Tell me it's not rigged!

So do you all agree with me that the false narrative of declining red snapper (and likely triggerfish too) is an exercise in protecting price supports? See, the price goes up as long as there's a perception of rarity. Recreational fishermen get cut out of the deal, eliminating competition for the resource.

Essentially this is our government telling us, "If you want to enjoy triggerfish or red snapper, you'll need to get it at a restaurant, because we're not going to allow you to catch and prepare them yourselves." Congress has the obligation to act. I'm not optimistic.

I believe every person who has told me that there's a surplus population of red snapper. The bottom line seems to be if fishermen support more regulation on commercial fishing and LESS regulation on recreational fishermen. More importantly -- What are your representatives in Washington going to do about recreational fishermen having equal access to a shared resource? Senator Shelby could have accomplished
a lot more. I suspect that what he does and what he says are two completely different things. But let's see what he does. My money is on graft/corruption and the influence of lobbyists to win out over the individual outdoor sportsman. I do know this - Time is running out if this is something on Senator Shelby's bucket list!




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Originally Posted by secureone

Man do i get so heated and the only reason we aren't out there protesting is because we need to get organized, so we need 20,000 people on floats with signs and news cameras

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The problem is that recreational fishermen, by definition, fish as a hobby. Most of us hold full time jobs and have functional (or dysfunctional, depending on the person) families and without MONEY to buy politicians, nothing is likely to get done anyway. However, all we can do is all we can do. I say that the best resource is Senator Shelby, despite his record of effectively fence-sitting and the fact that he owns the status-quo. Perhaps he'll respond to the issue of his legacy and how he's remembered in history.

One thing to remember: Recs and commercials get a separate quota per year for each species.
Commercial fishers and buyers must reports all catch and sales, so they have firm numbers on when they meet their quota. They both must send in all catch/purchase data.
Rec. catch is estimated, which is part of the problem. Estimates are just that, estimates. And getting rec. guys to report catch so better estimates can be made has been an up hill battle.

Red Snapper:
No one in fisheries management is arguing that red snapper stocks are declining, quite the opposite. Red snapper is recovering/has recovered and is much more plentiful than 10-20 years ago.
The "problem" is that "estimated" recreational catch quickly exceeds the rec. quota. So you have a very short season.
And the stock estimates, science and regulatory framework are not keeping up with the speed of the stock increase.
So you end up with short seasons/"relatively" low quotas for a fishery that is clearly in good shape.

Doesn't make sense, but that is what the Magnusson/Stephens Fisheries Management Act (law, not regulation) requires.

Back to triggerfish, its regulated the same way, under quotas. Recs and commercials get a seperaete quota per year. Commercial fishers and buyers must reports all catch and sales, so they have firm numbers on when they meet their quota.
But, just like snapper, Rec catch is based on estimates. Current estimates are that rec fisherman caught about twice the rec quota in 2016, so the 2016 season closed and no season for 2017. If commercial guys catch their quota, they close as well. As required by the Magnusson/Stephens Fisheries Management Act.

All that said, triggerfish population estimates (and quotas) are/were based on catch estimates (fisheries dependent data). When circle hooks were mandated, triggerfish catches plummeted. Plug that into stock assessment models and all the sudden the model says "oh shit, triggerfish populations have plummeted". Common sense tells us otherwise. Fisheries independent data may as well. But the science, stock assessments and regulations lag behind. So we end up with what yah got.


So back to the original question:
Why do you see triggerfish on a menu when the recreational season is closed?
Simple: commercial guys have a separate quota, and their season closes when they meet their quota.
Plus the fish may have been frozen for months. (Or it really could be tilapia, because most (not all but most) people cant tell the difference anyway. )
They commercial quotas and recreational quotas are separate, when one is open and/or the other is closed has absolutely nothing to do with each other. Never has.
Kinda like saying "My buddy shot a deer with the bow today, why can't I go shoot a deer with my rifle?" when rifle season isnt open again until next year.



Want things to change?
Stop bitching about NOAA, the regulations, the commercial guys and all the other shit on forums like this. It does nothing.
Call or write your congress and senators and have them change the M/S Act, pass a law that gives the reef fish management in the Gulf to the states and have them appropriate fisheries managers more funding to do more frequent, better and more timely stock assessments and catch estimates.

Want to stop gill-netting in state waters? Same thing: Stop bitching on here and go write your Alabama Ssate congressman/senator and tell them you want it stopped.
Right now.
Stop reading my post and go do it.
Why are you still reading my rant???
Go write.

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Call or write your congress and senators and have them change the M/S Act, pass a law that gives the reef fish management in the Gulf to the states and have them appropriate fisheries managers more funding to do more frequent, better and more timely stock assessments and catch estimates.

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That would be a great start to correcting this issue.

Thanks for the straight dope on this subject, Carl. Your insight and personal knowledge, are always helpful to me ( everyone? ) in understanding issues like this one. And you are certainly right about how to make a difference and create changes, if that is what we want.

I agree with the gist of what Carl said. The one upside to forum bitching is making more people aware of the issue though :)

I can think of one big player in this game that has been so far unmentioned, that is the Environmental Defense Fund, aka EDF. Fishery Solutions Center

This group has lobbied hard for the catch-share system. They have used such underhanded tactics as forming a lobbying group called The Charter Fisherman's Association that actually has nothing to do with charter fishing -- the board is comprised of commercial fishermen and EDF members.

There are some positives to catch shares. For instance, commercial fishermen don't have to risk fishing bad weather days since their season is 365 days. However, there are some HUGE negative side effects of this system.

The way it works is that commercial fishermen were assigned a quota, a "share" of fish that can be bought or sold on markets just like a stock market share on Wall Street. These shares last FOREVER. This means some super special lucky guys (guys with the right connections in many cases) magically own some of the red snapper, triggerfish, whatever out in the gulf. Public resource? Nope, these fish, living on reefs paid for by taxpayers in many cases, belong to someone. Now even imagining that these shares were originally handed out equitably (they weren't), the end result is a few individuals or corporations are going to buy up all the shares. These are the "snapper barons" you may have heard of. They then lease out their shares, paying pennies on the dollar to the guy actually catching the fish, pocketing huge money for nothing. This same scenario has already played out in places from Alaska to Gloucester.

End result, a public resource clusters in the hands of a few who become super wealthy off of it. Think these guys want recs out there fishing? Of course not. If you watched Big Fish Texas, you surely heard Buddy Guindon and his people demonzing the entire rec sector alternatively as elitists, morons, and poachers. So they throw their money at lobbying groups designed to limit the recreational sector as much as possible. They actively sabotage attempts by the states to create a more accurate data model.

The more you dig into it, the dirtier it all gets.

I do think there are practical solutions that would end this terrible snapper baron situation. Perhaps have the shares expire every year and quotas be sold at auction annually, preventing the life-long gifting of a public resource to a select few.