Agree that we should support our American fishermen and fishing industry first and foremost.
However, does anyone know if NOAA fisheries authority had any credible evidence justifying fishing restictions due to declining fish species, ie: Mahi mahi, Cod, flounder, etc?
I ask, because I lived and sport fished in CT from the 70’s thru recent, and witnessed firsthand dramatically reduced catches in Long Island Sound and the Cape.
Perhaps, yes, but not because of manmade causes. I was recently speaking to an old timer, a small time commercial fisherman and the son, grandson and great grandson to small time commercial fishermen, who said it’s the weather. He’d seen it before where cold delays and shortens the season reducing the catch. Might be what they call a natural cycle or occurrence.
Here in Mass. Bay out of the blue NOAA shut down the cod fishing to zero possession of cod as of Sept. 1, 2014, for recreational and charterboats.
This has devastated the charter fleet who cod fish heavily in April, May and June.
When the tuna, bass, bluefish and sharks show after that, those charters replace a lot of codfishing charters.
I talked to he most heavily booked cod fisherman in my area and he told me in May of 2014, he had 27 booked charters.
In May of his year he had 3, and they could only keep 3 haddock per person and no Cod.
Obama's top dog appointee to NOAA Jane Lubchenko turned the draggers loose on cod in Mass. Bay, and the 24 hrs /day draggers depleted a lot of the cod stocks.
NOAA's solution was to take it out on the recreational and charterboat fishermen, by stopping us from cod fishing.
NOAA puts us in a bind when we fill out the required daily Vessel Trip Report forms.(VTRs)
If you claim you are catching and releasing a lot of cod while haddock fishing they can use that to shut down the haddock fishing to protect the cod since cod and haddock are usually caught in the same areas, by the same fishing methods.
If you don't report catching and releasing cod they can say "see this proves there are not many cod out there as we claimed, or you would be catching them while haddock fishing".
NOAA manipulates the statistics to get a political agenda passed by using fishing regulations. - Tom