Federal proposed regulations governing the take of Gulf of Mexico red snapper are again a hot potato issue in marine fisheries management. This time, almost 40 Southern state Congressmen have joined together to protest new federal snapper limits that may be imposed on various states, according to a report by The Center Square.

The new federal guidelines proposal could increase the take of snapper in some states like Louisiana and Florida, while reducing snapper limits on other states like Alabama and Mississippi, according to the report.

Dozens of southern Congressmen signed a letter to U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in late July asking her to have the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) update the science used to set Gulf red snapper harvest. The Congressmen believe NOAA’s proposed rules decreases red snapper harvest by their state anglers that otherwise could be taken, while still maintaining a sustainable red snapper population.

This point made by the congressional letter to Raimondo is based on a Gulf States snapper harvest study called “The Great Red Snapper Count.” This independent study (required by Congress) proposed an increase to the federal redfish limits as it showed more snapper were available than believed by NMFS. Yet the proposed federal catch quotas on red snapper increased minimally.

Lawmakers contend NMFS ignored new data in the Great Red Snapper Count by reducing catch limits from 97 percent of the sustainable limit to roughly 60 percent, reports The Center Square. The Great Red Snapper Count showed three times as many fish as NMFS previously recognized.

The Congressmen’s letter stated: “By requiring the States to calibrate their more accurate and NMFS certified (red snapper) catch data to an outdated and fundamentally flawed MRIP (Marine Recreational Information Program), NMFS has failed to find an effective solution and is not making decisions based on the best available science while refusing to appropriately integrate the new data.”

In late August, the federal Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council took action to modify red snapper catch limits. The Council chose to decrease the overfishing limit and increase the acceptable biological catch, annual catch limits, and annual catch targets. All of this was done based on snapper population data from the Great Red Snapper Count.

The Gulf Council’s input for catch limits on red snapper have been transmitted to the Secretary of Commerce for approval and implementation.

What this will all do as a practical matter to Gulf anglers targeting red snapper is not yet known, regarding season dates, catch, and size limits.

Stay tuned.

The post Stop The Madness: Federal Regulations May Increase Red Snapper Limits for Some Gulf State Fishermen appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Too many big red drum – bull redfish as they’re called in Dixie – are needlessly killed by fishermen, according to one of Louisiana’s best-known redfish guides and tournament anglers, Mike Frenette, who owns the Redfish Lodge of Louisiana in the town of Venice.

Frenette recorded a 4-minute video on his Facebook post pleading with Louisiana guides and recreational anglers to release the big reds they catch, especially now, as bull redfish are swarming into coastal areas throughout the South to spawn.

Redfish spawn in late summer and early autumn, when huge reds in the 15-to-45-pound class move into inlets, passes and river mouths to propagate. The largest of the reds are big females, and if anglers catch and kill them they are doing a disservice to the fishery, and hurting the future of great red drum fishing for young anglers to experience for years to come, says Frenette.

“This is an important time for our fisheries and I want the word to spread,” says Frenette, 66, and a Louisiana guide for 40 years. “We gotta be doing something better than what’s been doing the past couple years. I’m tired of seeing big bull reds hung up at a marina at the end of a day by guides to just take pictures of the fish for their clients.

“We have a problem, and have to police ourselves better, recreational anglers, too. But I’m speaking as a lodge owner and a guide, to the guides, so we’ll set an example for other fishermen.”

Frenette knows there are plenty of problems for redfish, including overharvesting by purse-seine menhaden netters, oil spills, loss of coastal marshes and other issues. But as a top tournament redfisherman for 20 years working the best of America’s water from the Carolinas to Texas, he knows that keeping bull redfish makes no sense.

“We’re cutting our own throats by killing big brood stock redfish, and for what?” he asks. “They’re not good for eating. It’s the smaller fish that are better on the table. My clients catch big bulls all the time, and we just lift them, shoot a few photos, and carefully release them.

“Pictures of their catch are all most charter clients really want. We’ll catch plenty of smaller fish for them to take home, and those are the better ones at the end of a fork.”

Most southern coastal states have tight regulations governing the take of redfish, with many states not allowing the harvest of any “bull” or redfish over about 30 inches.

In Texas, the limit is three reds, with a take-home slot for fish 20 to 28 inches long.

Mississippi has a three-redfish limit, with an 18-to-30-inch slot. Alabama’s redfish limit is three fish between 16 and 26 inches, allowing for one oversize redfish in the three fish limit.

Florida has a one fish per person limit, with only fish between 18 and 27 inches allowed taken by anglers. No large spawning size reds may be kept in Florida, and there is a maximum “vessel” limit of only four fish per boat, with a guide’s catch not included in that limit.

In Georgia, the state is poised to reduce redfish limits to three fish, with a 14-to-23-inch slot, with no chartering captain or crew participating in catch totals.

In Louisiana the limit is five redfish, only one of which can be longer than 27 inches, making it the most liberal of Deep South states for angler redfish harvest.

There is no top end on that one big Louisiana redfish, which can weigh 30 to 40 pounds, and may be full of ripe eggs during the autumn spawn. And that is the rub Frenette has with some guides and anglers by keeping such fish.

In Louisiana they can take up to five redfish daily, a very generous bag limit, and one not needed to fill a cooler that also includes a big, spawning-size bull redfish.

