‘Alternative Management’ of Fisheries: Can It Work?

‘Alternative Management’ of Fisheries: Can It Work?

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 […]

Time For Some Positive Fishing News

Time For Some Positive Fishing News

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 […]

Strong Laws for a Sustainable Fishing Future

Strong Laws for a Sustainable Fishing Future

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 […]

Right…Baitfish Don’t Matter

Right…Baitfish Don’t Matter

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 […]

Without the Fisheries Resource, There is No Lifestyle

Without the Fisheries Resource, There is No Lifestyle

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) […]

If Fish Could Talk

If Fish Could Talk

Photo: David Appolonia of South Kingstown, Rhode Island with a school bluefin tuna It’s 2017 and the fish are on the run. They’re actually under attack. They have always been running from other fish that seek them out as prey and mankind that catches them to eat. This is only natural. However, today the fish […]