Maine ground fishermen are less than thrilled with a government proposal to allow herring vessels to land 1,000 pounds of juvenile haddock per trip, but regulators say the by catch allowance is the only way to allow the herring fleet to go fishing this season.
“Of course the groundfish people are not happy that herring vessels are allowed this haddock by catch, when they are constrained by closed areas and fewer fishing days,” said Lewis Flagg, deputy commissioner at the Maine Department of Marine Resources.
The proposal to allow herring fishermen a haddock by catch cap came from the New England FIshery Management Council (NEFMC), which voted in late March to seek emergency action on the issue from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). NMFS has the option to approve the proposal or to take any other action the regulatory agency chooses, since for emergency measures managers are not constrained by the same rules that govern overall management plans.
“We thought the cap was the only way the herring boats could go fishing. Without it, they would have a zero tolerance for haddock and there’s a lot of juvenile haddock out there,” Flagg said. “Haddock had a huge year class in 2003 and when the juvenile haddock get mixed with the herring, they’re impossible to avoid.”
Flagg is a member of the council, and in March actually proposed increasing the original suggestion of a 500-pound trip limit to 1,000 pounds. At the NEFMC meeting, representatives of many East Coast fisheries weighed in with their opinions, which ranged from total opposition to guarded support for the time-limited cap. Flagg explained that if NMFS approves the proposal as written, the cap will exist only until the end of this calendar year, which coincides with the end of herring season, as an experimental measure.
Some estimates have placed the size of the 2003 year class of haddock at between 400 million and 600 million fish. Maine ground fishermen worry that no distinction is made between Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank haddock.
Just over two dozen vessels land 95 percent of the herring caught in the U.S. fishery. Vessels fishing out of Maine homeports include six purse seiners, and half of the larger vessels. Herring catchers run from 70 feet to around 130 feet. Nearly all the herring boats travel all over New England, New Jersey and New York during different seasons. Many fish south of Cape Cod in the winter, or switch over to mackerel.
During the summer, the Gulf of Maine is often prime herring-fishing territory, and later in the summer, Georges Bank. “Hopefully, most of the vessels will be able to avoid haddock. Occasionally you run into herring and juvenile haddock mixed, then the haddock are impossible to avoid,” said Flagg. “To allow the boats to go herring fishing, we felt it was appropriate, on an interim basis to give them a per-trip cap, to allow them to bring in herring for the food and bait markets.”
The zero tolerance for other restricted groundfish species, such as cod and yellowtail flounder, will not change, Flagg said.
In addition to the proposed cap, the council added gear modification to the list of issues the panel will work on when drafting an amendment to the herring management plan. The council herring committee’s Fishing Technology Expert Working Group is charged with looking into potential gear changes to help eliminate by catch.