Wow - Swordfish & Longlines

[JupiterSailfish]

I still don't understand all this stuff going on. I know a little bit, but so much going on. I just hope the PLL don't come in, I know that.

[mneptune]

Originally Posted by John Doe

I have some bad news for you guys that keep saying this about the buoys:

I witnessed a nice sportfish the other night settin buoys as far as the eye could see, high flyers, radar deflectors the whole 9 yards, If had to guess I would say at least 25 and I would bet 35. You have a few more of these setups out there and it wont be so pretty.The real numbers of fish they are puttin a hurtin on is not getting out to the general public as the are keepin it to themselves if you will. for instance this week a small openfish buoy boat caught 15 in 1 night ! when is the last time you caught 15 in night on a rod ? You do the math, just think, a few more of these big boys fishing on nights when it 4' and all the fair weather fisherman are at home playin on their computers, and it goes on night after night while the wind blows for a week. It wont be long before everyone is saying the Buoy guys got um all instead if the longliners got um all !

Just some food for thought
John

As I said, why not enforce a rod & reel only policy for all swordfishing vessels where each boat would have to abide by the same size and harvest limits regardless if they are commercial or recreational.

This is an important nursery for this fishery... There should not be any commercial fishing that allows such large harvests.

Just my .02

[rollin]

John (or whatever your name is) has a good point. The bouy gear should be banned from the EEZ also. Maybe we'll take that one up next when we finally defeat Blue Water's newest BS "experimental request".

PLL gear should be banned globally - Period.

BBP - maybe your right about the mullet gutter - his grammer belayed his intelligence level - but you cannot tell me that the majority of PLL capt's don't act the same way when no ones looking. maybe you did the right thing and didnt leave dozens of dead pups in your wake, but there's simply no way for you or your peers to know what the other boats were doing and Kens right about the dead pups in the stream in the 80s - thats not guess work - i saw them too - until the PLLs got smart about it and started gutting and popping the eyes on the pups to make sure they'd sink.

No one believes that PLL gear had no affect on sword stocks BBP - and we never will. Every study ever done (and theres a crap load on the net if you look for them - go google it and see for yourself) - proves it.

MESSAGE to Blue Water and the entire PLL industry - your time is almost up. The people of the planet are starting to notice what you've done and are STILL doing and we will eventually ban you from the earths oceans. Take your money and retire to cuba or something already, or better yet, take all the resources and money and effort you spend trying to get back into the closed zones and spend it on learning how to effectively catch fish and sell them without destroying the very fishery thats feeding your families.

THATS what I'M talking about!

R

[rollin]

Originally Posted by Ron.38 Special

BP,

You are right, Hogarth has his decision tucked away in his desk, just waiting for early July to announce it.

Problem is, he now is finding that the political pressure to stop the ill fated "experiment" is greater than his will to cater to a small group of 60 fisherman.

This one will again be rejected in spite of the influence and lobbying by Blue Water. Majority rules!

man, i sure hope your right about this Ron.

R

[Broadbill-Pro]

Originally Posted by rollin

BBP - maybe your right about the mullet gutter - his grammer belayed his intelligence level - but you cannot tell me that the majority of PLL capt's don't act the same way when no ones looking. maybe you did the right thing and didnt leave dozens of dead pups in your wake, but there's simply no way for you or your peers to know what the other boats were doing and Kens right about the dead pups in the stream in the 80s - thats not guess work - i saw them too - until the PLLs got smart about it and started gutting and popping the eyes on the pups to make sure they'd sink.

No one believes that PLL gear had no affect on sword stocks BBP - and we never will. Every study ever done (and theres a crap load on the net if you look for them - go google it and see for yourself) - proves it.

l:

Juvenile discards did not exist before NMFS required that we throw back fish under 32#, those fish were utilized to feed the public even though they had little or no monetary value. It is a fact that swordfish schools are comprised of similiar size fish. Where under 32# fish are abundant it is difficult to earn enough to recover a trips expenses, thus they are not targeted. The 40 or 50 discards per day that was mentioned could not have occured on the FEC. It could happen in the Eastern GOM, the problem is that not enough large fish exist there to make a trip profitable. I can not see any Captain camping on that stock of fish.