“They’re our future for redfishing,” he says about big spawners. “The little reds they produce are needed tomorrow by our kids, grandkids and their children, so they all can enjoy the great redfishing we have today. Please, when you catch one, get a photo of it and let it go, that’s all most anglers really want.

“Your kids will thank you.”

The post Release Your Reds! appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

On August 30, 2022, the American Sportfishing Association (ASA) announced fishing updates from the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council. The council meets regularly throughout the year, and a variety of different fish were the focus of this sessions work.

Red Snapper

The Council review advice from scientific advisors and recorded final actions toward modifying red snapper catch limits. If approved, the overall annual catch limit for the red snapper fishery would increase slightly from 15.1 to about 16.3 million pounds starting in 2023. The overfishing limit (OFL) would decrease compared to a previous proposal by the Council which is waiting for approval by the Secretary of Commerce. Additional information can be found on ASA’s blog at “New Issues Facing Gulf Red Snapper.”

Greater Amberjack

Alternatives on setting catch limits for the overfished greater amberjack were discussed. The fishery is facing important catch limit reductions, and ASA supports Action 1, Alternative 3, which would make the cuts necessary to rebuild the fishery. Converting sector allocations to the same “currency” that will be used as the basis for catch limits moving forward and is now considered best available science. Public hearings will be held before the Council is scheduled to take final action at its October meeting.

Sector Separation

The Council directed staff to develop an options paper to examine the potential for sector separation for gag grouper, red grouper, greater amberjack, and gray triggerfish. The reason for the sector separation is to split the recreational quotas for these species into separate recreational and federal for-hire components. That new structure would be similar to that used for the Gulf red snapper.

Gag Grouper

The Council used Florida’s State Reef Fish Survey (SRFS) data for assessment and management of gag grouper moving forward. SRFS provides more accurate, timely, and precise recreational catch and effort data on gag grouper as well as on 12 other reef fish in Florida. Because gag grouper is primarily a Florida fishery with a large recreational component, using SRFS to inform assessment and management is critically important as SRFS will now be used to set quotas and management for the fishery.

Recent research indicates that the gag grouper is overfished, leading to reduced catch limits and shorter seasons for the next few years. Relatively fewer male fish are noted, leading ASA to support measures that protect male gag grouper. Currently the Council is considering a closure of the commercial fishing season which occurs during spawning season. The recreational fishery is already closed during the spawning season and a pending interim rule would shorten the recreational season to September 1 through November 10.

Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS)

NOAA recently released a draft rule to expand the boundaries of the FKNMS. The draft would add new protected areas, and make numerous other changes to regulations in the FKNMS. Part of the FKNMS occurs in the Council’s jurisdiction of Gulf federal waters, so the Council will provide comments on how the rule affects fishing in the Gulf portion of the FKNMS.

Sharks

NOAA Highly Migratory Species Division staff attended the Council meeting to listen to fishermen’s concerns about shark depredation. An update of several shark species in the Gulf of Mexico indicates that shark populations in the Gulf of Mexico are generally improving.

The American Sportfishing Association is the sportfishing industry’s nonprofit trade association. Their goal is to safeguard and promote enduring economic, conservation, and social values of recreational fishing for all Americans. For more information, visit the American Sportfishing Association at asafishing.org.

The post ASA Southeast Region Fishing Updates appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Offshore anglers should be prepared for significant changes to the federal regulations governing the taking of dolphinfish along the East Coast. That’s the word from Chris Burrows, chairman of the Dolphin/Wahoo Advisory Panel for the South Atlantic Marine Fishery Council.

Burrows has served on the federal council’s dolphin advisory panel for over a decade, and a meeting he attended in Charleston was eye-opening in the impacts Carolina dolphin anglers and others may face in the future.

He says two important proposed changes are on tap. One is that the 20-inch minimum size for dolphinfish could be extended south of the border of North and South Carolina, perhaps expanding to the entire East Coast of the Atlantic, including Maine where some fish are being caught these days.

The second important change the federal council may impose is a reduction in dolphin limits for individuals or for per boat harvest.

Burrows states in Carolina Sportsman that nearly 80 percent of U.S. East Coast dolphin are caught in Florida (65 percent) or North Carolina (23 percent). A dozen other East Coast states make up the remaining 20 percent of the annual dolphin catch.

Florida already has a 20-inch minimum size limit on federal-waters-caught dolphin. But the state’s close proximity to bluewater and expansive weedlines in the Gulf Stream are much more available to Florida anglers than for fishermen in other states, says Burrows.

“Expanding the (dolphinfish) size limit north may be well-intentioned,” says Burrows. “But I think it would do far more harm to charter boat anglers and the recreational experience in general than it would result in a benefit to the dolphin population.”

Burrows contends that North Carolina charter boats and recreational fishermen target smaller dolphin in summer when they’re prolific.

“This is the bread and butter of the charter fleet at the Outer Banks in July and August,” he contends. “More restrictive measures on what they can bring home will almost certainly mean reduced bookings. This in turn hurts hotels, restaurants, and other businesses in a tourism-based economy.”

Dolphin size restrictions will result in anglers culling, or releasing smaller dolphin, to upgrade to larger fish to keep. Burrows doesn’t know what the mortality rate of released dolphin is, but he believes it’s possible that more fish could be killed by the process than preserved.

He notes that dolphin are one of the fastest growing fish in the ocean and that they can spawn at 18 inches in size. Further, he states that dolphin have a 99 percent mortality rate in their first year of life.

