Thread: WE NEED TO TAKE ACTION !

This time of year; some of us are out hunting,have moved to inshore fishing,cleaning up our gear to end the season of sports fishing from the pier,dreaming and planning for next seasons 100lb cobia,50lb king,tuna and sailfish,and the holiday season.But instead of only thinking about fishing; we need to be doing things that will mean at the height of the spring spanish and pompano runs that they are not cut short again by gill nets;and that we are not looking over our shoulders for the Homeland Gestapo to ticket us while clearning our fish on the pier. The netters,and not being able to put back renderings of fish into the waters where we earlier removed them ;these decisions were pushed,made,and inacted, by the ADVISORY BOARD of the DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION and NATURAL RESOURCES. The Board meets each year to listen to concerns of industry and individuals about areas that the department has under its control."THE ADVISORY BOARD ASSISIS IN FORMULATING POLICIES FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION,EXAMINES ALL RULES AND REGULATIONS AND MAKES RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGE OR AMANDMENT.BY A TWO-THIRDS VOTE OF THE MEMBERS PRESENT AND WITH THE GOVENOR'S APPROVAL,THE BOARD CAN AMEND,MAKE ANY CHANGES,REPEAL OR CREATE AND PROMULGATE ADDIONAL RULES AND REGULATIONS........."The point is, industry is there at every meeting,and they always have something to say;we are not.In a recent meeting *2010*,Mr Jenkins;no first name ,said;"We have just had a fairly large group of fisherman that came to us ,and of course to make sure garbage is not going into the water was a big concern to them."I thing it was us that he was talking about,and as you can see the fish guts from the cleaning tables became garbage;Mr Jenkins is Thomas James Jenkins;Director of Al.Marine Police,and former Deputy Director of Alabama Home Land Gestapo.It is important if we want to be serious about doing something about these issues; we have to do more than talk amoung ourselves.I think it is important that some of us attend these meetings.There are two members of the 10 member board from our area,and we might want to get to know them;Mr Bill Hatley of Gulf Shores,and Dr.Bob Shipp from Mobile.I also think, that the cleaning of our fish on the pier is the best 1st step.Because we and the pier have been singled out in this regulation,and this regulation was originally targeted at shrimp boat by-catch into the GULF of MEXICO.That if we were to show up at a meeting with 5 gal buckets of dead fish and fish heads and guts,it litterly bring it home,what their rules have done, making it impossible for the disposal of fish carcases at the point of origan;that would make an impression.We need to make a stink. The netters are a much more difficult issue;because of the Departments financial entanglement with the netters and their industry,I will relay later how they are entangled and possable ways to untangle them.

:yippee:

Good points Jim! :headbang:
And I believe you are right on to make this THE watershed issue to motivate and consolidate pier fishers into a singular voice to speak loud and clear in Montgomery (Feb 4, 2012).

But no doubt the issue of gill netting (especially in close proximity to the pier) will continue to be a hot point of dispute.
Here are some excerpts from the May 2011 meeting to get an idea of the powerful organization this industry has:
http://www.outdooralabama.com/about/...514Minutes.pdf

