MyFishFinder Forum
MFF US Northeast => Maine => Topic started by: mudchuck on Jun 14, 2018, 12:30 PM
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Totally bummed that cod is closed, especially since I've made the trip down from NW VT several years now and go out with a small party to Jeffery's Ledge and every year we catch tons of 4-10# cod, consistently - only to throw them back, and now the haddock is tighter on limits per person...making it so it's not worth me coming anymore...
Really wish ME would reconsider the cod to at least allow 1 per person May to August...
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There is fishing and then there is eating fish. If the fishing is good and you love it go fishing and then pick up some Cod or Haddock on your way home.
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I use to go out every summer and jig a tub of cod for my freezer. But they let the Draggers kill off the cod and punish the hand line fishermen.
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Does anyone know if there are any positive signs that cod may be coming back or will come back now that the pressure is down? Or is it too soon to tell?
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It's sad this was allowed to happen... money controls everything. Commercial cod fishing should be banned within 20 miles of shore.
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Again it isn’t the commercial guys fault if you are to put blame on anyone do it to nmfs they created this problem and can’t figure out what to do. Everything was great till they put a quota system into the mix and let the big boat come in here and they just had a field day before that there was plenty of cod to go around. The commercial guys are only trying to make a living like the rest of us and going by what the government will allow them to do it isn’t there fault look higher up than them
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NMF? National Marine Fisheries? Looked on the Internet didn't find it.
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NMF? National Marine Fisheries? Looked on the Internet didn't find it.
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/topic/commercial-fishing (https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/topic/commercial-fishing)
New England Fishery Management Council
https://www.nefmc.org/ (https://www.nefmc.org/)
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There is a lot of data to suggest that small boat systems of hook and line are a lot more sustainable than big draggers, but the draggers are backed by more money which fights in the court... but i suspect as things keep going that probably most large drag net fishing will slowly
begin to fade.
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I'm sure that the 100s of boats fishing the Whaleback during the spawning season had no impact either.... 8)
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My point is that we spends thousand to book a trip every year, including the travel costs, rooms, meals, fuel etc... and go out there and spend a day getting great arm exercise by bring up dozens upon dozens of cod from 300 FOW only to have to release them.
Seriously, I enjoy it don't get me wrong, but there's something wrong with not allowing people to hook/line catch & keep at least 1 on a trip like this...
On average we have 10 people on the boat, and all bring at least 8-10 over the rails every trip, sometimes many many more, and all go back...add insult to injury, we have some that go back that don't get back down fast enough and sharks takes them out!
Some trips the boat limits out on haddock, some trips we get close to limit...but not always...had some trips where we were skunked on legal keeper haddock/pollock and caught nothing but cod! It really would be nice to bring home one fresh caught cod too.
Really beginning to think the trip is becoming a waste of time & money and perhaps should look elsewhere for a trip with more tangible return on the investment.
Think about how much money we put into this every year only to not be allowed to have some cod brought home...been this way for a little while now and not looking like NMFS gives a rip about me or others that spend the cash doing this, perhaps Maine doesn't either???
What will happen if I decide to go to southern NE, say RI, and take my money there instead??? ME/NH doesn't benefit and the loss of a few vacationers like me might not drawn attention but what if more than just a few do this...time for the states and NMFS to wake up and see the impact they've created by shutting down a viable and healthy fishery for political reasons...
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https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/topic/commercial-fishing (https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/topic/commercial-fishing)
New England Fishery Management Council
https://www.nefmc.org/ (https://www.nefmc.org/)
Thanks!
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What's the survival rate of cod that come up from 300 feet of water? Hopefully they have a physotstomus connection between the stomach and swim bladder or they are goners so you might as well keep them.
Some species do. Just don't know if Cod do. My knowledge of saltwater fish isn't very good here in Indiana. ;D
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They should and probably will put a law through that will not allow Cod to Bite on baited hooks!!!!!!!!!!
