May 30, 2012 – Fishermen who really know how to fish are consistently pointing out that the too-big Federal research vessel Bigelow is using the wrong net, a one-size-fits-all compromise arrangement that isn't designed to target yellowtail.
"No other fish is as sensitive to spread as yellowtails. You can put two boats with the same gear together, side by side, and one will catch 200 pounds and the other 2,000 pounds, just by how the gear is set up."
Fishermen don't seem to have much say in all of this. They don't have advanced degrees or comfortable federal jobs, and most of them don't get grant money from oil-industry-financed environmental groups. By this stage of the game I'm thinking that they're largely patronized and ignored because they pose a threat to people in power with an agenda who don't know as much as fishermen do. So much for respect.
The shiny new federal research vessel Bigelow lies at the center of this argument. For example, fishermen who really know how to fish are consistently pointing out that the too-big Bigelow is using the wrong net, a one-size-fits-all compromise arrangement that isn't designed to target yellowtail.
Government scientists, say the fishermen, deploy the wrong net the wrong way and then trawl too fast, with the yellowtail making their escape. The conclusion is drawn that the yellowtail aren't down there to start with. So we cut quota.
The managers are told this to their faces, and they don't object. They really don't say anything.
"NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) scientists don't pay attention to gear," Phillips told me Tuesday from off Nantucket, where he's fishing for squid. "The doors (of the trawl) don't even touch bottom. The paint doesn't wear off the bottom of the doors."
We are talking about fishing for groundfish, remember. They're on the bottom. So the net should be on the bottom. Does this need to be pointed out in 2012?
Read the full article at the New Bedford Standard-Times.