20 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: Thank you, Mr. Wood.
21 The next speaker will be Pete Barber.
22 MR. BARBER: Good morning, Mr. Chairman,
23 Commissioners. My name is Pete Barber. I'm
Page 8
1 the president of the Alabama Seafood
2 Association. I'd like to speak a little
3 bit -- It's kind of interesting --
4 You have a folder in front of you, and
5 I'm just going to go through the folder will
6 be basically the body of what I'm going to
7 say.
8 It's ironic. Here we are March 14th,
9 2011, Eufaula, Alabama. There's a mayor in
10 Orange Beach that has a problem with nets on
11 the beach. We addressed those issues and
12 his concerns then, I think, very well. I
13 think the conservation department, with
14 their scientists and with their enforcement
15 people, are doing a good job. The time
16 closures, the area closures and everything,
17 keep the interface down to a minimum.
18 A couple of the concerns, if you'll go
19 through -- pardon my editorial comments with
20 the -- on the front -- but if you'll look at
21 a chart, one of the reasons cited by Mayor
22 Craft and Mayor Kennon was they were
23 concerned about the effect of net fishermen
Page 9
1 on tourism. But if you'll look at that bar
2 graph, it breaks it up into seasons. And it
3 polled -- that's Herb Malone's group that
4 ran that poll. But it polled visitors to
5 Orange Beach and Gulf Shores as to whether
6 they were coming back next year. And by 4
7 or 5 percentage points, the highest group
8 and the best season is in spring, which
9 incidentally coincides with the time when we
10 have the highest activity in the net
11 fishing. So I don't see how that we're
12 actually hurting. You might make the
13 argument we need net fishing in the other
14 seasons to raise that up, but I wouldn't go
15 that far.
16 Another concern that was voiced was a
17 safety issue. We had an incident -- it's a
18 one-time incident -- where three boats at
19 night had problems with some severe weather
20 and ran aground. And, like I say, it was an
21 isolated incident. There's a certificate of
22 appreciation to our association from the
23 search and rescue people for one particular
Page 10
1 incidence where our fisherman went out and
2 aided in the recovery of an unfortunate
3 incident when we had some lost boaters.
4 That's the value of having
5 professionals on the water that know the
6 water and know the vagaries of it. And we
7 stand ready -- as Chauncey said with the
8 disaster area up north, we stand ready to
9 help anybody. We've gotten a lot of help
10 from other people.
11 Interestingly enough, along that same
12 line, there was a fatal accident on the --
13 on the Gulf, a pier lowered several years
14 ago. The first person to report that 911 to
15 the conservation officer was Darla Baird,
16 who's a gill-net fisherman.
17 So, basically, what I guess I'm saying
18 is the issues that have been brought forth
19 have been dealt with. And we're blessed in
20 the state of Alabama. We have outstanding
21 marine resources. They're managed well by
22 professional men and women, scientists and
23 enforcement folks. And it's to all of our
Page 11
1 advantages. We should be thankful.
2 I'll answer any questions someone
3 might have.
4 CHAIRMAN. MOULTRIE: Does the board have any
5 questions?
6 (No response.)
7 MR. MOULTRIE: Thank you, Mr. Barber.
8 The next speaker will be Avery Bates.
9 MR. BATES: My name is Avery Bates. I'm
10 vice-president of Organized Seafood
11 Association. We just want to let y'all know
12 we've been on the firing lines on -- in
13 Tuscaloosa and several other areas with the
14 disaster. I'm so proud of our commercial
15 fishermen who produced a lot of fresh mullet
16 that come out of a gill net, a lot of fresh
17 shrimp come out of a troll, just a lot of
18 fresh seafood to make gumbos, fried fish,
19 jambalayas. We didn't only feed fire and
20 rescue. We fed injured people, destitute
21 people, people with nothing but bare lots,
22 and they appreciated it. We fed people in
23 Montgomery, but these people here was in
Page 12
1 dire need.
2 Glad to be a part, glad to be a
3 commercial fisherman. And I want you to
4 know, these shrimpers that went out through
5 the neighborhoods and brought dinners to
6 people that couldn't come, everybody in the
7 state ought to be proud of them. It's a
8 wonderful thing to see people helping
9 people. We saw them in Katrina come to help
10 us. It's a blessing to be able to go help
11 them, not a chore. But you just ought to
12 have saw what we saw.
13 But, y'all, thank you for your
14 response for the state. I know roads had to
15 be cleared. Every department took part.
16 Some areas you couldn't get to. We need to
17 be a little faster, a little more not
18 worrying about overtime in some of these
19 places.
20 But it's a major thing when you see
21 tornadoes like we had. We get warning from
22 hurricanes. We can get back. These people
23 didn't have proper notification or just
Page 13
1 didn't take heed. It's a wonder a thousand
2 people in just Tuscaloosa alone; Hackleburg,
3 gone. But y'all have heard all this, but
4 the eye, to see, is quite astounding.
5 We went to Enterprise. I was part of
6 it, Pete and them. And it was bad in
7 Enterprise a few years back. But, like
8 Chauncey said, you cannot believe what a
9 200-mile-an-hour wind can do to a brick
10 home, a metal place. It don't make no
11 difference. A trailer.
12 I've witnessed and talked to people,
13 eyewitnesses. And I could tell you for
14 hours, even from fire and rescue, this was
15 something that I had never witnessed in my
16 life, something that many people much older
17 than me has never witnessed. And as you
18 travel through Alabama you see tear -- I
19 mean, tornado after tornado ripping, tearing
20 trees two men couldn't reach around and,
21 yet, people crawling out from under rubble.
22 The good Lord had to have his hand on these
23 people. I could tell you stories, and it
Page 14
1 would just make you -- tears come to your
2 eyes.
3 But we were so blessed to be able to
4 help these people. I know it was a blessing
5 to them, but they were the blessing to us.
6 And we want to continue to help these
7 people.
8 And just want y'all to know, us
9 commercial fishermen, a lot of people will
10 come down on us and talk about us on the
11 water, but the bounty of the sea has helped
12 a lot people this past week. Keep us on the
13 water. Keep us fishing. Don't run us out
14 of the bays and the gulfs and the streams.
15 Because that fish belongs to everybody, and
16 we want to keep providing that -- not for
17 Montgomery, but the whole State of Alabama
18 and this country. We're good citizens.
19 Keep in mind, we're not bad, as some people
20 would have you believe.
21 John, appreciate the Department of
22 Agriculture. Y'all have had some
23 devastation, and you've got a long road.
Page 15
1 Commissioner Guy, just some of these
2 backwoods people your game wardens assisted,
3 I know, and your police. Y'all was truly a
4 blessing. But keep up the hope. I know
5 it's -- it's going to take a while to heal
6 the hearts and the minds.
7 MS. NUMMY: Time.
8 MR. BATES: Thank you.
9 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: Thank you, Mr. Bates.