Scientists also know that dolphin are comparatively short-lived, with fish over 5-years old rare to the species.

Bag limits on dolphin have been self-imposed by Outer Banks charter captains for years, with 10 fish per person dolphin limits deemed responsible for those tapping the fishery.

Burrows believes commercial long-line fishing operations have the potential to be most devastating to dolphin stocks along the Atlantic Coast. With current tight restrictions on longlining for sharks, tuna, billfish and other species, and with commercial bottomfishing also highly regulated, dolphin seem to be the most obvious target for commercial boats now.

“With basic longline gear, a basic commercial license, and a $50 operator’s card, anyone can longline dolphin,” states Burrows. “It is hard to find a weedline in May that doesn’t have longline gear set next to it.”

Burrows believes this has hurt the population of large dolphin and impacted the best fish for spawning. It’s also hurts Carolina charter fishermen.

“In 2015, for the first time in history, the commercial Annual Catch Limit for dolphin was met in June, which ended that fishery for the year,” Burrows continues. “Subsequent years have come close to the same levels.

“A limited and regulated longline fishery won’t hurt the stocks of these fish or the recreational fishery. But having it accessible to too many boats certainly can.”

The post Changes In Dolphin Fishing Regulations Coming To The Atlantic Coast appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Northeastern great white shark sightings are no longer a rarity. While they’re exciting, fun and dramatic to see, there have been a number of recent attacks. Attacks that started in Massachusetts and moved to Maine have now hit coastal New York. The reason is simple: seals.

Up until 1971, hunters kept Bay State seal populations in check through a bounty system. Five buck a nose was paid, and while the animals’ fur was used the harvest’s main goal was to keep fish populations robust. Kristina Cammen, a marine mammal scientist with the University of Maine, suggests that the 20th Century seal population in New England was reduced from about 135,000 to so few they were nearly extinct. No seals meant no sharks as the apex predators stayed far offshore where they feasted on dead or dying whales.

Our current perfect storm began brewing with the passing of the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). The act had a noble goal of resurrecting seal, dolphin and whale populations, and it worked. Seal populations climbed quickly. In fact, from late June through Thanksgiving, barely a day goes by when a shark isn’t spotted near shore.

It wasn’t long before someone got bit. The first one was a decade ago in July, 2012. Christopher Myers was swimming with his son on Cape Cod’s Ballston Beach when a shark left him with eight deep gouges and multiple torn tendons. Six years later in 2018, William Lytton, a 61-year old neurologist from Westchester, New York, was attacked while swimming near resting seals at Cape Cod’s Longnook Beach. He survived, but a month later, 26-year old Arthur Medici did not. Medici was boogie boarding a few beaches away at Newcomb Hollow in Wellfleet. A shark bit his lower body and severed his femoral artery. He died at the scene.

Maine’s seal population has increased as well. In 2020, Julie Dimperio Holowach of New York City was swimming with her daughter off of Bailey Island when she was attacked by a shark. If you think a shark attack in Maine is unusual, then you’d be correct. The University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File has registered only one other unprovoked shark attack in the state since 1837. That’s two attacks in 185 years or about one attack nearly every century.

The current shark hot spot is Long Island, New York. There have been five attacks between June 30-July 13, 2022, registering a 2.5/week average.

On July 13, 2022, a 49-year old Arizona man was bitten in the buttocks at Seaview Beach on Fire Island, Long Island. He was standing in waist-deep water which should give every angler pause. He was the second shark bite of the day, for around 7 AM, 41-year Shawn Donnely suffered a 4-inch bite to his leg while surfing at Smith Point County Park, also on Long Island. The shark knocked him off his surfboard and circled him. Fortunately a wave pushed Donnely to the beach and he survived.

But get this; Donnely wasn’t the first shark bite at that specific beach. The first occurred two weeks earlier on July 3 when Zach Gallo, a lifeguard was bitten by a shark during a training exercise. And the guards were reviewing protocol for ‘what to do when bitten by a shark.’ And he’s not the only lifeguard to have been bitten by a shark. A teenage guard had a bite on his foot on July 7 at Ocean Beach. You honestly can’t make this stuff up.

Long Island’s first attack of the season came on June 30 at Jones Beach when a 37-year old swimmer was bitten in his foot. The answer to that? Get used to it says Christopher Paparo, the manager of Stony Brook University’s Marine Sciences Center. There are a lot more sharks than 10 or 15 years ago, he said. “We’re spotting sharks, whales and dolphins here. In the 1960s, we did not have sharks, whales and dolphins.” Warmer ocean water and significant increases in the menhaden population are cited as reasons for the Long Island shark numbers.

All this shark activity is changing the behavior of fishermen, and there are lots of ways to navigate the situation. Remember the joke about the two pals having a picnic in the woods? They look up and spot a grizzly in the distance and it starts running straight at ‘em. One friend starts running away, while the other casually opens his backpack, takes out his running shoes, changes out of his hiking boots, and starts stretching.

“Are you effing crazy?!” the first friend shouts. “You can’t outrun a bear!”

“I don’t have to outrun the bear,” said the second friend. “I only have to outrun you.”

It’s the same with sharks. Another way is to be careful.

