Hi Salty Dogs: I would have written sooner, but my laptop could only read. Old "computer challenged" here did not think to set it up to speak to Ifish, so had to wait until I got home. Thanks Black Magic for the kind words. Not sure I'm up to them. Am blushing. :blush:
Bottom line is we came out OK on canary, and will have 9.3 mt for sport groundfishery. This is a lot when compared to very small bycatches allowed in some trawl fisheries and overall for research. It is an amount that we can actually land, as our bag is 1 canary per day. BUT, canary are in trouble. Not our fault, but we have to live with it. (Same goes for yelloweye.) We have the bag only because it doesn't save any fish to tell us we can't retain canary. We would catch them, and then throw them overboard. Same impact whether dead overboard or dead landed. So our allocation is in fact kinda a bycatch allocation, and we should think of it that way. We should avoid canary every way we can. We shouldn't be landing one for every fisher. Better none, or one, per boat landing fish. If you catch a canary, move. Same for charters. The whole idea is not to catch them, but be able to land a fish if we make a mistake.
Yes, our allocation isn't in quite the category we would like. It is just an estimate of the number that will be dead if we fish as we have been. But if we can lower that, there will be more fish for research, or for some poor almost bankrupt fisher to take a few more arrowtooth flounder, or whatever.
We will work towards changing the amount to an allocation, for which there are certain protections under the PFMC rules, including that it takes two meetings to change the amount. Having guys who are facing bankruptcy look hungrily at your fish which might help them out a little ain't a great experience, but in my judgment our bycatch wouldn't help them for very long, and is worth preserving so that we aren't pushed inside 27 fathoms.
Other interesting news: ODFW Commission on Friday did adopt the "boat limit" rule, meaning that in the rec salmon fishery, all rods can stay in the water until all legal limits have been attained. The rule retains all restrictions on how many fish may be LANDED by any participant, so clearly the intention is that rods will be handed off to persons who have open tag slots and can legally land a fish. Bottomfishing did not have the requirement that rods be retired, because you might have your one canary (OOPS) but still be fishing for black rockfish, or whatever. However, again, what you LAND should be within your own limit. We were very pleased with this change in the regs, as it will make the situation of the one unlucky guy much more comfortable. You won't be faced with tooling around with one rod out while your unlucky friend sweats trying to fill his tag, the rest of you eating potato chips, drinking wine,and wishing you were ashore--or else breaking the rule. And charters won't have to wonder which fisherman is the undercover agent. It's a win for everyone.
:grin: :grin: Commissioners were very conflicted about the issue, so anyone who can think of any way that one might abuse this privilege should think twice.
PFMC considers observer data on trawls
Mark Mc
Linear Mode