The next issue of old
19 business is gill nets. Dr. Shipp, you've
20 got some comments?
21 DR. SHIPP: Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
22 The gill-net issue is 20-years-or-plus
23 old, and it continues to be a controversy.
Page 55
1 I've received a number of letters expressing
2 concern about certain aspects of
3 gill-netting -- not the whole practice
4 itself, but certain aspects of it, including
5 letters from the mayors of Gulf Shores and
6 Orange Beach regarding controversy between
7 tourists and gill-netters. And I'll just
8 mention several of the concerns that have
9 been expressed to me.
10 One of them is that the spawning
11 season for Spanish Mackerel is primarily
12 April and May, and that's when there's
13 intense gill-netting in the open waters off
14 of -- off of our coast so that by the time
15 the summer season arrives, the stocks are
16 pretty well depleted.
17 Because of the increased regulations
18 to the offshore fisheries, the snapper
19 fishery and the amberjack fishery, there's
20 been a move by a number of the guides to --
21 to change from larger boats to smaller
22 inshore boats, and that makes fishes like
23 Pompano and Spanish Mackerel even more
Page 56
1 important to the them.
2 The Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo,
3 which is the largest and oldest fishing
4 tournament in the United States, has about
5 30 categories. But three of those were
6 historically what we call jackpot categories
7 because those species were so popular. One
8 of those three jackpot categories was
9 Spanish Mackerel. But in the last decade
10 the -- the emphasis on the gill-net fishery
11 on Spanish has intensified to the point
12 where the Rodeo simply dropped it as a -- as
13 a jackpot category.
14 What I'd like to do is read a letter
15 from the -- not the whole letter, but a
16 letter that was sent to Commissioner Wiley a
17 number of years ago regarding gill-netting.
18 And this letter was from the Director of
19 Coastal Fisheries in the State of Texas.
20 And I will just read a few excerpts for the
21 record.
22 It is my understanding that some
23 individuals or organizations are trying to
Page 57
1 make the case that the use of gill nets does
2 not harm fishery resources and, further,
3 that there is no scientific evidence
4 demonstrating that negative impact. If that
5 is the case, they are wrong on both
6 accounts. I am able to provide this
7 information because of the long-term and
8 coast-wide monitoring program that has been
9 in place here in Texas since 1974.
10 It is widely acknowledged as the most
11 extensive resource monitoring program
12 anywhere in the world, and we're very proud
13 of it. I have also included some
14 information about the program.
15 In 2002 I invited an independent peer
16 review of our program so we could assure the
17 leadership of our agency and state that our
18 work represents the best science available.
19 The American Fishing Society agreed to carry
20 out that review, and some of the best
21 fishing scientists in the country
22 participated. They confirmed the validity
23 of our science and further recommended it as
Page 58
1 a national model.
2 My point in relaying this to you is to
3 assure you that the information I have
4 included here is based not only on sound
5 science, but the best science available. On
6 a personal note, I continue to be astounded
7 that this debate continues.
8 And the rest of the letter is a series
9 of graphs demonstrating the impact of the --
10 of the advantage of gill nets in Texas
11 waters.
12 Now, it's not my intention to make any
13 motions here, and it's not my intention to
14 move to ban gill nets. But there are
15 certain aspects of the gill-net fishery that
16 are creating a serious problem and have been
17 a problem for many years on the coast.
18 I am not anti-commercial fishing. My
19 son has two seafood restaurants in Orange
20 Beach. I'm very, very supportive of almost
21 all aspects of the commercial fishery. But
22 there are aspects of the gill-net fishery
23 that do need attention, and we need to
Page 59
1 address it.
2 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
3 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: Thank you, Dr. Shipp.

