Swordfish Landings Update

[Ron.38 Special]

The following is the latest update on North Atlantic Swordfish Landings

All catches are in dressed weight (to convert to whole weight, X 1.39
N of 35N Lat
Longline
June 07 37,978 lbs
July 07 68,145 lbs
August 07 133,096 lbs

S of 35N Lat
Longline Handline Rod and Reel Buoy Gear
June 07 129,592 lbs 80lb 408 lb 10,690 lbs
July 07 112,678 lbs 309 lb 2113 lb 23,085 lbs
August 07 143,947 lbs 0 1549 lb 11,229 lbs

Totals 625,436 lbs 389 lbs 4105 lbs 45,004 lbs

In addition to the above catches, rec anglers have reported about 310 fish so far this year, and NMFS uses a round wieght average of 91 lbs for rec anglers so its about 28,210 lbs whole weight this year for recs and about 20,294 dressed weight. Rec numbers are from Jan 1 07 and commercial numbers are from June this year. Est rec catch since June is 73 fish or about 4800 lbs dressed weight this reporting period.



OK, so now my analysis,

Recs caught about 0.7% of the fish this period

PLL's caught about 92.7%

Buoy Gear caught about 6.7%

Handgear and Commercial rod and reel caught the rest about 0.7%

In the Southern reporting zone, where we fish and all buoy gear fish are reported, buoy gear caught 45,004 lbs of 435,680 lbs or a solid 10.3% of the fish taken from the Southern zone south of Lat 35N. Buoys caught about 10 times as many fish as rec anglers reported.

In the incidental category, where rec catches go, we have only about 4817 lbs of fish taken and reported not including rec catches. The current quota for incidental catches is 300tons so we have plenty in the current "kitty" to last the recs until the end of the season. We do however expect increased catches in the incidental category since we how have higher catch limits allowed in most incidental swordfisheries.

I'm sure september numbers will show much higher catches in all categories.

[quack quack]

Ron are tourney caught fish in those rec #s?I was just wondering if they did.

[Jesslyn]

With all those fish caught you would think the recs would be doing better. Guess we need to sharpen our skills.

[RiskTaker]

Ron,

Thanks for keeping the fishing community updated on how the numbers stand, year to date, or reasonably estimated.

BTW - How are you obtaining the data of the recreational reports?

Could you provide the link to the pdf report that lists those numbers, recreationals if available and the official NMFS published file? I can screen capture it and post it on this thread. I think that picture helps with the understanding because....

One comment on the percentages that you posted: they add up to 100.8%. Maybe, I just didn't read the numbers properly in the manner you posted them (Or was the recreational harvest lumped into the (Handgear, Comercial rod and Reel category and not counted as an independent category, Incidental?) Normally, you can round off numbers that are less than 1% point, but in this case where we are citing a recreational harvest at about .7%, it seems to me that the precision does matter, so that the composite of all participants clearly adds up to 100.0%


OK, so if the numbers for recreational harvest are less than 1% or maybe even up to 2%, if you want to extrapolate to some larger number to account for the recreational fish that are not reported, as the regulations require, then......

It seems like all the complaining that anybody is doing about the size or the manner in which recreational fish is caught, is basically "white noise", insignificant to the entire harvest or even the "Southern waters" portion of the U.S. Atlantic harvest. (We knew this already, but just a reminder, even for me, to keep the perspective absolutely correct.)

I think that I'm going to go fishing as soon as I finish up my project. If the day ever comes that we can catch multiple fish on one trip, I will have no guilt trip whatsoever because the numbers are insignificant, even if we can put 4 200 lb.ers in the boat if we want to. I have always reported the fish that we have caught and I have never sold any fish. Don't let this sound like I am not a conservationist because I would gladly cut back if it could make a difference. There may still be some action items on the International scene.

This update of data plainly shows that our consolidated recreational harvest is trivial compared to the PLL and commercial Buoy harvests. That is all that I needed to hear to take my own adjustment into the swordfish politics arena and the International quagmire.

I'm going fishing, I mean catching: and don't anybody lecture me on how we are getting the fish in the boat, unless you just feel compelled to blow some smoke.

Thanks Ron, this data has set me free. If over-harvest ever starts happening again, we know exactly where to point the fingers and it definitely will not be in the mirror of any recreational anglers.


Supporting data: I saw this - http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/hms/swo...031%202007.pdf and http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/hms/swo..._by%20Gear.pdf

[tunaman81]

Originally Posted by Ron.38 Special

In addition to the above catches, rec anglers have reported about 310 fish so far this year,
.