The post Great White Sharks in the Northeast—As Common as Sunburn appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

A letter dated June 14 and signed by 21 groups of anglers and conservationists was sent to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin asking him to close a significant part of Chesapeake Bay’s menhaden commercial fishery. The groups want the menhaden commercial fishery closed until “science demonstrates” that such netting will not hurt the bay’s ecosystem.

According to a report by the Virginia Mercury, the groups signing the letter include the Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and 19 other organizations concerned about the health of Chesapeake Bay.

“By removing more than 100 million pounds of menhaden every year from the Chesapeake Bay, the most important striped bass nursery on the East Coast, reduction fishing (for menhaden) in Virginia is undermining the sportfishing economy and small businesses throughout the commonwealth,” the letter states according to the Virginia Mercury.

Commercial fishing for menhaden – commonly known as pogeys or bunker – has been controversial in the Bay and throughout many other coastal regions where the small marine baitfish is caught and used for oil and ground into fish meal.

Menhaden also are a vitally important food fish for a wealth of inshore and near-shore species, with striped bass, bluefish and weakfish being chief predators for bunker in Chesapeake Bay. In other regions, species such as tarpon, king mackerel, cobia, sailfish, sharks, seatrout, redfish and snook key on menhaden as important food fish for their survival.

Menhaden commercial fishing operations are well organized, with spotter aircraft used in some regions. It’s chiefly done with large purse seine mother ships with smaller boats working the nets off the larger boat that then sucks up baitfish with giant vacuum-like hoses when a seine is pulled close. Menhaden are stored on board the mother ship for later delivery to processing plants.

Omega Protein is a Reedville, Va. company that is the largest commercial harvester of menhaden in Chesapeake Bay. Omega considers the letter to Youngkin “egregious and dramatic.”

“It’s just frankly not based on any real science (the letter),” the Virginia Mercury quoted Omega spokesman Ben Landry saying. “It’s just mostly opinions and this hope or belief that future science is going to indicate menhaden is a problem for striped bass, but it really does ignore that striped bass is dramatically overfished.”

Omega’s Reedville plant employs over 250 people, and catches a great majority of the commercial haul of menhaden in the Chesapeake. Omega’s Chesapeake Bay menhaden quota is 56,000 tons. Landry says Omega’s coastal harvest of pogies is about 150,000 tons.

In 2020 the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) began differently managing menhaden to calculate pogie quotas. ASMFC now takes into consideration how a species fits into the larger ecosystem, rather than simply abundance and harvest data of a species.

Omega believes menhaden commercial harvest is fully sustainable and notes a 2020 ASMFC report stating bunker “is not overfished nor experiencing overfishing.”
The president of the Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association, Steve Atkinson, said the study that resulted in the ASMFC report didn’t adequately consider local reductions of menhaden in Chesapeake Bay.

“Until science can prove this menhaden reduction fishery is not causing harm, we believe caution is absolutely called for here,” Atkinson said, according to the Virginia Mercury.

“The striped bass fishery is the largest marine recreational fishery in the U.S., driving $166 million in recreational fishing activity in Virginia alone,” the conservation groups wrote in their letter to Youngkin. “However, the economic value of striped bass fishing to Virginia has declined by over 50 percent in the past decade.”

Omega argues that reducing commercial harvest of menhaden in Chesapeake Bay will not improve striped bass populations. Landry also says the company’s Reedville plant would shut down if it couldn’t harvest menhaden from the Bay.

A spokesperson for Youngkin said the Governor and the Virginia Marine Resources Commission are meeting with the Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association and other groups to consider their concerns for purse seining menhaden in Chesapeake Bay.

The post Fishermen, Conservation Groups Call For Ban On Chesapeake Bay Commercial Menhaden Netting appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Gamefish are kind of like guys. Most pursue three basic things: comfort, food and, every now and then, reproduction. Combine all three factors at one location, and you’ll find a crowd.

Now, think of oyster bars as one place that crowd congregates. Or better yet, think of an oyster bar as a hangout for everything from shrimp, crabs and small fish looking for a hiding spot, to gamefish like snook, trout, redfish and flounder hoping to morph that safety zone into a snack bar.

An oyster bar’s topography features potholes, drop-offs, shallow areas and points. In fact, the average oyster bar offers a litany of components that create feeding stations and ambush points for all inshore saltwater gamefish.

On high tides, a shallow sheet of water covers the bar just enough to allow shrimp, crabs, mullet and other small fish to seek safety atop the sharp shells. As the water falls out, those crustaceans and baitfish must push into deeper water, inviting instant Armageddon.

Fishing oyster bars is tidally relevant. When the water falls, target the edges and drop-offs where gamefish post up, looking to ambush prey. Jigs, spoons and shallow-running plugs stake their reputation on mimicking that food chain.

Set up on the edges or down-current side of the structure to work those baits with the tide. Snook, trout and flounder usually feed along the drop-offs and shell points, while redfish work completely around the structure, even on the up-current side, as they look for food moving off the exposed oysters.

Currents that sweep past the bars push sand and mud toward each end of the structure, creating shallow points. Cast a topwater plug or prop bait toward the points, or swim a shad-type soft plastic with the current flow.

As the tide rises and crests the bar, throw a topwater plug or unweighted, weedless soft-plastic jig, jerkbait or swimbait directly on top of the structure.

Expect the extreme tides typically encountered around full and new moons to exacerbate these fishing scenarios. Higher tides mean more water stacks atop the bar, allowing the predators to feed at will over the oysters. Extreme tides also ramp up the current flowing over and around the oyster bar, so expect gamefish to utilize the edges for an ambush.

