Rockfish decision may come Fri.
State agency weighing whether to reopen season for several days
Thu Feb 17, 2011.
Rockfish decision may come Fri. By KELLEY L. ALLEN Staff Writer The Star Democrat |
TILGHMAN Finding two more tons of illegally caught rockfish Friday shows investigating doesn’t stop illegal poaching, but it does stop honest watermen.
Department of Natural Resources closed the rockfish season Feb. 4 after discovering about 10 tons of the state fish trapped in illegal nets off Kent Island. Since then, Natural Resources Police, the enforcement arm of DNR, have searched local waters for more nets, trying to grasp the extent of poaching before reopening the season that closes Feb. 28.
Last week, NRP found two more tons of rockfish in illegal nets set in an area officers had searched the week before. That indicated the investigation hasn’t stopped poachers, whose actions have hurt those who play by the rules.
“There’s a lot of guys sitting on the shore wishing they never got into the rockfish business,” said Talbot County Watermen Association President Bunky Chance. “There’s a lot of good men wondering how to put food on their table because of all this.”
All this is more than 25,000 pounds of poached rockfish found in about two weeks in local waters, snagged in a total of 8,000 yards of illegal gill nets.
So far this week, officers have come up empty handed, with the last nets found Friday, and a decision onre-opening the season could come Friday, said DNR Fisheries Service Director Tom O’Connell.
If the season opens, it would likely open for one to three days, he added.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty about how much illegal activity has occurred,” O’Connell said. “It’s a matter of how confident we are there’s still quota to be caught.”
The migratory fish is caught on a quota basis, with 354,000 pounds allotted for February, a month that allows rockfishing on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Fishermen caught all but 80,000 pounds of the first half of the month’s 210,000 pound quota in the first two days of the season, at an average of about 70,000 pounds per day, O’Connell said.
There is 120,000 pounds set aside for the latter part of the month. That, plus the remaining 80,000 pounds leftover from the beginning, leaves about 200,000 pounds.
Each permitted fisherman, of which the state has 1,231, including about 600 gill net fishermen of which about 200 are active, can catch 300 pounds per day.
“We recognize some fishermen haven’t had access to the fish yet, and we don’t want to disadvantage them,” O’Connell said. “We’re trying to figure out what’s the best decision.”
DNR officials met Tuesday with recreational fishermen representatives, and plan to meet Thursday night with the Tidal Fisheries Advisory Commission, which helps set and manage quotas.
Those meetings could provide enough information for a decision this week, and if that happens, the season would open next week after a 48-hour public notification period.
“But it could be we can’t and we’ll try to do it as early as possible,” O’Connell said. “We’re taking this seriously. This is the first time we’ve shut down the season.”
In the meantime, this latest hardship from what could become the watermen Diaspora has cast a negative pall on the industry.
“I would hope the public wouldn’t condemn the 99 percent honest watermen who make a living to feed their families and not associate us with those who break the law … it’s a select few,” Chance said.
With lots of tips but no arrests, NRP continues investigating, and Sgt. Art Windemuth answered questions Wednesday while out on the water, trolling for nets.
Windemuth said last week most watermen are law-abiding conservationists, and NRP needs their help catching poachers.
“They are concerned with the resource and do things the way they should,” he said. “Watermen are in the front lines of conservation … we fully recognize that. It does infuriate them we’ve heard from them. … this affects them directly. That’s why we ask for the public and the watermen’s help.”
Watermen can use drift nets to catch rockfish, which allow up to 20 pounds of weight on each end. Those nets must drift with currents like a blanket, and watermen have to keep them in sight.
Anchor nets, on the other hand, require hundreds of pounds of weight, said Windemuth. The gear for both legal and illegal nets look the same, except for the weights.
Most watermen obeyed a 1985 law that outlawed anchored nets, but a few continued with the tradition.
“The public isn’t aware this is portrayed as crazy, illegal gear,” Chance said. “Up until years ago anchor nets are what everybody used. You went out, put them out, and came back the next day. That’s how we did business for generations.
“A handful stayed with the old ways.”
And for the few who poach, the financial rewards outweigh the risk. Windemuth estimated the commercial value of the initial 10-ton find at $60,000.
“That’s for two days of work,” he said.
Chance said it takes about 10 minutes to set a net, and if NRP finds a net, all the poacher loses is gear, worth maybe a few thousand dollars.
“If they caught $10,000 to $30,000 worth of fish, it doesn’t take many successful nets to make it very worthwhile,” he said.
Buying illegally caught fish also is worthwhile, but penalties are steep.
“They caught one (illegal buyer) on the western shore and he is in federal prison,” Chance said. “But they (poachers) could be putting fish in their truck and hauling it out-of-state where laws are different.”
Updates on rockfish harvest are available at 1-800-999-2800, and the 24-hour catch a poacher hotline is 1-800-635-6124.