Does anyone else see anything wrong with this number? I don't even think that is close to what the real number of recreational caught fish this past year. Just shows how many fish are not being reported. Its funny that in the past 3 months there have been more fish reported from the Northeast than from Florida.

Originally Posted by Ron.38 Special

In the Southern reporting zone, where we fish and all buoy gear fish are reported, buoy gear caught 45,004 lbs of 435,680 lbs or a solid 10.3% of the fish taken from the Southern zone south of Lat 35N. Buoys caught about 10 times as many fish as rec anglers reported.

Key phrase here "as many fish as rec anglers reported."

[quack quack]

Well I hope with the new online reporting people will report more of there fish.

[RiskTaker]

Tunaman:

I am just asking, but where are you getting that information from?

Or are you looking at the empty cells shown above for the swordfishing landings
covering June July and August? Yes, I see that those cells are empty too, for the figures " So f 35N". Yeah so I wonder why they are populated for the Northern latitiudes and not the south band.

Timely reporting of the recreational catches seemed to be on the request list. If you read the N.MF.S. bulletin you can see that the Advisory Panel did indeed request that the recreational catches should be reported at the same time. (Thanks, Ron and/or Vinnie if it was you that requested this.)

What would be your guestimate of unreported recreational swordfish landings as a factor of the number reported: .3x, .5x, 1x, 2x, 5x, etc. ? And how would you back up that allegation? For me, I would be happy to provide the benefit of doubt and if unreports are 2.0x or less than the reports,(ie. 1 out of 3 fish are reported.), this is unfortunate for required reporting, but it still does not amount to a hill of beans from the recreational portion. Note: my example number is purely hypothetical.

But if they were to pinch our allowance of swordfish, I would have some choice worty dirds, for those that are not reporting. But I do not know any of those people now, that I could cuss at now.

Ron, you mentioned the dressed weight to whole weight factor at 1.39 in your original post. or in other words the dressed fish is 72% of a whole fish.

Would you happen to know the factor for whole weight to filleted and loined weight?

[tunaman81]

Originally Posted by RiskTaker

I think that I'm going to go fishing as soon as I finish up my project. If the day ever comes that we can catch multiple fish on one trip, I will have no guilt trip whatsoever because the numbers are insignificant, even if we can put 4 200 lb.ers in the boat if we want to. I have always reported the fish that we have caught and I have never sold any fish. Don't let this sound like I am not a conservationist because I would gladly cut back if it could make a difference. There may still be some action items on the International scene.

Wow. That is the entirely wrong attitude to have. Why would you need to put 4 200lb fish in the boat? Just because you can and have a clean conscience about it does not mean you should. Technically, it may not make a difference to the stock, but that does not mean you should be irresponsible about your harvesting. And honestly, every potential breeder you release means more fish for the future.

Also, if you are willing to put 4 200lb fish in the boat in one night's fishing, you are obviously not a conservationalist. It seems like you are saying "hey, IM not going to make a difference so I'd better throw every fish I can legally keep on the deck."

Originally Posted by RiskTaker

This update of data plainly shows that our consolidated recreational harvest is trivial compared to the PLL and commercial Buoy harvests. That is all that I needed to hear to take my own adjustment into the swordfish politics arena and the International quagmire.

Yes, it is obvious that the rec harvest is trivial compared to longliners. However, the rec harvest is not trivial compared to the buoy gear.

[tunaman81]

Originally Posted by RiskTaker

Tunaman:

I am just asking, but where are you getting that information from?

Or are you looking at the empty cells shown above for the swordfishing landings
covering June July and August? Yes, I see that those cells are empty too, for the figures " So f 35N". Yeah so I wonder why they are populated for the Northern latitiudes and not the south band.

Timely reporting of the recreational catches seemed to be on the request list. If you read the N.MF.S. bulletin you can see that the Advisory Panel did indeed request that the recreational catches should be reported at the same time. (Thanks, Ron and/or Vinnie if it was you that requested this.)

What would be your guestimate of unreported recreational swordfish landings as a factor of the number reported: .3x, .5x, 1x, 2x, 5x, etc. ? And how would you back up that allegation? For me, I would be happy to provide the benefit of doubt and if unreports are 2.0x or less than the reports,(ie. 1 out of 3 fish are reported.), this is unfortunate for required reporting, but it still does not amount to a hill of beans from the recreational portion. Note: my example number is purely hypothetical.

310 fish landed for the entirety of Florida (as well as Gulf States) and the southeast from the past 10 months does not seem accurate to me.

[Ron.38 Special]

One correction,
NMFS uses 1.33 as a coversion between DW and WW. And also remember the quota is 2937 DW and 3907 WW so remeber that when you look at landings which is normally in WW.