Oyster bars not only support an array of food and gamefish, but they also work to clean the water and improve visibility. So, while anglers view them as feeding stations, their main ecological purpose lies in maintaining the water quality and providing a starting point for the next generation of mollusks to perpetuate the species and grow the habitat.

Oyster Rebirth

Did you know that a single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water each day? Think 95 2-liter soft-drink bottles, and one single oyster drinking it all. That makes an oyster bar a vital component of our coastal estuaries.

Unfortunately, in almost every estuary, oysters are declining, whether from overharvesting or poor water conditions. Cue Yamaha Rightwaters and Charleston-based Toadfish, manufacturers of eco-friendly fishing products.

Yamaha supports efforts such as the Billion Oyster Project in New York (which replants oysters in the Hudson River) as well as a citizen-science oyster-seeding initiative in Texas. Toadfish donates a portion of every purchase to an oyster-restoration fund.

These projects create new reefs and improve damaged ones by utilizing reclaimed oyster shells from local restaurants and other sources. Volunteers collect and bag the shells and strategically place them where oysters are in decline. The shells attract oyster larvae floating in the water and eventually form living reefs.

More than 200,000 square feet of oyster reef has already been rebuilt from Toadfish’s program alone. Here’s to a few million more.

The post The Amazing Anatomy of an Oyster Bar appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Disgusted, I watched the brief video on my monitor.

“This is the reality,” says the narrator, Capt. Eric Newman, a top guide out of Venice, Louisiana, with the outrage evident in his voice. “This is what happens when pogy boats come around.”

The camera zooms in to the white belly of a floating redfish.

“Bull red, dead. There’s another out there,” Newman says. The camera sweeps, zooms in. “Another one out there, dead.” The camera moves, zooms in. “Another one out there.” Again the camera zooms in.

“Dead redfish all around us.” The video zooms out to reveal bloated white bellies bobbing at the surface. This is just off a beach in the Mississippi River Delta. “That’s our brood stock,” Newman adds, shaking his head.

He makes clear that this is no isolated phenomenon, but rather a regular event. “It’s because of those guys, over there,” he adds as the camera pans to a big menhaden factory-reduction vessel pushing into the shallows, black smoke pouring from its stacks.

If you suspect any of this is hyperbolic, type “sportfishingmag.com Louisiana menhaden” into your search-engine bar and see for yourself.

How can this be? How can a commercial purse‑seine fishery be allowed to kill so many large red drum in pursuit of pogies?

As with so many aspects of fisheries management and all the politics that convolute the process, it’s complicated.

The first piece of the puzzle is jurisdiction. While there is some regional, inter-jurisdictional regulation, the harvest of Gulf menhaden—which occurs mostly within state waters—is not determined federally. Rather, Louisiana pogy management is up to Louisiana, where well-financed menhaden-reduction-industry lobbyists can heavily influence politicians. In recent years, only two menhaden-reduction firms have fished Louisiana waters: Omega Seafoods (recently declared out of compliance with federal law for overfishing Chesapeake Bay menhaden) and Daybrook Fisheries.

These two companies account for most of the state menhaden catch, and that means for most of the entire Gulf of Mexico catch because 90 percent of all Gulf menhaden swept up by seiners are taken off Louisiana.

That also means that the state is allowing two foreign-owned commercial-fishing firms to kill our redfish: Omega is a Canadian company and Daybrook is South African.

Beyond the dead bull reds that guides like Newman as well as private boaters find floating around menhaden operations, there’s the question of volume. What sort of numbers are we talking about?

Believe it or not, no one knows how many redfish are being killed by pogy boats in Louisiana waters. That’s surprising in a state where redfish are so iconic and as important as gamefish, and in a state that has in many respects done a good job of managing its fisheries.

The only reference to bycatch for this fishery I could find—stated in both federal and state documents—says: “In Louisiana waters, anyone legally taking menhaden shall not have in their possession more than 5 percent by weight, of any species of fish other than menhaden and herring-like species.”

Best-case scenario, that’s still a lot of dead reds and other species of fish, if one figures 5 percent—or even 2 or 3 percent—of three-quarters of a billion pounds, since that’s the volume of pogies that these two foreign operations remove from Louisiana waters each year.

But the actual scenario is much darker in that this “restriction” neither measures nor limits all fish (like those floating bull reds) not retained, but tossed back over, dead, as tons of fish are pumped into the steamer (carrier vessel). So Louisiana allows Omega and Daybrook boats to kill unlimited numbers of redfish, seatrout, croaker and everything else that gets trapped in their huge seine nets.

Perhaps that’s not surprising for a fishery that, unlike almost any other major commercial fishery, has no limits—period. That is, Omega and Daybrook operate here with no harvest quota (TAC, or total allowable catch) on menhaden. There are few fisheries in this country so unrestricted, where the sky’s the limit.

At the same time, there are few other major commercial firms that are also so unaccountable. Under the nation’s fishery law (Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act), any commercial fishery with three or fewer harvesters is not required to reveal its harvest data. So fishery managers simply take the word of Daybrook and Omega when it comes to harvest (let alone bycatch) data of menhaden, a forage species and filter feeder critical to the Gulf’s ecology.

