Dedicated OBX drum fishermen???

[feetinsand]

Would like to hear your opinions.
Fisheries commissioners voice concern for industry's future

By Brad Rich
NEWS-TIMES

JACKSONVILLE – For years, some North Carolina commercial fishermen have greeted increasingly restrictive state or federal regulations with a phrase that has almost become a refrain: “You're putting us out of business.”

Few have taken the lament seriously, and fewer still have agreed in public.

But if comments voiced last week by several members of the state's Marine Fisheries Commission are any indication, concern for the future of independent watermen is growing among those who have at least some authority to do something about it.

“Everybody is quitting fishing,” Commissioner Tilman Gray, a commercial fisherman from Avon, on the Outer Banks, said Wednesday during a red drum harvest limit discussion that turned more than a little philosophical.

“I don't know how many times I've got to tell you people: You just don't understand how bad off the fishing industry is.”

Commissioner Bradley Styron, a fisherman and seafood dealer from Cedar Island, agreed.

“If you (federal fisheries officials and fisheries managers at the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries, parent agency of the commission) are seeing less fish, you have to ask whether it's because there are fewer fish out there or because there's less participation,” he said.

“I'm seeing a lot less participation; that's the reason our fish (landings) are dropping off.”

“These fishing communities are sinking right before our eyes,” added Dr. Barbara Garrity-Blake, a down east Carteret County anthropologist who has extensively studied and written about the small fishing-based villages that dot the state's coastline.

The issue before the commission was whether to increase the number of red drum commercial fishermen are allowed to keep as bycatch of other fishing operations.

Under current state regulation, there can be no “directed” or “targeted” commercial red drum fishery, but watermen are allowed to keep up to seven of the fish as bycatch, provided they meet size requirements.

That regulation is part of the state's red drum management plan, officials said during the commission's meeting Wednesday at the Quality Inn.

But when the plan – required under the Fisheries Reform Act of 1997 – was adopted, commissioners and division officials were operating under the assumption that federal managers would update their red drum stock assessment this year or next year.

Since the state's own stock assessment this year upgraded red drum from “overfished” to “recovering,” skipping right past the “concerned” status in between those two, some commissioners thought the federal assessment would clear the way for the loosening of some restrictions.

But biologists and other state fisheries officials told the commission Wednesday that the feds have delayed their assessment of the red drum stock until 2008.

The result, commission chairman Jimmy Johnson said Wednesday, is that the state will be unable to “justify doing anything (on red drum regulations) to help these who have had so much taken from them in the last few years.

If the state bases its management actions only on the feds' assessment, Commissioner Johnson said, “We've got to wait five years.”

And the reason for the delay, chairman Johnson said, “is because they (the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council and its staff) don't see any need for it (a new assessment) in any state except North Carolina, and they don't care about us anyway.”

Dr. Daniel said the problem is that although red drum stocks are recovering, almost all of the fish caught are very young and have not yet spawned.

“North Carolina is getting screwed at every turn by the federal folks for whatever reason,” chairman Johnson said. “We did this (red drum) plan in the late 1990s figuring we'd get a new (federal) assessment in '03.”

Commissioner Dr. B.J. Copeland, a scientist and frequently a strong backer of the commercial fishermen, agreed.

“I'm inclined to think we ought to increase that (seven-fish bycatch) limit to 20 this year and see what happens,” he said. “We'd still keep it a bycatch fishery.”

Somewhat surprisingly, Commissioner Gray suggested a change to a 14-fish bycatch allowance instead of 20, contending that watermen rarely reach the seven-fish limit.

He made a motion to recommend that Pres Pate, director of the fisheries division, issue a proclamation – which he has the authority to do – to increase the bycatch allowance to 14 in October, November and December, and Mr. Styron seconded the motion.

But Chairman Johnson reminded the panel that Mr. Pate had consistently told the commission he wouldn't do that unless the change could be justified by fishermen catching the fish in larger numbers and then “discarding them,” often dead, to stay in compliance with the rule.