And for RT,
Estimated numbers are were from catch data as of October 4, 2007 with an allowance of a few fish reported in the old system since then. Actually 297 were reported (Greg Faircloth, personal discussion, Oct,05) by early Oct and I estimated the few fish after that based on a reporting number of a friend in mid october (reporting number was a consecutive number since original start date, now it will be per reporting year)
BTW, recent reports are at about 30 since October 17 start of the online report system. When you report, the number after FL, is the number of swordfish reported since october 17, 2007 and is supposed to reset Jan1,08.

The est weight of 91 lbs WW for recs was also verbal commuunication during the A/P meeting. That number may go up with the high weight of the "daytime" fish being reported. Also verbal communication from NMFS had an estimate of 30% of the new reports being daytime fish. The LJFS was from 70 to 105 inches.

One question I'm getting an answer to is "where are the tournament fish reports at" That would include the Swordfish Club Reporting system and all other tournament data. Hopefully I'll have that data soon. It does not show up on the monthly update from NMFS.

Also for RT,

come on may, give me a break, I didn't use my Hp to calc the %'s, I did them in my head.

[Ron.38 Special]

Here's another fun number to keep you thinking.

If we have reported online, 31 fish since october 17, 2007 then that is 31 fish in a week. ( round numbers RT)

31 X 52 = 1612

at 91 lbs that's 146,692 or 73.34 tons WW.

And that's worth about as much as the cocktail napkin numbers we calculated in DC...................

But, food for thought....

Ron Coddington

[RiskTaker]

Ron:

Sorry man, don't take this in a negative way: I am not trying to bust your balls on this, by splitting fractions of percentage points. I truly appreciate the fact that you are presenting these numbers on the forum. Hopefully, we can utilize this dialogue to truly see the bigger picture and establish what the appropriate measure of conservation is all about.

Hopefully, you can/do see that precision does matter when we are articulating the impact of recreational fishing at about a .7% impact. So in this context precision could and does matter, for the proper story to be told.

I left you with an explanation option to account for the mathematics: if it is the paper napkin answer, that is fine, at least you clarified the discrepancy. Thank you. And cheers, because we are working at this together. The very valid point remains that we must try to be very reasonably accurate with the way the data "analysis" is put on the table. Because it can and does lead people to make decisive choices. Case in point.

You can see from my posts that the presented date made it very clear to me that the recreational impact is insignificant. We know where the bigger fish are to fry, if necessary. (Directed Fisheries)

Tunaman, I ams what I ams: no bananas are allowed on board, so at least I got my spinach bagel for the next swordfish challenge. I will likely never put 4 - 200 lb. swordfish in the boat on any given night/day or combination of both. But I was really trying to drive the point home, with a somewhat controversial example, to make it make sense on this forum. At the end of the "calendar" year it is all about how many swordfish are removed from the sea, that really matters. What the recreational camp does, is trivial by comparison.

I hope that point is crystal clear by now, depending upon the data that supports it.

[tunaman81]

Originally Posted by RiskTaker

Ron:

Tunaman, I ams what I ams: no bananas are allowed on board, so at least I got my spinach bagel for the next swordfish challenge. I will likely never put 4 - 200 lb. swordfish in the boat on any given night/day or combination of both. But I was really trying to drive the point home, with a somewhat controversial example, to make it make sense on this forum. At the end of the "calendar" year it is all about how many swordfish are removed from the sea, that really matters. What the recreational camp does, is trivial by comparison.

I hope that point is crystal clear by now, depending upon the data that supports it.

Gotcha. I was just trying to say that even if the effect is trivial, we still need to be responsible in our actions.

[quack quack]

Holy cow Ron 31 fish in a week.That is great to hear maybe some one will now see there is a rec fishery in Fl.Guys with out reporting our fish if nmfs were to ever give rec anglers there own limit they would look at our reported fish history for our baseline.So if it only showed 350 fish per year then they would use that as our limit.So based on 1 week of 31 fish that could close our season in 2 to 3 months!!!!I hope this all shows how important it is to report our fish.NMFS already see's this as a 100%msy fishery so not reporting fish is not hiding any thing from them it is only hurting us in the future.

[snooknreds2]

Originally Posted by quack quack

Holy cow Ron 31 fish in a week.That is great to hear maybe some one will now see there is a rec fishery in Fl.Guys with out reporting our fish if nmfs were to ever give rec anglers there own limit they would look at our reported fish history for our baseline.So if it only showed 350 fish per year then they would use that as our limit.So based on 1 week of 31 fish that could close our season in 2 to 3 months!!!!I hope this all shows how important it is to report our fish.NMFS already see's this as a 100%msy fishery so not reporting fish is not hiding any thing from them it is only hurting us in the future.