Anglers have expressed other concerns as well, including the damage that these 200-foot floating fish factories might do environmentally when they churn up water just a few feet deep up against beaches, as well as the harm done to the state’s recreational fishery, not only from all the gamefish left behind in their wake, but also the wanton disregard for recreational boats already on the grounds, fishing, when these operations chase them away, as happens far too often. How is all this affecting recreational fishing in a state where that sport is worth an estimated $2 billion annually?

Except for Virginia, not a single Atlantic Coast state allows any reduction fishing for menhaden, having recognized it as an ecologically destructive industry. In the Gulf, ditto for Florida; Alabama, Mississippi and Texas have at least some restrictions on the books. But Louisiana imposes few limits on pogy boats.

Hopefully, sportsmen’s organizations will become increasingly engaged with this issue in coming years. It’s certainly on the radar of the Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and the Coastal Conservation Association. A very active group that has made a difference in the issue of menhaden-reduction fisheries in the Atlantic, Menhaden Defenders is, at press time, developing a campaign to deal with problems in Gulf reduction fisheries (menhaden​-defenders.org/gulf).

It’s past time to limit foreign commercial netters in the Gulf from getting away with murder. As Newman says, in reference to the menhaden-reduction operations: “We have an amazing sport fishery here in Louisiana. But if this keeps happening, ‘Sportsman’s Paradise’ is gone.”

The post Menhaden Seiners Killing Louisiana Red Drum appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Bluefin Tuna

OPINION

Fact: Decades of overfishing and poor management have reduced the population of western Atlantic bluefin to a mere fraction of its historical levels.

Fact: The Gulf of Mexico is critical to the health of western Atlantic bluefin because it is the one and only known place where these fish spawn.

Fact: The bluefin spawn in the spring, so that’s when they’re most prevalent in the Gulf, and that’s when they need protection.

Fact: Nearly all the mortality to large spawning bluefin in the Gulf comes from longliners.

None of this was lost on the National Marine Fisheries Service (aka NOAA Fisheries) when in 2015 it established two Gear Restricted Areas in the Gulf of Mexico where, for eight weeks, longlining would be prohibited to give spawning bluefin a break.

Despite that restriction pertaining to only two areas (small in relation to the entire Gulf) and only for two months (April and May), it worked. Following NMFS’ creation of these limited GRAs, the number of bluefin hooked on longlines during those months has dropped more than 80 percent.

Before these restrictions, the longline fleet was annually discarding (by law) nearly 70 metric tons of dead Gulf bluefin, exceeding the quota that NMFS allowed it by as much as 218 percent. Today, they no longer exceed that quota.

In other words, this program has been an unqualified success.

So what do you do with a program that is achieving its goals?

Why, you weaken or kill it, of course.

At least that’s what you propose if you’re NMFS.

The agency calls its baffling and toxic proposal the Draft Regulatory Amendment to Modify Pelagic Longline Bluefin Tuna Area-Based and Weak-Hook-Management Measures.

I call it nuts.

A coalition of most leading marine-industry and environmental groups feels similarly.

In a letter to the Highly Migratory Species division of NMFS in September (during a public-comment period), leaders of the American Sportfishing Association, BoatU.S., the Center for Sportfishing Policy, the Coastal Conservation Association, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation, the International Game Fish Association and the National Marine Manufacturers Association said “Now is not the time to consider removing measures that protect spawning western Atlantic bluefin in the Gulf of Mexico.” In a separate letter, environmental powerhouse Pew shared similar concerns.

So what in the world would prompt NMFS to reverse its own successful strategy to protect bluefin tuna? In an agency-scoping document that explains the reasoning behind proposals that would lessen or end bluefin protections, the phrase potential swordfish landings comes up again and again. That’s because (a) the United States is not meeting its internationally allotted quota for swordfish and (b) longliners have said they’d like to be able to catch more (i.e. they want no part of the Gulf off limits at any time). But there’s a flaw the size of Texas in that thinking: The Gulf longline fleet targets yellowfin tuna and not swordfish, which are caught only secondarily.

Read Next: An Illustrated Guide to Types of Tuna

Perhaps NMFS will come to its senses: At press time, no proposed alternative had been selected to become law, though from the outset, the agency has indicated its “preferred alternative” is C3, which would reduce the areas off-limits to longlining and/or diminish two closed months to an even shorter period. Doing that would serve only to help longliners take more yellowfin and kill more bluefin (and billfish).

NMFS insists it’s no longer an agency concerned mainly with promoting only commercial fishing. Let’s see if in this case it acts to protect bluefin or to sacrifice the tuna for the interests of longliners

The post NMFS: Rolling Back Longline Protections for Bluefin Tuna appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Thanks to a burgeoning conservation ethic, many saltwater anglers choose to release their catches. Others do so because of fishery-management rules, or because it’s required in tournament regulations. As a result, anglers release many saltwater fish every year. But just how many?

In my home state of Georgia, anglers released more than 1 million red drum yearly, according to the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP). For the entire United States, that number climbs to 18 million redfish released. The MRIP estimate for the number of released fish of all species during the year 2018 was an astounding 605 million.

While we optimistically believe that most of these fish survive, the reality is much more complicated.

Multiple factors, often combined, determine the fate of a released fish, such as how the fish was caught and handled, the fish’s environment, and ecological conditions—including predation. These interactions are unique to each species and situation.