:slap: :

Thanks; for the May link.I could not find it IT HAS TO BE APPOVED is all could find.

The link is at the top of the page @ http://www.outdooralabama.com/about/...CABMay2011.cfm
just above

***Must be approved by Advisory Board

[size=10pt]Some question impact of gill net fishing
http://blog.al.com/live/2011/12/alab...rvest_unq.html
MOBILE, Alabama -- By one measure, Alabama has the richest commercial fishery on the Gulf Coast, but some wonder whether it is also the most exploited.
Alabama's commercial fleet brings in more Spanish mackerel, mullet, ladyfish, bluefish, sheepshead and pompano per mile of Gulf shoreline than the commercial fishermen in any other Gulf state, according to Press-Register calculations based on federal data showing catch in state waters.
For instance, Alabama's commercial harvest of 724,874 pounds of Spanish mackerel in 2010 amounts to 13,676 pounds of mackerel per mile of shoreline, compared to Florida's Gulf harvest of 273 pounds per mile.
While Florida's overall pompano harvest is five times larger than Alabama's, Alabama's commercial fleet catches three times more fish per mile of shoreline than Florida or any other state.
Numbers for the mullet fishery are similar, with Alabama landing twice as many mullet per mile of Gulf shoreline as Florida's commercial fleet, and about 20 times more than Louisiana's.
Scientists at the University of South Alabama, the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and Auburn University have all expressed concern in recent years about the toll commercial fishing, especially the state's gill net fleet, takes on Alabama's marine environment.
Chris Blankenship, director of the Alabama Division of Marine Resources, said looking at the catch per mile of shoreline doesn't account for the fact that some parts of the Gulf Coast are more productive than others.
"We have a good fishery. Our bay, Mobile Bay, is very productive. It produces a lot of fish. I'd like to take more credit for it, but part of it is just where God has given us to live," Blankenship said.
He noted that government data also shows Alabama's recreational harvest is the largest on the Gulf, per mile of shoreline, for many species. Alabama anglers landed four times as many Spanish mackerel as Florida anglers last year. Ratios are similar for red snapper and cobia.
Random surveys
The federal statistics for recreational landings rely largely on random surveys of anglers. Officials acknowledge those estimates are not nearly as exact as the commercial data, which are based on pounds of fish weighed at the dock.
More important than the size of the recreational or commercial catch, Blankenship said, is the question of whether the harvest is sustainable.
"We're going with what we see with the fishery as a whole. It looks like our fisheries are sustainable," Blankenship said.
For example, he offered, "even with the catches we have, commercial and recreational, we still have a good mullet fishery."
John Dindo, a senior marine scientist at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, said the state is managing the mullet fishery with an eye toward keeping the population at its current level. But Dindo believes Mobile Bay's mullet population is much smaller than it was decades ago.
He blames heavy commercial fishing all year long, and said the fact that Alabama's catch per mile is at least twice as high as its neighbors proves his point.
"I'm not the only one who saw thousands of schools of mullet that contained thousands of mullet apiece going offshore from October to December every year. That's not happening here anymore," said Dindo, who has studied Mobile Bay fish populations for 35 years. "Why are we not seeing the massive schools of mullet that we saw in years past? There's a reason for that. Their numbers are simply way down because they are being caught."
Unrestricted gill nets
In some measure, Dindo said, the higher landings seen in Alabama are related to the fact that Alabama is the only state on the Gulf of Mexico that allows the year-round use of gill nets, with no restrictions on the size of the harvest.
Gill nets in Alabama can be more than 1,000 feet long, and hang down in the water like curtains, ensnaring any fish that are too large to swim through the clear mesh. Monofilament gill nets have been outlawed in Florida, Mississippi and Texas.
Blankenship said that the two principal targets of Alabama's net fleet are Spanish mackerel and mullet. Local scientists have argued for years that gill net fishing causes a "localized depletion" of those targeted species. That is particularly true with Spanish mackerel, said Bob Shipp, head of marine sciences at the University of South Alabama.
