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Captain Dave
Van Drew key to reef use vote
BY JOHN GEISER • December 7, 2007
Tens of thousands of recreational anglers are counting on Assemblyman Jeff Van Drew, D-Atlantic, to follow through on his promise to get fish traps and lobster pots off the state's artificial reefs.
Van Drew, one of the co-sponsors of the Assembly bill to prohibit the gear on the reefs, is the key to movement of the measure to the Assembly floor.
Van Drew, who is also assistant majority leader, must act in the next two weeks or the bill will die Jan. 7, and a handful of commercial potters will continue to monopolize a reef system built and paid for by recreational anglers.
There are probably 30,000 or more anglers in Atlantic County who fish on the artificial reefs, and they are asking for Van Drew's help in giving them places to fish unhampered by the maze of pots, ropes and gear that has been set on the reefs.
Capt. Pete Grimbilas, a member of the Greater Point Pleasant Charterboat Association and one of the founders of Reef Rescue, said ! this week that it is critical for anglers to call, write or e-mail Van Drew and other key members of the Senate and Assembly.
"If they don't take action soon, all of the work will have been for nothing," he said. "It's up to Trenton. The bills are sitting there, waiting for a vote, and these legislators should act on them — do the right thing — listen to the thousands of anglers who are being denied the opportunity to fish on the reefs that they paid for.'
The Senate Environment Committee decided unanimously Oct. 18 to send bill S-2635, which would ban the fixed gear on the reefs, to the full Senate for a vote. The Assembly version of the legislation — A-3986 — was passed out of that body's Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee by a 4-to-1 vote May 21, and has been awaiting a vote by the Assembly for seven months.
"We're sending out letters and making phone calls every day," Grimbilas said. "That is the only way these bills are going to be pass! ed." Grimbilas said the problem of pots, lines and high fliers! on the reefs has intensified since the campaign to get the gear off the reefs first began.
"They're increasing all the time," he said. "We really noticed it this season.
"Reefs like the Ocean City reef are loaded with pots now," Grimbilas said. "They never had them like that before. It used to be a problem on the northern reefs; now it's all over.
"You wouldn't believe what's been happening out there now," he said. "One of the reasons is the blackfish fishery. There is such big money in blackfish now that these potters are really into it.'
Blackfish were never of interest to commercial fishermen years ago, but the exorbitant prices that some persons will pay for live blackfish has created a new commercial fishery.
Unfortunately, the huge profits that can be made have spawned an illegal trade in the fish. Law enforcement has almost collapsed, record-keeping is ignored, and quotas are meaningless as the black market expands.
"The reefs ! were constructed to increase the numbers of fish and provide opportunity for recreational fishermen and divers," Grimbilas said. "They weren't built for commercial fishermen."
Grimbilas pointed out that recreational fishermen not only donate thousands of dollars to build reefs, but pay excise taxes on all of the recreational fishing tackle and marine equipment they buy, and some of this money comes back to New Jersey's Division of Fish and Wildlife to build fish habitat.
The commercial fishing sector, on the other hand, actually opposed the reef-building idea in the beginning, and has contributed no money — either donations or taxes — since then.
"Whenever we sink a vessel or drop material on a reef site, they zoom in on it within two or three weeks," he said. 'There's no growth on the material yet, but the fish and lobsters hide in it; so they put their pots there.'
James A. Donofrio, executive director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance, ! said he was pleased at the bipartisan support the reef bills received through the committee hearings, but disappointed that they have not been voted on as promised.
"Prohibiting the fixed gear on the artificial reefs is something that has been needed for a long time," he said.
"So many people today don't realize how far recreational fishing has slipped in the last 10 years," he said. "It's because of regulation. Our backs are to the wall.
"Fisheries management has taken away our winter flounder fishery, ruined our blackfish fishery, destroyed our tuna fishery and they are prepared to end our summer flounder fishery," he said. 'This hurts not only our own food supply and recreation, but the economy of our entire state.
"Now the state Legislature can do something to help us," he continued. "I just hope they realize that they can do this without hurting the commercial fishing industry.
We're only talking about 5.4 square miles out of about 350 square miles of ocean. "The benefit to the recreational sector is enormous — more and more recreational fishing is done on artificial reefs — and this bill will help anglers, party and charter boat owners and the boating industry," he said.
"It has been recognized by one administration after another that the artificial reefs are for recreational fishing and diving. They were not built by or for commercial fishermen," he pointed out.
"The money, the effort, the dedication all came from the recreational sector and the state Division of Fish and Wildlife," he said. 'If commercial fishermen want an artificial reef for their exclusive use, we have no objections.
"It's a big ocean, plenty of barren ocean bottom that they could build a reef on for their own use, but for them to dominate — in some cases, to confiscate the reefs that were never intended for their use — is neither fair nor right, and is unacceptable to us," he said.
"That's why we asked that bills be introduced in both the state Assembly and the Senate to prohibit commercial gear on the reefs," he continued. "And by the way, the law will not stop commercial fishermen from fishing on the reefs like anyone else with hook and line.
"They will just not be able to set pots out that fish 24 hours a day, seven days a week and prevent anglers from fishing the reefs," he added.
Some reefs, such as the Sea Girt and Axel Carlson reefs, are literally covered with a web of pots, lines and flags.
The gear makes it almost impossible for recreational boats to drift fish over the reefs, and, in many cases, even anchor to bottom fish without getting tangled in the gear.
Nearly 90 percent of inshore recreational bottom fishing by private boats was done on artificial reefs in 2000, and 46 percent of party boat bottom fishing effort and 62 percent of private boat diving activity was concentrated on artificial reefs.
Over $10 million in recreational money was spent on reef building in a relatively few years, and anglers have come to rely on the reefs as their keys to good fishing.