I also believe that PLL had an effect on the FEC sword production, it simply is not true that the vessels operating on the FEC were the culprits. If you have been on this site long enough you have read why and where the damage occured, why the timing coincided with the PLL ban and what will happen if the US share of the ICCAT unused quota is lost to coastal Nations in the Caribbean basin. Look back in this forum, the info is there.

[dring]

bb-pro i can remember steaming 3 or 4 days to get away from the small fish and other bycatch.small fish and bycatch never add zeros to your paycheck!!!

[rollin]

BBP,

"Juvenile discards did not exist before NMFS required that we throw back fish under 32#, those fish were utilized to feed the public even though they had little or no monetary value."

little monetary value? how many pups did you have to kill before you decided that this might be a bad idea?

"I also believe that PLL had an effect on the FEC sword production, it simply is not true that the vessels operating on the FEC were the culprits."

OK, maybe not - but the PLL gear was still the culprit - right or not?

R

[Muddog]

we ran into a longliner yesterday he was fishing our Sword Spot

[rollin]

huh? what gear?
R

[Broadbill-Pro]

Originally Posted by rollin

BBP,


little monetary value? how many pups did you have to kill before you decided that this might be a bad idea?



OK, maybe not - but the PLL gear was still the culprit - right or not?

R

Not sure I understand the question? The point is that dead fish should never be discarded, there is a place for them even if they are not worth anything. The second point is that if a PLL vessel is catching 50 undersize fish per day, they are fishing in the wrong place and will have a difficult time putting fuel in the boat for the next trip.

Yes, PLL gear had an effect on the North Atlantic Swordfish population. It should be banned in certain areas for conservation measures and certain areas for gear conflict reasons, the two issues are not related. Now that the pressure is off swordfish in the tropical spawning areas and the FEC has realized the results, only a gear conflict issue remains here. That can easily be resolved by prohibiting PLL from Marathon to Fort Pierce.

[rollin]

BBP - if small swords were OK to sell, wouldnt that create a market for them? And, should anybody care that 50 undersized fish per day, in a nursery area, such as we have here, might eventually hurt the stock?

"Yes, PLL gear had an effect on the North Atlantic Swordfish population. It should be banned in certain areas for conservation measures and certain areas for gear conflict reasons, the two issues are not related."

OK - just one simple question please:

what areas do you think the LL gear should be banned?

R

[miamiangler1]

All Over The World Period!!!!!!!!!

[mneptune]

Originally Posted by miamiangler1

All Over The World Period!!!!!!!!!

Willi is absolutely correct. PLL gear, gill nets, drift nets as well as all the other methods used for mast harvesting that decimates entire populations of species should be banned world wide. At what point do people need to see the reality of this and take action, when there is nothing left? In the end everyone looses....

[miamiangler1]

Go back to the way it was done long ago ... hook and line , but then there`s no profit ! And that`s what it boils down to big money ...

[mneptune]

Originally Posted by miamiangler1

Go back to the way it was done long ago ... hook and line , but then there`s no profit ! And that`s what it boils down to big money ...

Right again..... Greed & profit is what drives them, not the health of the fishery. The gear the commercial industry uses not only hurt the fishery but they end up fishing themselves out of a job.... that is until they pick up and move to a different region and start the process all over again.

[Broadbill-Pro]

The two of you are so off track that it seems comical, it was never the lack of fish or the decimation of the stock that demised the US commercial swordfish industry, rather the abundance of product that sent prices into the basement. That fact and the current popularity of sushi in the US has made tuna fishing more desirable. There was a time when most of our tuna were worthless and only cooked fish brought a decent price.

Rollin - fish under 32# have never been worth enough to target, even when they were legal to keep. they do not offer the portion size that resturaunts demand and taste like cardboard.

surface PLL gear should be banned south of about 22'N from October to Febuary, cows should be allowed to spawn unprovoked.

Last time I checked PLL gear was hook and line??

I challenge anyone on this site to deny that greed and profit motivates them to go to work each day. Lay off the evil longliner theory, it really is childish.

