Washington Update

[Ron.38 Special]

I know a lot of you are asking about the NMFS meeting in DC Tues and Wed. A lot went on and we have a lot of info to share.

We didn't get in until late last night and of course we all had to catch up on work today.

I have our info and will put in into an informative post about the facts, and the state of our fishery.

I'll try to get it posted before too late tonight.

Thanks,

Ron

[RiskTaker]

Thanks for the note.

And by the way, thanks for going to Washington D.C. in the first place.

Standing by on 72, until you have some time to post a news update.

[Shark Tagger]

thanks ron. we appreciate you efforts along with the others by your side.

[Ron.38 Special]

We had a very interesting trip.
The NMFS has an advisory board that consists of mostly all commercial people. Out of approximately 25 Advisory delegates that attended, only Ellen Peele, TBF, Mike Leach IGFA, Rick Weber, CCA and RFA’s proxy for Jim Donafrio represented the recreational fishing community. There rest were NE and Gulf charter boats that more or less represent somewhere in-between. There also is a small delegation of Environmental Reps. It is safe to say that the PLL industry is very well represented and has a great amount of influence.
The Commercial Pellagic Longline Industry (PLL) that attended the Ft. Lauderdale meeting, picked up on the fact that the recreational community does not care for the buoys. Since they believe a key piece of catching more fish is to get more water, the proposal was put out there to trade recreational fishing support of opening up North of Ft. Pierce, and South of Marathon, for PLL support of bouy gear removal and recognition of recreational use of the remaining area of the closure. With our recreational delegation support, the PLL interests lead us to believe that the trade could be made fast enough to use this opening of closed areas as evidence of renewed PLL effort to catch our quota, at ICCAT in November.
Of course our delegation refused to make such a decision. We were just starting to see how the process of making such decisions would work.
This is not the only area of interest to the PLL and it seemed to us that a much more important area is the loss of fishing access to the windward passage between Haiti and Cuba. This closure is a State Department Issue and not a NMFS decision.
They had workshops to discuss ways to reinvigorate the Swordfish industry and the good news was that all parties involved respected the recreational fishery off of SE Florida. The bad news was that they all agreed that the government can not and should not keep the entire closed areas closed to the PLL fleet. NMFSS works with science in their findings and that alone gives us time to ready a plan of action. Of course there also is always the legal option and there is no guarantee that the PLL interests will not use that option.
They key argument in the legal arena will be the preliminary announcement by ICCAT that the stock has reached 1.0 Biomass MSY. Lots of real explanation of this data is necessary to fully understand it, but it is a statement that the stock is recovered to some baseline set in past data. It is a statement of the total weight of fish in the stock and does not fully address the size of the fish that make up the stock, nor the size of the fish in the FEC closed zone.
This changes the way NMFS must look at closures and the defined purpose of the closure when it was implemented. Two differences might be closures for bycatch of marlin vs juvenile swordfish.
For those of you that are or are not members of THE BILLFISH FOUNDATION, you should thank Ms. Ellen Peel. She is amazing. She has the respect of all parties involved, knows how to listen to their plight and then use the correct words and science to keep your best interest in place, without giving up anything or even showing her hand before going on record. We are going to need a strong partner like TBF for our protection of the recreational fishing community’s use of the FEC. Ellen and TBF opened a lot of doors for the rec swordfish delegation and we could not have gained the respect of the NMFS and the other parties without her introduction and complete support. We were given respect by all parties, and a very real format to let the board members begin to understand our fishery.
There is much more complication, in the issues and the way decisions are made in NMFS, to discuss them on a quick post on the internet, but some simple conclusions can be made from what we learned at the meetings. If you think the closed zone off our coast is protected forever and set aside for the future generations of recreational anglers, you are quite mistaken. While the close zone does not have a sunset provision, it can be changed by legal or administrative action at NMFS on short notice. A simple “ we don’t want them here” won’t work and we need to realize that. We need to confront the issues in an organized and intelligent manner, take our stand, and fight for it.
The SESC will schedule a meeting in the next two weeks to fully update all the recreational swordfishing community of the very real and eminent challenges that face us in the coming months and years for our fishery. We need to seriously think about an action fund and a real plan to keep our interests protected at an agency where we didn’t even exist just a few short years ago.
We may add additional details of the trip and facts about the issues that we dealt with and will face us in the very near future. Lets leave an area here where we can coordinate meetings in the next few days or weeks to keep informed.

This post is a combination of effort from the recreational swordfishing delegation.
Now will you report your swordfish? Report it or loose it!

[RiskTaker]

Thanks Ron,

For staying up late, to fire your report out quickly.

I think it is time to roll up the sleeves and get back at it.

Until that time comes, I would like to personally thank Ellen Peel for her steadfast effort, to protect our resources, from a well balanced perspective: THANK YOU. That said, I believe that she has earned her Tenure at "The Billfish Foundation" and we should all be very conscientious of how much hard work has been done for your interest and benefit. If you are not a member already please join that organization now.

[dpdash]

Thanks Ron for the update! Looking forward to the next meeting, I'm out of town the 17-21, hope it doesn't fall then.