Of all the fish in the Gulf of Mexico, red snapper aren’t the biggest; or the fastest; they’re not quite the brightest (color, not smarts); and not the strongest. But they’re surely the most political. From the perspective of the commercial fishing industry, red snapper management in the Gulf of Mexico is both a great […]
Fish populations have limits that cannot be exceeded without causing harm at the ecosystem level. This is especially true for the forage species — including but not limited to the herrings, anchovies, menhaden, mackerel and sardine — that serve the critical role of providing food and energy for all of life above them on the […]
I’ve been raving about the fluke (summer flounder) fishing for several years now. Because it’s been pretty darn good! I mean, it’s basically been a completely different fishery than it was 10 years ago. Simply put, there have been dramatically more and larger fish around, up until fairly recently anyway. It certainly wasn’t always this […]
June was a bad month for fishery-dependent, coastal communities. On the back of the passage of H.R. 1335—a bill that puts short-term economic gains ahead of sustainable fisheries—the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) failed to impose significant bycatch cuts to the Bering Sea/Aleutian Island trawl fleet. As was noted a few weeks ago, Pacific […]
Wait on ‘em Stevie, wait………..hold on……….hold on………. Okay, get him! It can often take a great deal of patience to catch a sturgeon. They’re not aggressive biters but fishing in the lower Columbia River estuary, where there are thousands and thousands of the beasts, is very exciting! This fishery is world-class, but you wouldn’t know […]
On one side: fish. On the other side: fishermen. In the middle: Zeke Grader. For more than four decades, the California-based fishing advocate has worked to find common ground between taking care of the environment and looking out for the needs of family fishermen. Armed with passion and determination, the law school graduate and former […]
The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which governs all fishing in federal waters, is an extremely long and complex statute. However, no part of the law is more important than the ten so-called “National Standards” which set forth the principles that shall govern its implementation. Those national standards are brief, and go into no […]
Early this month the House of Representatives, pretty much on straight party lines, voted out H.R. 1335, the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act. First, let me start by saying that most of the recommended tweaks to federal fishery management law in this piece of legislation are just bad for anglers. […]
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