[mneptune]

Originally Posted by Broadbill-Pro

The two of you are so off track that it seems comical, it was never the lack of fish or the decimation of the stock that demised the US commercial swordfish industry, rather the abundance of product that sent prices into the basement. That fact and the current popularity of sushi in the US has made tuna fishing more desirable. There was a time when most of our tuna were worthless and only cooked fish brought a decent price.

Rollin - fish under 32# have never been worth enough to target, even when they were legal to keep. they do not offer the portion size that resturaunts demand and taste like cardboard.

surface PLL gear should be banned south of about 22'N from October to Febuary, cows should be allowed to spawn unprovoked.

Last time I checked PLL gear was hook and line??

I challenge anyone on this site to deny that greed and profit motivates them to go to work each day. Lay off the evil longliner theory, it really is childish.

Your right BBP,

Last time I checked PLL gear was hook and line.... It is thousands of hooks and 20 - 30 miles of line. Therein lies the problem, by the time you check your lines after the set, there are dead pups as well as dead bycatch that have to be discarded. It is a waste of all of our marine resources.

I think our point is that if the commercial industry fished with rod and reel, all undersized fish could be released unharmed as well as the bycatch of other species would be eliminated. My guess would be that if you commericially fished with rod and reel and abided by the same size and harvest limits as the rec guys do, nobody would care or say anything about it, most likely you would have our support as well.

Just my .02

[rollin]

"The two of you are so off track that it seems comical, it was never the lack of fish or the decimation of the stock that demised the US commercial swordfish industry, rather the abundance of product that sent prices into the basement. That fact and the current popularity of sushi in the US has made tuna fishing more desirable. There was a time when most of our tuna were worthless and only cooked fish brought a decent price."

soooo, sword stock is not in trouble then? wow. i was under the impression that the average size has fallen way off and the total tonnage is way less now than historic days. if your saying that LLs dont target swords cause of profit/loss, then why do you want back into the EEZ so bad? also, i guess youre gonna tell us that PLL gear hasnt done any damage to the tuna stocks either?

"Rollin - fish under 32# have never been worth enough to target, even when they were legal to keep. they do not offer the portion size that resturaunts demand and taste like cardboard."

huh. ok, i'll buy that, but isnt it just a little bit possible that killing off tons of pups might possibly be bad for the stock?

"surface PLL gear should be banned south of about 22'N from October to Febuary, cows should be allowed to spawn unprovoked."

PLL gear should be banned globally. its starting to sound like your the only one around here that hasnt figured that out yet - its not comical - its sad. PLL gear needs to go the way of the dinasour, the gill net, the dodo bird, so on, so forth. it was a great way to catch fish - too great in fact - causing so much harm to fish stocks to make your living - which is fishing - is kinda like the logging industry used to be - until they figured out all the trees would be gone soon - effectively putting themselves and they're offspring out of business, and began replanting regulations - common sense will have to be forced upon the greedy PLL industry if they have none of they're own.

"Last time I checked PLL gear was hook and line??"

yeah, kinda like a cobra gunship is still a gun? PLL advocates spit out this kind of nonsense constantly to confuse the issue - its not confusing - its really simple - any gear that is counter-productive to the survival of the species it targets should be eliminated by the industry itself - if it wasnt for the massive greed in play by PLL advocates - it would already be gone.

"I challenge anyone on this site to deny that greed and profit motivates them to go to work each day. Lay off the evil longliner theory, it really is childish."

longliners are not evil, just stupid i guess, or they would simply develop new gear thats productive without harming the stock. greed does not motivate me - profit does. everyone wants to make money, BBP, but if my career was causing damage to a natural resource, or harmful to anyone in any way, and i didnt care cause i was making money - thats greed - its harmful - profit is not.

R

[quack quack]

OK enough with all this crap.

Rollin LL gear should not be banned world wide and has it's place.LL gear run correctly and in proper areas will not threaten an entire species.

Commercial fisherman are not evil and the root of the problem.

If you want to talk about a certain area around the world that should not have LL gear because of bycatch or pups then fine.But do not wrap up all types of LLing or commercial fishing into one ball.I have not even read through all of this thread just enough to now it is BS.So go drink another 12pack and go watch your favorite tv show Deadliest catch

I read back and saw your post about banning buoys next.You dope if not for the buoy boats and there capts supporting us the LLers would be in the straights now!!