Meateater- Trawl Bycatch

[fisherman983]

So are you saying the information presented in the podcast where the midwater nets are dragging bottom pretty regularly is incorrect? The number was 20% to xxx% of the time if I recall correctly? If they don't drag bottom how are they pulling up tons of bottom bycatch if they never drag bottom or is that info incorrect as well?

I would liken this podcast to something like a pro wolf organization telling the west that wolves are good and dont do any harm.

There are bits and pieces of correct info mixed with a bunch of disinformation to sway anyone who doesnt know what they are listening to to believe them.

The Pollock fishery is probably the most sustainable fishery on the planet. And it has 100% government observation coverage. Not 1 single codend of Pollock is hauled on board without the observer present and watching.

And yes I know this because I did this exact job years ago. Spent almost 10 years fishing in Alaska in the crab/trawl fisheries.

I woke up our observer every time we hauled back in the middle of the night. Either with a phone call or knock on the door.

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[kwackkillncrew]

I would liken this podcast to something like a pro wolf organization telling the west that wolves are good and dont do any harm.

not exactly. Many of the people who are against trawling also want to catch the fish.

It would be like if the pro wolf organization was mad because they could only kill 1 wolf and the people in the west could kill 10.

I am not sure how someone could be fine with the bycatch when the bycatch accounts for more fish thats kept in the sportfishing fishery.

 

[finner]

This video is pretty eye opening if anyone hasn't seen it. Coming from a family of longline halibut and blackcod fishermen, it's distressing how opposed most of the commercial fishing industry in the PNW is to this practice compared to how little traction this issue has gotten at the federal scale.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

I am not sure how someone could be fine with the bycatch when the bycatch accounts for more fish thats kept in the sportfishing fishery.

Bingo. Kinda hard to say something is sustainable and people don't understand what is going on when the fishery is observably declining. People are loosing opportunity and fishing quality is observably going down. That doesn't mean there aren't numerous things in play but when "waste" exceeds allowable harvest don't be surprised when folks are looking to put bandaids on the obvious waste.

 

[Flyjunky]

I would liken this podcast to something like a pro wolf organization telling the west that wolves are good and dont do any harm.

There are bits and pieces of correct info mixed with a bunch of disinformation to sway anyone who doesnt know what they are listening to to believe them.

The Pollock fishery is probably the most sustainable fishery on the planet. And it has 100% government observation coverage. Not 1 single codend of Pollock is hauled on board without the observer present and watching.

And yes I know this because I did this exact job years ago. Spent almost 10 years fishing in Alaska in the crab/trawl fisheries.

I woke up our observer every time we hauled back in the middle of the night. Either with a phone call or knock on the door.

Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

Most sustainable for who? The commercial fleets?

 

[DuckDawg22]

Until you do anything about the Chinese fleet raping the ocean this is just a drop in the bucket. I'd like to see SecWar posting instabangers of hellfires on those Chinese net boats, but until then we're just yelling at the clouds.

 

[eidsvolling]

If only this was getting traction 20 years ago. I remember days of C&R a bunch of kings on road system streams until getting a nice buck to keep, off the bank with no boat. Or fishing out of a boat in a river accessible from the road and catching 2 dozen kings in a single day, just me the others in the boat caught their own, before high grading one buck out for the table.

None of those places are open for kings anymore I don’t think. It hasn’t been that long ago since I moved up and heard how good it used to be, never crossed my mind that I was experiencing “the good old days”.

You probably don’t want to hear about the day I was down in Soldotna on business and this was the sole topic of conversation at every stop on the way back to Anchorage:

Les Anderson’s king

 

[Flyjunky]

If only this was getting traction 20 years ago. I remember days of C&R a bunch of kings on road system streams until getting a nice buck to keep, off the bank with no boat. Or fishing out of a boat in a river accessible from the road and catching 2 dozen kings in a single day, just me the others in the boat caught their own, before high grading one buck out for the table.

None of those places are open for kings anymore I don’t think. It hasn’t been that long ago since I moved up and heard how good it used to be, never crossed my mind that I was experiencing “the good old days”.

No offense but c&r a bunch of kings to high grade a keeper is also a contributing factor to the declines. You can go look at the hundreds of studies but a 10% mortality on c&r (depending on gear, water temp, handling, etc) is VERY common so 2-3 kings were killed for 1 keeper. High grading for the large fish on the Kenai erased those genes during the heyday.

I’m not singling you out, I’ve done the same. We all are part of the decline it’s just some users are vastly more destructive.

 

[Flyjunky]

Until you do anything about the Chinese fleet raping the ocean this is just a drop in the bucket. I'd like to see SecWar posting instabangers of hellfires on those Chinese net boats, but until then we're just yelling at the clouds.

So we shouldn’t do anything so let’s just keep decimating? Pretty hard to tell other countries to stop when we won’t either.

How about we just shutdown all commercial fishing and say if you want seafood, go get it yourself?

 

[DuckDawg22]

So we shouldn’t do anything so let’s just keep decimating? Pretty hard to tell other countries to stop when we won’t either.