Given the importance of the angler in this complex interaction, biologists and regulators have expended much effort to develop guidelines for catch-and-release fishing. These angling best practices, when used, markedly increase postrelease survival. For many years, these methods remained simple and were based on common sense, such as handling a fish with wet hands.

Today, after hundreds of studies evaluating the effects of everything from hook type to handling devices, these best practices have evolved. The studies validate the benefits of some well-known techniques yet reveal that some methods and behaviors are more harmful than once believed.

The Point of the Matter

Hooking injury is considered a primary cause of post-release mortality. Ideally, a fish should be hooked in or around the immediate area of the mouth—lip, tongue, jaw hinge—or just inside the oral cavity. Most lures with single or treble hooks achieve that outcome. However, treble hooks also can injure a fish’s eye or result in foul-hooking.

Conventional J hooks, when used with natural or synthetic scented baits, can be swallowed deeply into the throat or digestive tract. Pulling on a hook lodged in such a location can cause injury to the heart, liver, gill arch, kidneys, stomach and intestines. Attempts to remove the hook only increase the severity of such injuries.

Research backs up the long-standing belief that removing hooks that are not easily accessible in the mouth region should be avoided. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, in its guidance for fishermen, references an agency study that showed four of 12 deep-hooked snook died when anglers removed embedded hooks, compared with zero mortality when leaders were cut and hooks left intact. Fish can dislodge, expel or simply render a hook inert, especially if it’s made of a material such as bronze, which degrades quickly from the combined effects of salt water and the fish’s body chemistry.

Happily, the number of deep-hooked fish has declined dramatically in recent years due to the revival of an ancient hook design. When rigged and used properly, circle hooks penetrate the lip or jaw-hinge area, causing minimal anatomical damage yet producing a strong connection point. Furthermore, studies show that inline circle hooks—those having the point aligned with the shaft—prove most effective at reducing deep-hooking. (Off-set circle hooks are much more likely to gut hook.)

In a South Carolina Department of Natural Resources study, researchers compared the performance of a J hook, an offset circle hook and an inline circle hook used on subadult red drum. Inline circle hooks attached in the jaw, tongue or inside of the mouth area in 90 percent of the fish. Offset circle hooks resulted in mouth- or jaw-hooking 80 percent of fish, and J hooks, 60 percent. Inline circles also generated the lowest rate of subadult mortality: 2 percent. Researchers found similar results with adult red drum, where the circle hook performed better than the J hook.

Despite these conservation benefits, circle hooks don’t work in every angling situation. When J hooks are needed, anglers should opt to use the smallest size—in length, width and wire diameter—to minimize fish injury. They should also consider barbless versions because removing a barbed J hook usually takes longer, thereby increasing handling time.

Time Matters

Fish lead active lives chasing prey and escaping predators. At the same time, they must adapt to varying extremes in their environment. Every species has its physiological tolerances, but those tolerances have limits.

Once a hooked fish starts resisting, a stress response begins that can interfere with normal respiration and alter the fish’s body chemistry. The longer the duration of the stress response, the more likely there will be long-term or permanent negative effects.

A Florida study compared several stress-indicator blood-chemistry parameters in subadult and adult tarpon caught on hook-and-line gear with that of tarpon resting at a holding facility. Experimental treatments included holding the hooked fish vertically versus horizontally, and exposing them to ambient air for 60 seconds compared with leaving them in the water. In this study, the duration of time between hooking and landing had more effect than handling time and method on stress-indicator levels.

A fight of even short duration can exhaust a fish, impairing its ability to evade predators and carry on with life as usual. Research has shown that a significant source of postrelease mortality in tarpon and bonefish is shark predation. The time needed to recover full function varies from species to species and can be greatly influenced by factors such as water temperature.

Holding a lethargic fish in the water with its head into the current can help accelerate its recovery. Once the fish resists, release it.

The take-home message: Choose tackle that allows you to bring the fish to hand in the least amount time yet provides for the enjoyment of successfully angling the fish. When I target adult red drum, I plan to have them to the boat in five minutes or less. If you choose to use light tackle for large fish, do so with the recognition that you’re consciously increasing the chances that the fish will perish.

Landing Gear

Once anglers subdue fish, they have a responsibility to release them in the most expedient manner. Some species can be more sensitive to the effects of handling than others.

In contrast to the study on tarpon, mentioned above, a Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences study showed that removing white marlin from the water and exposing them to air had a more pronounced effect than fight duration on post-release survival for that species. Research also has revealed that warm air can quickly dry delicate gill filaments, causing them to become nonfunctional.

If you choose to bring a fish into the boat before release, preferred options include the use of hands to lip grippers to landing nets—never gaffs. Wet, gloved hands or a handheld wet towel can effectively control small- to medium-size fish such as seatrout and bonefish but can be inadequate for larger, more vigorous animals. When using hands, always keep the fish in a horizontal position supporting its weight, and avoid any contact with the gills and eyes, which can be easily damaged.

Lip grippers have steadily grown in popularity, but their design often tempts anglers to support the entire weight of the fish vertically. Research has shown that doing so can cause debilitating injury to mouth parts, internal organs and skeletal structure, especially for larger fish. When using grippers, support the fish’s weight with a hand under its abdomen.

An Australian study of barramundi (20 to 40 inches in length) handled with lip grippers provides some perspective. Researchers lifted 10 fish vertically without any additional support—all the fishes’ weight was supported by the mouth parts. Eleven were lifted in a horizontal position with a hand supporting the belly of the fish. Lifting fish using grippers without support increased the severity of mouth injury and altered the alignment of vertebrae, which did not return to normal for three weeks.

