September 13, 2014 — The following was released by the North Carolina Fisheries Association:
AFFILIATE MEETINGS:
ALBEMARLE FISHERMEN'S ASSOCIATION will meet on Tuesday, September 23rd at 6:30pm at Leon Nixon's Catering in Edenton. Call Terry Pratt for more info: (252) 339-7431.
PAMLICO COUNTY FISHERMEN'S ASSOCIATION will meet next week sometime, either the 18th, 19th or 20th. We'll let you know the exact date/time/location as soon as it's nailed down, or call Wayne Dunbar for more info: (252) 670-7467.
UPCOMING MEETINGS: Please note the following as it's very important to have a very good representation from commercial fishermen at these meetings:
September 29th: Striped Bass public hearing at the Dare County Government Complex in Manteo
October 15th: Summer Flounder public hearing at the DENR office in Washington, NC
Jerry's comments:
STATE FAIR: As noted last week, the North Carolina State Fair is a 10 day event October 16-26. The NCFA Board discussed this at last Monday's Board meeting and agreed to assist NC Catch with materials and volunteers to help with an booth for commercial fishing. Affiliates should make sure this is on your agendas when you meet and make arrangements to help for a day.
GOD & COUNTRY BANQUET: This event is sponsored by the Craven-Pamlico Christian Coalition and will be held on this coming Monday, September 15th, at the Havelock Tourist & Event Center in Havelock NC. It begins at 6:30 pm with a dinner and the program follows. Excellent speakers and introductions of many candidates for public office, including judicial. Supreme Court Justice Paul Newby will be the Master of Ceremonies. Tickets are $20 each or table of 8 for $150. For tickets, call Pam: (252) 514-0381. For more information on speakers and guests, call me.
HELP FOR NCFA: The Board took action to help with the workload of NCFA including administration, research and lobbying. The "official" announcements will be made soon.
BLESSING OF THE FLEET is Sunday, October 5th, 10:00am at the State Port in Morehead City. If you are a commercial fisherman and can participate, you should be there. This is a religious service and part of the North Carolina Seafood Festival that is scheduled for October 3-5. There will also be a commercial fishing vessel on display for tours. More information on that later.
OBSERVERS: We have recommended to the Division that they have fishermen call DMF to let them know when they're going to fish utilizing their gillnet permits. DMF says they are leaving messages with fishermen and many times the calls are not returned. It could be that the fishermen DMF is calling are not currently fishing with gillnets, so they don't return the call. If fishermen would call in to let DMF know of their intent to fish, then it would eliminate that problem of no returned calls. There may be cases where the calls are not being returned by some fishermen who end up fishing. Since the Division can see through trip tickets that they went fishing, it's silly to avoid the call. Failing to take an observer may result in a ticket and you could lose your gillnet permit. Once again, we remind fishermen that it's a provision of the ITP that we have a certain number of observed trips, and if we don't, the fishery can be shut down by the feds.
God bless,
Jerry
MEETINGS:
NOTE: If you are aware of ANY meetings that should be of interest to commercial fishing that is not on this list, please contact us so we can include it here.
Sept 15 God & Country Banquet; Havelock NC; 6:30pm; call Jerry for more info
Sept 15 -19 South Atlantic Fishery Management Council; Charleston, SC
Sept 23 Albemarle Fishermen's Association; Leon Nixon's Catering, Edenton; 6:30pm
Sept 29 Striped Bass Hearing on Addendum IV; Dare County complex; 6:00pm
Oct 3-5 North Carolina Seafood Festival; Morehead City
Oct 5 Blessing of the Fleet; State Port; Morehead City; 10:00am
Oct 6 NCFA Board of Directors meeting; Hampton Inn; Washington NC; 2:00pm
Oct 7 – 9 Mid Atlantic Fishery Management Council; Philadelphia
Oct 15 Summer Flounder Public Hearing; DENR office; Washington NC; 6:00pm
Oct 16-26 North Carolina State Fair; NC Catch needs help for booth!
Oct 27 – 30 ASMFC Annual Meeting: Mystic, CT
Please note that the items below are links to the items mentioned on the internet; however, they will not work unless you download this update as a pdf by clicking on the link above.
MFC/DMF Meeting Schedule
SNAPPER-GROUPER COMPLEX-COMMERCIAL AND RECREATIONAL PURPOSES
CRAB TRAWLING AND TAKING SHRIMP WITH NETS
TRAWLING, SPECIAL SECONDARY NURSERY AREA
GILL NETS – BOGUE BANKS
STOP NETS – MULLET BEACH SEINE FISHERY – ATLANTIC
OCEAN – CARTERET COUNTY
RULE SUSPENSION- GILL NET RESTRICTIONS: INTERNAL COASTAL WATERS
LARGE MESH GILLNETS: PERMITS AND OBSERVERS:
Beginning on Monday, September 1st, if you fish gillnets in internal waters, you need a permit. (Drift gillnets, strike, runaround or drop gillnets are exempt.) The permit wasn't the Division's idea, but came from commercial fishermen. It was thought that if one of the requirements for the federal ITP in the fishery is to have 7% of large mesh trips observed, then rather than have more restrictions, why not devise a permit to make sure we get enough coverage. Without the coverage, the feds can shut down the fishery, so a permit can keep that from happening. If a fisherman refuses to take an observer, he can lose his permit.
If you are fishing large mesh gillnets, don't wait to be called to take an observer. Call DMF and volunteer if you haven't taken an observer. Don't let it up to a few to take observers. If everyone does their part, the burden can be spread around a bit and you can do your part in keeping the fishery open.
If you call DMF and volunteer rather than waiting around for them to call you, we'll put your name in a hat and the winner will have a nice dinner with Louis Daniel, courtesy of NCFA! (Louis doesn't know about this, so just testing to see if he reads these updates.)
One other point about fishing and turtles: If you have an interaction with a turtle while you're fishing and you don't have an observer, then call DMF and let them know. That's better for all of us. You won't get penalized for it and it's something that should be done.
POUND NETS:
Most fishermen check their pound nets daily for a number of reasons. One is the quality of the fish is better if fished frequently. NCFA encourages all pound net fishermen to check their nets daily, weather permitting. Fishermen should not be expected to risk their lives when checking their nets, but if the weather allows, we encourage you to check. It just makes sense, but most of you already know that.
View a PDF of the release here