How about we just shutdown all commercial fishing and say if you want seafood, go get it yourself?

I just think it falls on deaf ears when the Chinese continue to abuse the resources that for some reason we must make sacrifices to save. When the bucket brigade is on every jetty in California catching undersized crabs, lobster, abalone, etc and then "no speaka da Engrish" when confronted, that's a problem.

As for your suggestion, I only eat fish I catch so by all means ban the commercial sale. Won't affect me any more than this trawler business. Sink the Chinese and then let's talk.

 

[KurtR]

I like sea food and am a long ways from a sea so banning it would suck

 

[Flyjunky]

I like sea food and am a long ways from a sea so banning it would suck

Do you travel out of state to hunt?

 

[KurtR]

Do you travel out of state to hunt?

Did a few times not any more juice isnt worth the squeeze i can hunt every thing here. Rather spend the time running my dog all summer with my vacation. Might go shoot ducks in Arkansas some time with guys that live down there i met when running dogs.

 

[Flyjunky]

I just think it falls on deaf ears when the Chinese continue to abuse the resources that for some reason we must make sacrifices to save. When the bucket brigade is on every jetty in California catching undersized crabs, lobster, abalone, etc and then "no speaka da Engrish" when confronted, that's a problem.

As for your suggestion, I only eat fish I catch so by all means ban the commercial sale. Won't affect me any more than this trawler business. Sink the Chinese and then let's talk.

Bucket brigade is a far cry from removing millions of pounds of bycatch and biomass each year by the commercials.

The big deal with the commercials is that just like anywhere in nature everything is part of a system. Removing that much from the ocean while simultaneously producing billions of hatchery fish….the food chain is out of whack. That’s a lot of competition for dwindling food supply.

This might put things in perspective for some; here on the Columbia River less than 4% of hatchery salmon that released return to their home river. For the fish that make it to the ocean, most are caught or intercepted off the coast in Canada and Alaska, or perish in the ocean from lack of food. Each of those returning fish to the Columbia cost the tax payer somewhere between $250-650 depending on the stock. The biggest funder of hatcheries in the PNW is BPA. They don’t do this out of the goodness of their heart and you know that expense is passed on to the tax payers.

But, I do agree with you. We just had a few Russians busted for poaching hundreds of fish in closed waters. This isn’t their first run at this either.

It’s too bad esa listed fish aren’t taken seriously. There is no reasonably reliable way for commercial fishers to know which stocks they are catching as bycatch…esa listed stocks be damned.

 

[Flyjunky]

Did a few times not any more juice isnt worth the squeeze i can hunt every thing here. Rather spend the time running my dog all summer with my vacation. Might go shoot ducks in Arkansas some time with guys that live down there i met when running dogs.

Travel to go do some fishing, crabbing, or clamming. Get a years worth for the family.

Like many always say about hunting….its a choice to live somewhere that you have access to seafood you can catch yourself.

 

[KurtR]

Travel to go do some fishing, crabbing, or clamming. Get a years worth for the family.

Like many always say about hunting….its a choice to live somewhere that you have access to seafood you can catch yourself.

Maybe some time but it would be Louisiana no one cooks better food than the cajuns. I guess as long as i can get crawfish shipped here i will be fine and some oysters. Do we still get crab since they are caught in traps?

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

As for your suggestion, I only eat fish I catch so by all means ban the commercial sale. Won't affect me any more than this trawler business. Sink the Chinese and then let's talk.

Well this crawler business IS affecting the fish I catch/eat. In the short period of time I've been fishing Kodiak (most years since 2019, so not even talking 'the good old days') there is an observable and regulatory difference. King salmon this year is emergency order of 1 (down from 2). In addition to additional days added for zero halibut fishing. Halibut used to be 2 with one over either 31" or 32" which was doable, they lowered it to 28" and those were only occasionally caught (plenty of 28-32" though), this year it looks like that is reduced to 27".

So despite me choosing to fish for my own fish, the opportunities are going away while at the same time the trawlers are killing these same species in large magnitude and sport fishing options are drying up.


While I do care about the chinese being on board with things that is no reason to ignore what our trawlers are doing in the meantime. If our trawlers had a tiny amount of bicatch we were wringing our hands over the chinese example would be a point but instead they have massive amounts of bicatch so no we aren't going to ignore that.

 

[Flyjunky]

Maybe some time but it would be Louisiana no one cooks better food than the cajuns. I guess as long as i can get crawfish shipped here i will be fine and some oysters. Do we still get crab since they are caught in traps?

I catch my crabs with crab pots (traps).

 

[Rich M]

This is happening all over (as some have mentioned). Not limited to AK or salmon. Anywhere they net stuff the bycatch is huge.

 

[Flyjunky]

This is happening all over (as some have mentioned). Not limited to AK or salmon. Anywhere they net stuff the bycatch is huge.

Totally correct, most of the time commercial netting is a very indiscriminate way to harvest.

I’m not familiar with southern fisheries, are ESA fish being impacted?