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Haddock fishing is off the hook lately. And the cod fishing is better than it has been in the last 5 years or so. Easy to sell doom and gloom when you're on shore! The TAC for cod was actually increased this year, just not enough to allow rec anglers to keep cod. These guys went home with limits of haddock (12 per person), plus a couple bonus pollock. I've lost a lot of business due to the cod closure, especially with locals early in the season. I'd love to see a conservative bag limit put in place (maybe even a slot limit) and I'm confident in the next few years we'll see that.
(https://s22.postimg.cc/hu96qak0d/cod.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/image/hu96qak0d/)
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I'm sure that the 100s of boats fishing the Whaleback during the spawning season had no impact either.... 8)
Especially the draggers just after the fish spawned... just saying. Lest not forget the draggers that are out there before the season ... Yeah I know, they only want to make a living, but at what and whose expense? Ban dragging and I've always said long lines only and you keep everything you catch.
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Blaming one group is ignorant. Just saying.
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Blaming one group is ignorant. Just saying.
Ignorance would be NOT blaming the ones responsible for the destruction of a fisheries! Only a fool would blame recreational anglers... they certainly don't destroy the bottom of the spawning grounds dragging cod jigs... just saying!
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with all the cod around im thinking they may let us keep a couple next year. and the draggers are the problem. everything goes in the net and whats too small goes over the side. a big waste. its called bycatch. and if they have over their quota they can keep it.
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There's a lot going on in this thread, as someone who follows the fisheries management I feel I can speak with some authority.
The largest smoking gun, if there is one, is catch share management. Prior to 2010 boats were limited by daily trip limits. So it didn't make sense to fish in closer to shore with a larger boat. Then under catch share management each permit is allocated a percentage of the total allowable catch based on that permit's landings from 1996-2006. So boats who killed the most fish historically (at a time when fishermen were encouraged to back off cod) were rewarded with a larger share of the catch.
Now, on paper catch shares seem like a good idea, the idea is that fishermen aren't bound to a hard daily trip limit, so theoretically fewer dead fish are released back into the ocean. Unfortunately, what this really means is that larger boats can concentrate their efforts in relatively small areas and put undue pressure on smaller sub stocks. See, the thing about cod is that it isn't one monolithic biomass, It's made up of dozens, maybe hundreds, of sub stocks, so when you over fish each sub stock, they have a hard time recovering. This is why there aren't many cod east of Jeffreys Bank (different from Jeffreys Ledge)
Also, catch share management assumes that we can accurately count the fish in the ocean and then come up with a reasonable total allowable catch. Trouble is, we can't. Fish survey data is unreliable, at best. Plus, it takes so long for regulations to be passed down based on the survey that the data is old by the time the rules based on it are enacted and doesn't account for environmental conditions in the time it takes to make those rules go into effect.
Another problem, is you have/had widespread cheating by larger boat owners, for example Carlos Rafael, on of the largest boat and permit owners in the Northeast. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/11/us/commercial-fishing-regulation-codfather.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/11/us/commercial-fishing-regulation-codfather.html) So even if the TAC is set appropriately (it isn't), widespread abuse undermines it.
I don't envy fisheries managers one bit. They're essentially in a lose-lose situation, but my default is to protect the resource above all else, because it's much better to make a mistake that allows too few fish to be caught as opposed to too many, which is what happened in the first couple years of catch shares when the cod quota was artificially high, due to poor data from a survey.
I've long advocated for management based on what's called input controls, were you limit fishing effort (number of gill nets, fishing days, types of gear, etc) because these sort of automatically account for relative fluctuations in fish stocks, when there are more around, more is caught, when there are fewer fish around, fewer fish are caught.
Finally, we have to protect the feed fish. Herring, menhaden and mackerel get hammered by large boats, primarily to feed the lobster bait industry, although the recent switch to seining in the gulf of maine during the summer months has helped, as it's much less destructive than midwater trawls.
I could go on and on, but just remember, when it comes to fisheries management, it's never as simple as it seems. I don't mind releasing big cod, because I'm happy they're still here. There were a few years where a 24" cod was very hard to come by.
