king salmon trawl bycatch info

entropy

2011-02-23 22:33:26

check this: http://www.tholepin.blogspot.com/

Trawlers in Shelikof out front of Karluk. I think it was the Southeast BOF member, Icicle shill, who came to the trawlers defense at the Kodiak BOF meeting when the local salmon guys were trying to restrict their own king bycatch.

mswkickdrum

2011-02-24 05:32:52

Icicle shill?! Is that the guy that was asking for a funding source to do a study on the quality difference of Iced/blast froze fish at fish expo ATA meeting?

valianthunter

2011-03-12 16:02:19

The NPFMC is going to be looking at trawl king salmon bycatch this spring. Last year, they caught 54,000 in the gulf. I have talked to people in Kodiak who are familiar with the video and they said there have been some huge king salmon tows. One e-mail I have from a Kodiak crabber who knows what is going on says 17,000 in one tow. I almost think that maybe he means pounds. Either way, it's pretty troubling. It's like adding another major source of mortality - like a dam - in the Gulf. Some people there think they wiped out the Kodiak king salmon - there have been major closures on the rivers - I don't think you can even catch one for sport there anymore. And they don't really know where some of the fish are coming from. If there are treaty fish, we can be sure that the lower 48 press will be confusing trollers with trawlers and let the Loomis froot loops and lower 48 trout unlimited chapters go ballistic on us. So it would be good to get the council to take some sort of action.

The Alaska Marine Conservation Council is going to ask the NPFMC to put on a cap of 15,000. There is a sign-on letter and information that you can access directly from the front page of the website. It is:

http://www.akmarine.org

And yes, one of the main people involved in the bycatch issue is a charter fisherman from Homer. I know him personally and he is a friend of small boat commercial fisheries. He is certainly not one of the people like the folks from SCBOA and SEAGO who don't care about conservation and just want to shut down commercial fisheries so they have remaining allocations to themselves. They don't have the same degree of conflict up there and the charter/commercial fleet in Homer (generally) are a lot friendlier.

charger

2012-05-01 08:07:11

Only being a troller for a couple years, I've been asking questions on the lack of kings returning from enhancment. This is sad letting large interest groups slaughter and waste the stocks and the efforts used in Alaska to keep wild stocks going. In any other industry there are penalties to pay if you cause damage to the environment you are exploiting. We as trollers, the seiners, gill-netters all pay our share to replenish the resource when we catch/kill salmon, through the enhancment tax. Now on the other hand why isn't an enhancment tax charged on Sport, I have and do sport fish and am more than willing to pay a couple bucks each year to replenish the fish I catch and eat. Now place the same idea on Trawl by-catch, if they are not willing to move out of high rate catch eras. Place observers onboard of everyone at their cost by charging them for each king or halibut the indiscriminately kill and waste. This way it would only take a couple years for us to get the real story on their actual impact. If you hit a man in his pocket, he should change his course.

Salty

2012-05-04 16:45:50

Trawling in its present form is an inappropriate method of fish or shellfish harvest. The issue is not by-catch, observers, or catch shares. The issue is trawling. We prohibited groundfish trawling in both state and federal waters of SE Alaska. It is the model for reducing trawl impacts, prohibit it, like fish traps.

entropy1

2012-05-09 05:29:29

I agree with Salty but what can those of us outside of SE do? Trawlers and processors control the NPFMC, it is a waste of time to spend your efforts there. The court of public opinion seems the only hope.

Your King Salmon and our halibut and crab are being destroyed here in the gulf. The bycatch numbers that come out of the 30% observer coverage data are meaningless. They have zero connection to what goes on here.

Would love to hear any fresh ideas.

AKFISHER

2012-05-09 15:07:08

How many Trawlers presently work the Gulf? Would some type of buy back program work like what went on with the seiners? I am sure it would cost a lot more but that fishery affects more fisherman so maybe more fisherman could be part of the buy back program and just eliminate that fishery? I know its not that easy but it is an idea!