In 2006, landings records show the gill net fleet was harvesting 83 percent of all Spanish mackerel caught on the Alabama coast.
Spanish mackerel is one of the most popular species among Alabama's recreational anglers. After public outcry, in 2007 the state temporarily cut the number of days per week the netters were allowed to fish.
Fleet buyouts
About 50 gill net fishermen have taken a buyout offered by the state in 2008, leaving a fleet of about 80 licensed netters. That program was designed to reduce the commercial pressure on Alabama fish stocks, but despite the reduction, the net harvest has remained stable.
The 2010 mackerel landings were about 25,000 pounds higher than the average of the past 10 years despite a season cut short by the BP oil spill, according to federal records. Alabama's netters caught more Spanish mackerel than the rest of the Gulf states combined in 2010.
"The possibility of localized depletion is very real here. It has become so obvious that the Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo dropped Spanish mackerel as a jackpot category. Nobody was catching them," Shipp said.
Blankenship said, "We do catch a lot of Spanish here." But, "Gulfwide, we've never even come close to catching anywhere close to the maximum sustainable yield."
Healthy populations
Shipp agreed that the Gulf's overall population is healthy, and said Alabama's harvest is nowhere near large enough to change that. In fact, he said, Alabama could harvest all the Spanish mackerel and mullet in state waters this year and both species would turn up again next year.
"Because they reproduce offshore, you could knock the whole Alabama population out one year and they would come back," Shipp said. "Fish from Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, they would still go offshore and spawn. You get a whole resurgence every year from the mother lode offshore."
But, he said, "there is no doubt Alabama takes a huge bite out of the local population," which has implications for the Mobile Bay ecosystem and recreational fishing. Shipp said the netters also harvest hundreds of thousands of pounds of ladyfish and blue runners in addition to the Spanish mackerel and mullet, removing more than a million pounds per year of key prey species from Alabama waters.
Ben Harvard, one of the most successful gill net fishermen in Alabama, dismissed the notion that there is a problem.
"If you look at the recreational landings here in Alabama compared to Florida, oh my goodness. There's no better place to be a recreational fisherman, and the federal data proves it. We catch more of just about everything here," Harvard said.
"We've got enough fish here where we've got a great recreational fishery and a pretty good net fishery. If we've got the highest net production on the Gulf Coast, and we've got the highest recreational landings, that's a good thing. We've got the fish here."
Shipp pointed to a study conducted by the state of Texas in the years after it banned gill nets. Spanish mackerel numbers tripled in Texas waters, according to the study. Populations of redfish, black drum, speckled trout and other species netters are not allowed to keep also increased.
Shipp said the increases in species that are not targeted by commercial fishermen were noteworthy because they provide evidence of the true impact of gill net fishing.
"A gill net catches everything that swims into it and kills everything, regardless of whether the netter can keep it," Shipp said. [/size]

And I would imagine the catch numbers for 2011 to be even higher. :

Was there an edit of the print copy, to the online article about who Ben Harvard is?It was quoat from Blankenship in the news pager article.Did anyone else see that?

You must mean THIS Ben Havard ;-)

Ben Harvard, one of the most successful gill net fishermen in Alabama, dismissed the notion that there is a problem.

:

I looked at the my copy of the paper and I was mistaken on the edit.I am looking for the statement; I was thinking was in the paper.I have been going through a lot of the data on and about the Depart.of Conservation,Marine Resources Divison,and seafood organizations and when I relocate the statement, I'll foot note and post.I thought it was in the news paper article.

Great post Jim, I sure was glad to see the gill net issue in the spotlight on the front page of the press register and on AL.com. We got to do something. I think it would make quite a statement for as many people to show up for the meeting as possible and that we have a voice. A local campaign to make people more aware of the issues could help too. I will be writing some letters to local and state officials as well.