Landing nets, used frequently for small- to medium-size species, offer many advantages such as reducing fight time, controlling fish movement to allow for hook removal and preventing the fish from being dropped. Yet landing nets also can potentially harm fish by removing the protective mucus layer, dislodging scales and damaging fins.

Recognizing this, most net manufacturers offer a knotless rubber model, some with the further modification of a flat bottom to prevent fish from rolling in the net and damaging fins. Another study of barramundi showed that a landing net of this design resulted in significantly less fin damage and abrasions when compared with a traditional knotted net.

Barotrauma in Fish

Many species most prized by saltwater anglers live near the ocean bottom, sometimes in extreme depths. Granted, we usually pursue them as table fare, so catch-and-release is not typically the targeted outcome. But in today’s world of restrictions on size, quantity and season, releasing reef fish has become part of our new reality—as are the challenges of ensuring postrelease survival for an animal pulled up from 20 fathoms.

Species such as snappers and groupers have air bladders, which allow them to make fine-scale adjustments in their buoyancy. However, when we rapidly pull these fish from the seafloor to the surface, an uncontrolled expansion of their air bladders can cause barotrauma.

Most anglers know the symptoms: bulging eyes, stomach protruding from the mouth, a distended abdomen, and lack of equilibrium when returned to the water. When released, these fish can’t submerge, which makes them easy pickings for predators. In addition, prolonged barotrauma causes irreversible anatomical damage and extended physiological stress, often leading to death.

For many years, anglers have been advised to treat barotrauma in a fish by venting—puncturing its air bladder with a hollow needle. However, venting causes injury, creating additional stress and an opportunity for infection. If you choose to vent, be sure to do it properly. There’s no doubt venting beats simply discarding a fish with severe barotrauma, but there’s a better way.

Several devices on the market now allow anglers to lower the fish to depth, allowing it to recompress, alleviating the effects of barotrauma (visible and nonvisible). Additionally, these devices return fish to an environment of optimal conditions while hopefully bypassing some of those hungry predators. Collectively known as descending devices, these products have proved to increase postrelease survival in bottomfish.

In a Gulf of Mexico study, red snapper returned to the seafloor with a descending device fared better than fish that were vented or untreated. Survival rates for descended fish rose during summer, when sea-surface temperatures exceeded those at the seafloor. Research has also shown the benefits of descending devices for Pacific rockfish, reef fish in Australia and even walleye in freshwater lakes.

Descending devices hold such great promise for improving bottomfish survival that the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council now requires anyone who possesses or is fishing for snapper-grouper species to have such a device on board.

Choice or Law?

Fishery management and catch-and-release fishing succeed only when a high percentage of released fish survive. Thanks to years of study and on-water experiences, we now have angling best practices that, when followed, maximize survival chances. The quandary becomes whether to mandate the use of some or all of these angling best practices or to rely solely on voluntary compliance. Not surprisingly, angler opinion is divided.

Government entities, conservation groups and the marine industry invest vast sums of money and effort in promoting angling best practices. In some jurisdictions and fisheries, these government entities mandate the use of some types of tackle and gear or disallow certain activities.

For example, circle hooks must be used for billfish, sharks, reef fish, and striped bass in some areas and situations. Federal regulations prohibit marlin or sailfish from being removed from the water, if the fish won’t be kept. Florida law also forbids anglers from removing tarpon over 40 inches from the water.

Whether by choice or legal mandate, anglers have the responsibility to use best practices and to advocate their use to others. This might mean changing behaviors and postponing the catch of the next fish for the benefit of the one in hand. After all, a fish that survives after release is a potential future catch. And we are always looking forward to that next catch.

Tagging Tales

Determining the postrelease survival of fish caught on hook-and-line gear can be daunting. The study methods themselves—taking blood samples, marking, handling, confinement—can mask or amplify the effects of the catch.

Ideally, the fish should suffer the least amount of additional stress and be released into the same environment from which it was caught as quickly as possible. Oh, and yes, the scientist must be able to determine if the fish remains alive or dies during a minimum of 24 hours—and, ideally, for weeks, if not months.

This was once thought impossible, but not anymore, thanks to technological advances in batteries, microcircuitry and satellite communications. Acoustic telemetry and pop-up satellite archival tags (PSATs) have revolutionized scientists’ ability to document the fate of hook-caught-and-released fish.

In a North Carolina study, researchers used externally attached acoustic tags to document the fate of scamp, snowy grouper and speckled hind caught from depths of 200 feet and treated with a descending device. Previous knowledge suggested that any fish brought up from those depths perished. However, this study reported a 50 percent survival rate after 14 days, showing that recompression can increase post-release survival in deepwater species.

PSATs have been used in multiple studies of billfish and tunas, species that are notoriously difficult to study with conventional methods. One such project using these tags on juvenile bluefin tuna revealed almost 100 percent postrelease survival, and concluded that the recreational catch-and-release troll fishery for school-size Atlantic bluefins does not represent a significant source of fishing mortality.

About the Author

Capt. Spud Woodward retired in 2018 after 34 years with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources serving in various positions from senior biologist to division director. He was also the vice chairman for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and a member of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

The post The Fate of Released Fish is in Our Hands appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.