survival in hard times

[capthoop]

For those that do not one of my many jobs is a deckhand on the Cougar. The government is regulating us out of the fishing business. Our business was built on red snapper fishing. Our customer base is mostly red snapper fishermen. We have been regulated down to a 65 day season June 1 thru August 4 with a 2 fish at 16 inches minimum limit. The captain and crew are not allowed any red snapper. We had to work with a 6 month season last year and still did well. Due to the excellent fishery we have here we have been able to make great trips with the many other fish in this area to add to a 2 red snapper limit.

We are now looking at other types of trips and so far the results have been good. The Cougar is now making extended trips offshore for tuna, wahoo, amberjack, grouper, etc. During the 65 day season we are also considering half day trips allowing us to get in 2 trips per day. The 2 trips will put a longer day on us but we hope to be able to accommodate our many followers.

So far our extended trips have been doing well. Some of our notable catches have been a 283 pound warsaw grouper on one trip and about 65 blackfin on another. One of our latest produced 5 wahoo, 23 blackfin, and 4 vermillion snapper.

For those that do not one of my many jobs is a deckhand on the Cougar. The government is regulating us out of the fishing business. Our business was built on red snapper fishing. Our customer base is mostly red snapper fishermen. We have been regulated down to a 65 day season June 1 thru August 4 with a 2 fish at 16 inches minimum limit. The captain and crew are not allowed any red snapper. We had to work with a 6 month season last year and still did well. Due to the excellent fishery we have here we have been able to make great trips with the many other fish in this area to add to a 2 red snapper limit.

We are now looking at other types of trips and so far the results have been good. The Cougar is now making extended trips offshore for tuna, wahoo, amberjack, grouper, etc. During the 65 day season we are also considering half day trips allowing us to get in 2 trips per day. The 2 trips will put a longer day on us but we hope to be able to accommodate our many followers.

So far our extended trips have been doing well. Some of our notable catches have been a 283 pound warsaw grouper on one trip and about 65 blackfin on another. One of our latest produced 5 wahoo, 23 blackfin, and 4 vermillion snapper.



On this trip we grilled one blackfin at midnight and used another to produce the 2 jacks and the grouper.



Still using the brace for a few days but hoisting good sized fish is no problem.



Our latest trip started out slow. We trolled around 5 rigs and could not produce a single wahoo. As daylight ended we set up for the tuna bite. That was also not looking good. About an hour into darkness the tuna came around and so did the vermilion snapper. Once the bite slowed down there we moved to another one. Nobody home.



Our third rig had some amberjack on it and some more snapper. This went on for a while and once it ended we went back to our first stop to see if the tuna decided to turn on again. It was breakfast time for them and we picked up a few more. As the sun started to show we set up for some wahoo trolling again. The only thing hungry was a barracuda.



It was time to head in for some quick pictures and a fish cleaning party.

As you can see we are making some changes and it is looking good for us so far. Would like to see them give us our red snapper fishing back. We never had a shortage of them. They are getting in the way of other rig / reef fish we are trying to target. NMFS has admitted their data is flawed but are still following the flawed data to set limits and regulate us into bankruptcy.

We will survive.

Life is Good!


Capt Hoop
Our Freedom

[CanCanCase]

I feel your pain! Traditionally, I've enjoyed a 6-month season for halibut, with 2 per client (any size) for a daily bag limit. Last year we were cut to 1 of any size, and if a client took a second fish, it had to be less than 32". This year, we're about to get slapped with a 1-fish bag limit and possibly a 4 fish annual limit. These regulations are in addition to our existing rules prohibiting Captain & Crew from retaining fish, and prohibiting any sport boat from fishing more than 6 lines (no head boats here at all... just us 6-packs!)

To the casual observer, it might appear that halibut (or red snapper, in your case) are in danger of overfishing, but this is just not true. Here in Alaska, the halibut stocks are at their healthiest levels in 50 years, the regular trends are showing true, and the commercial price for the fish is through the roof! Oh, but a few hundred commercial fishing boats that work 1000 miles from me wanted a few more fish, so NMFS and the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council saw fit to re-allocate a few million pounds to another area.

I'm thinking that little code snippet that was written for the SC trailering issue ought to be developed a bit more to incorporate an administrative back-end for each region's issues... it would make it a lot easier for all of us sportsmen to support each other when it came time to writing letters to the "powers that be"...

We, too, will keep on fishing... pun intended: there are other fish in the sea. It's just that in my case the next best thing to Pacific Halibut is Sablefish... deep-drop fishing to 2000' anyone? ;-)

-Case