“You'd be asking me to do something that goes against your own rule in the (red drum management) plan,” he said.

“I'm not saying ‘Don't do something to help the commercial fishermen,' ” Mr. Pate continued. “But I'm saying, ‘Don't ask me to do something you asked me not to do when you adopted the plan four years ago in a much more public process.”

Commission Vice Chairman Bryan Gillikin of Carteret County agreed the motion would put the director in a bad situation.

Mr. Gray said that while he understood that predicament, he still thought the limit should be increased.

And, he said, if Mr. Pate chose not to accept the commission's recommendation, the panel could, by a vote, take that proclamation authority away from him on this issue.”

Commissioner Garrity-Blake agreed the division and commission should be looking for ways to help the commercial industry.

“The recreational (fishing) industry is going very well,” she said. “But the commercial industry is really suffering. there is a need for greater flexibility.”

Watermen, she said, have been “losing, losing and losing” in their efforts to stay afloat and in business.

“The division needs to begin helping find ways to loosen things up a little bit for what few fishermen there are left.

“This (red drum bycatch increase) would really just be a gesture,” she continued. “It won't make a big difference. But we're going to lose the (commercial) fishing industry if we don't start finding ways to give these guys some wiggle room” to fish for something different when restrictions are tightened on one species.

Other commissioners, however, said that increasing the red drum bycatch allowance would be a mistake.

“I think that this would encourage fishermen to go out and look for these fish and to set (nets) on them instead of avoid them,” he said. “To me, that's a directed fishery and I'm not willing to encourage that.”

Commissioner Styron, on the other hand, argued that by increasing the bycatch limit during the fall months, when pound nets are catching plenty of flounder, but not increasing the limit during the winter months, a 14-fish limit would likely be below the threshold of a “directed fishery.”

Commission Chairman Johnson, however, warned the panel to be careful.

“I just want to make sure you understand what you're getting ready to do,” he said, noting that the state needs to stay in compliance with regional and national fishery management plans.

Finally, Commissioner Norman Bradford, a recreational fisherman from Nags Head, called for a 10-minute recess before the vote on the motion.

After the break and some more discussion, the panel voted 5-3 to reject the motion to ask Mr. Pate to issue a proclamation.

But Vice Chairman Gillikin said the panel could still find ways to accomplish the goal of the motion.

“We could move up our own review,” he said, referring to the fact that the commission could amend the red drum plan instead of waiting to do a full review and update of the plan.”

Although no one made another motion, Commissioner Copeland said he believed the division staff got the commission's message.

“I think Pres (Pate) and the staff heard this discussion and know that we'd like to look at it more seriously,” he said.

Chairman Johnson concurred.

“We can always do an amendment,” he said. “At least that's a process that is open to the general public and gets everyone a chance to be involved.”

Commissioner Garrity-Blake said the state should do something as quickly as possible.

“I think these commercial fishing communities are at the breaking point,” she said. “I'd encourage the division staff, Louis (Dr. Daniel) and Pres, to continue looking at this.

“We get to the point where we're looking with tunnel vision at the impacts of this plan and with tunnel vision at the impacts of that plan.

“Staff needs to help us look at the interactions between them and the impacts those interactions have on the fishing industry and on fishing communities.”

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I'm not trolling. I'm a NCSU alumni and worked as a biologist in the early 70's on the coast. Fished with and learned from what I consider the best drummies on the OBX. Not one to drop names but da "TWINS" were awesome. They weren't even old enough to drive when I first met them and their aunt would drive them down from VA Beach. Many years of citations (tagged and released) then the bottom fell out. Strict regs
"appear" to have brought back a "limited recovery" of the bigger fish.
So what's your opinion about the above article?

[Mudd]

IMHO, any increase in the number of Red Drum that can be kept, either by the commercial fisherman or the recreational fishman, is a mistake. If the population has "recovered", which I don't think has been proven, it hasn't recovered enough.