[Darkside]

The tournament #'s go inot the incidental part of the quota, but not sure. Last tournament their were something like 74 fish the winter tournament from last year was 80 something, our best total catch was in 05 with 49 boats and 117 fish. Hopefully the new on-line reporting system helps with our catch report. I quess i suck now cause i have been out on about ten trips without boating one.

[Skip Smith]

the clubs website has hardly any rec reports.

[Darkside]

The 0 for 10 is boating a fish, we have let some go. The last one I boated was 210lbs, and was reported hopefully more will start with the new system.

[RiskTaker]

Originally Posted by ProfessorO

RT, the table's rod and reel numbers are not rec numbers but a commercial
fisherman who uses a rod and reel, right???

Arthur:

I am trying to understand some of these column entries too. For example, I wonder why there is a north of 35N entry(s), yet the southern half remain empty until year end. Perhaps there is a different reporting mechanism in the N35?

Yes, to the best of my understanding, the Rod & reel reporting is from those with a directed fisheries permit.

From my understanding, the recreational reporting numbers will get posted into the Incidental column at some point in time. So in essance, we are blind to what the actual recreational reports are: this is with exception to what Ron is able to gather (probably unofficial data until it is finally tallied up.)

So what we should see at some point in time with be the sum total of all the swordfish tournaments, which includes the data in the Swordfish Club database as this is also tournament data among club members, plus all of the N.M.F.S. reports.

The good news is that we should start seeing more timely Incidental column postings as this was a request of the Advisory panel, refer the the N.M.F.S. linked from another forum thread.

Originally Posted by ProfessorO

Will someone please post the monthly totals from the SESC data base and the number of folks reporting?? cheers, arthur

Arthur, here is the summary that I come up with from the TSC reporting data base. It was easier for me to do a quick tally versus a month to month report.

From June 1, 2007 to date, October 25, 2007 a total of 69 reports had been posted by a total of 17 club members, plus one outing. From these reports, there were 28 reports with fish boated, the other 41 reports were either releases only or no catches. ( I selected the June 1 starting date because I believe that N.M.F.S. is also reporting on short year format for 2007, starting on a calendar year basis for 2008.

A total of 36 fish were reported as boated. The whole weight estimated summed to be 4,600 lbs., which averages to approximately 127 lbs. per fish.

From this snapshot of data, 7 fish were also reported directly to N.M.F.S. So that means that those fish cannot be counted on the final report to N.M.F.S., otherwise they would be counted twice. I just wanted to give you a sampling to indicate that some people are also voluntarily reporting fish.

Also understand that this database is a voluntary reporting vehicle within the club membership. I do not know what percentage of the club membership is actively participating in this. Perhaps Skip or Bobby could provide that detail:
18/club membership * 100 = participation (%). Whereas reporting to N.M.F.S. is a requirement.

Note: This is my personal accounting of the information on record: it should not be considered as an official club publication, as I am not authorized to speak on behalf of the club. But all current club members have access to the data.

[RiskTaker]

Sorry Arthur:

I don't want in any way shape or form want to mislead you from the recreational numbers as presented. I have not been made privvy to the information that N.M.F.S. possesses. From Ron's post he has been able to obtain some snap shots, as he has stated on his post.

I could have just as easily presented the Jan. 1, 2007 to date (10/25/07) numbers, just that I thought people were talking about the 2007 fishing year the way the N.M.F.S. is framing it, to be from June 1, 2007 to year end. Do you want a Calendar year to date summary? But this would not quite be an apples to apples comparison with the published Directed fisheries data. But it could still be useful from a recreational reporting perspective.

The data I presented within the time frame is clear and extremely accurate. I do not mind being audited by another that is beneficiary to this same information. BTW - I constructed an average weight chart that I used to compile the estimated whole weight of the fish on the data report. I would like to embellish this chart with more accurate numbers along typical lows and highs. Stay tuned for another forum post on this matter. I could use everyone's help to make it fairly accurate. The formula can also be used, but it seems that girth measurements are not readily gathered, more times than not.

This is a good opportunity to encourage better reporting on all recreational fronts if the evidence is seeming to indicate a lackluster effort. All I know for sure, is that I report diligently and so do the people I come back to the dock with. I know that the Swordfishing Club encourages the same diligent reporting responsibility. This web site encourages and stresses the importance to report. So is this really falling on deaf ears?

Just curious. But there is the data as it is. Let the truth be told from it.