this is the response from my friend who's an active member of several groups in NY:
Even though trawling for bass has been illegal since the '70's, the Marine Resource Advisory Council is arranging a subcommittee to discuss reinstating it. The comms are complaining about the limited bycatch and want to keep more than the 21 allowed per day. This is even after it was stated that striped bass as a bycatch is mostly avoidable.
The next meeting is on Tuesday April 20th at 2 pm. I am going to attempt to make it, no guarantees but I will try. If any one has any comments to add for the comment period please post them here. I will go through them and prepare something for the meeting.
Here is part of the minutes from the January meeting discussing this. I put in bold a statement that was made by an obviously ignorant commercial lobsterman.
21-fish Striped Bass By-catch Allowance for Trawlers
Chairman Wise reminded the Council that the commercial fishery for striped bass was partially opened in 1990 after having been closed in 1985. When the fishery was re-opened, a new section had been added to the Environmental Conservation Law that listed the fishing gears that could legally be used to catch striped bass for commercial purposes. Among others, trawl gear and haul seines were not among the gears listed. However, the law did provide a 7-fish daily by-catch allowance for trawlers. Mr. Wise stated that the intent of the law regarding the by-catch allowance was to prevent the development of a directed trawl fishery for striped bass while at the same time recognizing that, prior to 1985, it had been legal to commercially harvest striped bass in New York waters with trawl gear and that trawlers were bound to harvest some striped bass even if they were not targeting them.
Mr. Wise stated that a proposal was raised a few years back to increase the trawl by-catch allowance to 21 fish. This was done. He indicated that Councilor Paul Farnham has stated that trawl fishermen would like to do away with the limit entirely and let trawlers be allowed to catch as many striped bass as they could to use up their commercial tag allocation. Mr. Farnham submitted letters to the Council from by trawl fishermen Vincent Carillo, Jr. of the Tenacious Fishing Corporation and Chuck Weimar of the F/V Rianda, who also endorse this change. In their view, the conservation of striped bass is achieved through issuing a limited number of tags. How the fish are caught really doesn't matter. Mr. Farnham stated that the current by-catch allowance forced a trawl fishermen with a full-share allocation of striped bass tags to make a lot of trips to catch tag allocation. This was economically wasteful and unnecessary.
Councilor John Davi supported an expansion of the by-catch allowance. He suggested that trawl fishermen be allowed to harvest a certain percentage of their commercial striped bass tag allotment (e.g., 80% or 90%) without a daily possession limit. When 90% of a permit holder's tags have been used, a by-catch allowance would kick in to limit the probability that more bass would be caught than there were tags in the allotment.
Councilor Danielson voiced support for maintaining the current 21-fish by-catch allowance. He feels that the attempt to forestall a directed trawl fishery on striped bass remains a valid objective and law and its current allowance does that.
Councilor Risi also advocated for removing or relaxing the by-catch allowance. He noted that any fish brought up in the trawl beyond the 21st must be tossed overboard, usually dead or dying. How does this advance the cause of stock conservation?
Councilor Witek stated that the most important point is that the objective is to constrain trawling to a by-catch only fishery in the case of striped bass. At first people wanted 7 fish, then that wasn’t enough, 21 was given to them, and now that's not enough. There are trawl fishermen directing on striped bass and this should not be allowed. In Mr. Witek's view, the striped bass is probably the worst species to be the subject of trawl effort in a by-catch fishery.
John German of the Long Island Sound Lobsterman's Association noted that the striped bass stock is a fully restored stock and, with only 241 tags available in a full-share allocation each year, there isn’t enough money involved for it to be considered a directed fishery. Economic times are harder than they have been in years and a person should be able to take his/her tags however they can.
One audience member said that you at times can’t help but run through a group of striped bass when towing a trawl inshore. It was also pointed out that striped bass are usually found very near shore and can be largely avoided by fishing offshore. Thus, it would be possible to allow trawlers to catch their allocation of tags quickly and then avoid significant further striped bass catches by staying offshore. Councilor Risi believes that most fishermen have a sense of what they will be picking up. If they have the ability to catch 21 fish, they will make a swing for it and, unfortunately, sometimes they might pick up 100 striped bass or more; therefore a lot more fish are going to die unnecessarily. He believes that once a trawler reaches their limit, they will be able to fish differently and not target striped bass. Arnold Leo agreed with Mr. German that catching 240 striped bass in a year does not constitute doesn’t a "directed" fishery on striped bass. He believes this situation is more accurately characterized as a discard mortality problem that could be alleviated. Mr. Leo also pointed out that the annual estimated coastwide recreational discard mortality of striped bass is about 4 times larger than the total coastwide commercial catch of striped bass.
Councilor Witek continued to oppose relaxing or removing the current by-catch allowance for trawlers. He suggested that this will result in harvests of fish outside the commercial slot size for striped bass and a trawl is really an illegal gear with which to commercially harvest striped bass. Rewarding people for bad behavior is a bad idea.
Pat Augustine feels that there are good arguments to be made on both sides of the fence but we have to remember that right now trawl gear is illegal in New York to commercially harvest this species. He sees two recommendations: 1) put together a subcommittee to study and make recommendations on the issue and 2) change the law by removing the word “directed”. Fishermen today cannot survive on catching only one type of fish.
Bob Rochetta of the North Fork Captains Association said that we need to think outside the box. Under the current law, we are throwing natural resources back dead in the water. People could be eating or selling them to protect their business. He believes it’s a sin to put the fish back into the water for the crabs to eat when there are people hungry out there.
Trawl fisherman Charles Wertz asked why the people who oppose relaxing or removing the by-catch allowance for trawlers, ostensibly on the basis of concerns about conservation of the striped bass stock, are at the same time trying to activate latent striped bass harvest permits, which would likely increase striped bass harvests?
Councilor Danielson moved to table this discussion but his motion was not seconded. Mr. Farnham moved that the Council create a subcommittee to explore this issue further and come back to the Council at a future date with any recommendations it might make (Councilor House second). Councilor House thinks there are a few things to be looked at by the subcommittee: 1) would relaxing/removing the striped bass by-catch allowance make it easier for trawl fishermen to accumulate striped bass tags?; 2) how many draggers have bass tags? and 3) will there need to be a limit on how many striped bass permit holders can be packed aboard a single dragger? Mr. Farnham's motion was adopted by a vote of 7 in favor, 1 opposed, and 1 abstention. Members of this subcommittee will be drawn equally from the Council and non-council members, covering all user groups.
