Fishery Management Plan which has already begun and will continue through March, 2007 (boy they held that one close to the vest). This hose job is born out of concern that because the recs were so severly screwed on Amendment 13c, that they may direct their attention to Kingfish and Mackerel. Although the SAFMC admits that these two species are not being overfished, they want to screw the rec fishermen even more by tightening up the limits on those as well.
Don't these bozos know that the Rec Fishermen in FL pump 10 BILLION dollars into the economy annually? Oh my .... forgot .... they don't give a damn ... we're not ponying up enough graft money to make their decisions less severe! So .... If you want to take a whizz into a gale force wind .... go to the next public charade ... err .... meeting in Key West ... June 11 -15.

[Disco Lady]

:
why: CONO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CHEERS! Gaitor.

[Boboe]

Is anything being done to the shrimpers? Way back in 97 the fisheries service said that if we didn't stop shrimping in the Gulf as we are, the red snapper would NEVER recover. Reason: something like 85% of all red snappers are caught and killed in shrimp nets before they ever get to spawning age.

Shrimpers need to get hammered down.

I don't eat shrimp anymore. I've fished behind their boats and seen the carnage.

[Gaitor]

You are correct Bob. We recently had a trawler caught fishing in the Oculina Banks (a Habitat of Particular Concern) for the second time in a couple years. They just fined the capt, let him go, and let him sell his 10,000 lbs of ill gotten shrimp. Bottom line is ... it's all about the money ... we have the best politicians and regulators money can buy and until that changes, the fish stocks are in trouble from the commercial side of the house.

[quack quack]

Shimp bycatch is the worst in the world.As bad if not worse then LL.The other day I was watching Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe and he was shrimping.We was shoveling over hundreds of pounds of little snapper and that was one little experiment tow

[Boboe]

Yeah, and that was just one little 4 hour experimental drag, if I remember right. Those guys drag a 100yd swath for 8+hours at 3-4 knots. Do the math. That's carnage. I've seen the 400# shiteaters behind the boats looking like hungry-hungry-hippos, with their heads out of the water gorging themselves. Of course, I did catch a pile of blackfin tuna and a limit of kings in about 2 hours for my charter as well, but I'd rather have taken some time to do it than fish in the ungodly chum line.

The Atlantic doesn't have red snapper like the Gulf does, especially the Gulf west of the Mississippi. That's where they REALLY live. That's also where the shrimp and shrimpers really live. I've dropped 5-hook gear on seemingly flat mud after seeing a good show. All I brought up were 6-10" red snappers. It was the nursery. We moved on after one drop. That is exactly where the shrimpers drag. Every one of those babies will get dragged up when the next shrimp boat comes through. It's straight up carnage, and it needs to end.

Even if you were to be stupid as hell and assume that the snappers dodge the net, the crazy amount of grunts, croakers, sea robins, etc that are caught and killed by the nets is more than enough to wreck the food chain.

The only reason they're allowed to continue is because people don't know how destructive shrimping is. If you were to cut a similar swath across the land every night, people would be shitting themselves calling for an immediate end. This is below water, and people have no clue what's going on

Their bycatch has got to be way worse than long liners.