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Very well said fishless. That is the truth about the bigger boats it took them exactly a year to kill the inshore cod fishinging. I was a commercial gill netter for 15 years and we use to catch a lot of cod when it was 800 pounds a day usually 5 nets to get it and then come home. When they went to catch shares that was it for the fishery they put the little guy out of business and the big boats thrived. I’ve been rod and reel a lot and the last two years has been incredible in the cod. A lot of big fish too so I think they are making a comeback and will see them let you keep fish in a year or so again
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well said both you guys, and i agree fishless, so much goes into fisheries management and then you have to convince politicians to back things sometimes, but i think everyone wants the cod to come back, so I agree lets keep the cod keeping really low to nothing for another 5 to 6 years and then reevaluate.
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It's tough, because the fishery could easily support a conservative recreational bag limit (<5 fish or so?) and the commercial side puts a lot more pressure in them than the rec guys, although we do our fair share. Ironically, not being able to keep cod has probably kept so many people from even heading off shore that it has been wildly successful at reducing recreational pressure.
Now, remember how I described the way quota is allocated, based on historical landings? Permits with valuable catch history are worth LOTS of money, over a million dollars in some cases. Permits without much history (and thus quota) are forced to lease quota from those who have it. with so little cod quota available, in the last couple years most commercial guys have taken to avoiding cod at all costs, because in some cases they're spending more money to lease the quota than the fish is worth at the dock.
As a charter captain and guide I can tell you that ground fishing now is as good as it's been in the last ten years and haddock fishing is as good as it's been in my lifetime. So the takeaway? If you head offshore you'll have to release some beautiful cod, but you'll still head home with haddock, pollock, cusk, redfish and more.
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I use to go out every summer and jig a tub of cod for my freezer. But they let the Draggers kill off the cod and punish the hand line fishermen.
I thought you pickled them ?
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Commercial fishermen can keep cod, they have a bycatch quota
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Great picture of years gone by! I remember the old timers telling stories of rowing out and catching giant cod with hand lines or haddock one after another between the Isle of Shoals and the main land. Course as these people die off, the stories will be no more. The purge of fishing history will be manipulated in a way to make one believe it's as good now as it ever was...
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All bait fish spawn inside islands. and this is where they allow seining !!!! All seining should have to be out side Islands End of problem .and no dragging on spawning areas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Great picture of years gone by! I remember the old timers telling stories of rowing out and catching giant cod with hand lines or haddock one after another between the Isle of Shoals and the main land. Course as these people die off, the stories will be no more. The purge of fishing history will be manipulated in a way to make one believe it's as good now as it ever was...
That's why I try to restrain myself from mocking the recreational cod closure, dysfunctional as it may be. What is recovered anyway? Catching your fill of big codfish at Portland headlight?
As I said earlier, cod quota has been so severely cut in recent years that commercial guys are mostly trying to avoid them. So when people say "but the draggers can still catch them!" it's true, but it's a fraction of what it was just a few years ago. The villain if there is one is catch shares.
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I lived thru the 10 years of 100% closure/moratorium on stripers in the mid-Atlantic, and let me tell you it had a devastating affect on recreational fishing and the unintended consequence of this was the impact it had on the blue crabs, as the fish were able to gorge on them en masse. So with nobody allowed to keep stripers, there was no offset in the give/take on the fishery and crabs took a hard hit.
This also had the side effect of putting more pressure on summer flounder which had it's own rewriting of the regs once they were hit hard by commercial and recreational fishing.
My point is that it does suck that not even 1 fish is allowed to be kept by recreation fishing, yet the share program/quota allowed commercially is so detrimental to recreational fishing that nobody is counting the true cost to the loss of people like me that are seriously looking at giving up on coming DownEast to deep sea fish and take my money to other locations that have better off-shore opportunities to bring home fish for the freezer...can't imagine what it has done to locals that their livelihood is dependent on recreational anglers chartering or headboat sales.
I also believe that no cod being kept is having an impact on Menhaden and other forage species since the cod go back to feed even more.
Really hope something is done to equalize this situation so recreational anglers can once again spend loads of money on something more than glorified catch & release.
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I think that they really want everyone to do what I did .Sell all your saltwater fishing gear .Boat and all my rods and feed on veggies.