Tough decisions that benefit the “public trust” come with the territory For the last 9 years I’ve served on the Mid Atlantic Fishery Management Council – one of eight regional federal fishery management councils – holding New York’s “Obligatory” seat. It is no easy gig. There is nothing more I’d rather NOT be doing than […]
On May 1, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) released a request for proposals “to evaluate the feasibility of developing a fishing mortality (F) based management approach to the recreational summer flounder fishery.” Currently, summer flounder are managed with a combination of bag limits, size limits and seasons intended to constrain recreational harvest to, or […]
Photo: Tyler Betnar with a basket of fish Just a fable to me, I’ve heard the stories that have intrigued me to fish this spot. Charter boats from Garibaldi, coming from the south, and a few sport boats coming from Illwaco and Hammond, out of the mouth of the Columbia River. Rumors of throwing back […]
How about some positive fishing news? Every day there’s a lot of discouraging fishing news with all of the regulations (necessary but often painful), state and federal fishing laws, fishing bills in Congress, climate change news and more. So here it is, the positive, good fishing news from Rhode Island. Most of this positive news […]
I remain a bit perplexed as to why our Pacific Coast groundfish remain so less controversial than those on the east coast. Having just come from another trip to Washington, DC, where both sport and commercial fishers were “working the hill” on Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization, it was good to see the common goal of preserving such […]
A recent study funded by the large-scale extraction industry claims that forage fish abundance doesn’t affect marine predator numbers…As anglers we know better. Top photo courtesy John McMurray Just when I thought I’d seen everything, I opened my email a few weeks ago to find a half-dozen messages about some new “ground-breaking” study funded by […]
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) recently announced the 2017 Gulf of Mexico three-day federal-water season. It’s disappointing. My Louisiana roots go back to the Colonial French and many generations strong. Though my pride for the state runs deep, I find myself disheartened that my state and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fish (LDWF) […]
It is said that if someone is completely happy at the end of a compromise, then there truly was never a compromise at all. This is as evident as ever at any Gulf Council meeting, which often is a frustrating week that leads to a lot of postponed decision making and plenty of hard feelings. […]
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