Proposal By DFO - Changes to Prawn Daily Rec. Limit Being Considered

DFO has asked the SFAB that as of April 1st, 2019 it would like to reduce the recreational prawn daily limit to from 200 to 100 per day:rolleyes: ( That is a 50% reduction).

Here is the document and please circulate.

There has been no data given for this change.

My first post on this forum. Six month old topic here,I know. I'm a fisherman but rarely prawns. I read through three of the twelve pages of replies but did not get anything even close to the answer to my questions so here they are:
Why would a rec fisherman want/need more than 100 prawns/day, let alone 200? I would have thought that 50 would be a good haul. Or even 20 on a bad day.
 
Most prawn fisherman that are fishing prawns do so with the intent that they are putting some into the freezer for enjoyment later on in the year. A lot of the good prawning is hours by boat to get to. This means a weekend away and bringing home a two day limit to make it cost effective. 50 prawns in a set of traps would be reason to move to a more productive area. Sport fisherman who prawn will fish prawns in the spring before the commies start their season. Personally I fish until I have what I need to last me until next spring then I put the traps away and the salmon gear comes out. It's been a long wait this year.
 
My first post on this forum. Six month old topic here,I know. I'm a fisherman but rarely prawns. I read through three of the twelve pages of replies but did not get anything even close to the answer to my questions so here they are:
Why would a rec fisherman want/need more than 100 prawns/day, let alone 200? I would have thought that 50 would be a good haul. Or even 20 on a bad day.
Lots of rec fishermen only prawn for a short window from January/February until just prior to the commencement of the commercial fishery. If you eat prawns once every two weeks, maybe 50 at a time, and you go out prawning 5 times ( 1000 prawns) that's only 20 meals in a year. So you can see why fisherman would not want to reduce the limit? All reducing the limit to 100 would do is make it twice as expensive fuel wise, to get a years supply.
 
Lots of rec fishermen only prawn for a short window from January/February until just prior to the commencement of the commercial fishery. If you eat prawns once every two weeks, maybe 50 at a time, and you go out prawning 5 times ( 1000 prawns) that's only 20 meals in a year. So you can see why fisherman would not want to reduce the limit? All reducing the limit to 100 would do is make it twice as expensive fuel wise, to get a years supply.

And it is a reallocation to the commercial fishers and FN (read-- reconciliation) BTW--it will not stop me from taking what I reasonably will eat during the year . My wife has already agreed to take her knitting out on the boat........
 
And it is a reallocation to the commercial fishers and FN (read-- reconciliation) BTW--it will not stop me from taking what I reasonably will eat during the year . My wife has already agreed to take her knitting out on the boat........

That has been the general response all that’s going to happen is the carbon emissions per prawn will go up.
 
My first post on this forum. Six month old topic here,I know. I'm a fisherman but rarely prawns. I read through three of the twelve pages of replies but did not get anything even close to the answer to my questions so here they are:
Why would a rec fisherman want/need more than 100 prawns/day, let alone 200? I would have thought that 50 would be a good haul. Or even 20 on a bad day.

And here is my question. A new member asks a question that quite frankly is the first I have heard that view on feedback from this subject. Now why is that? Are you a commercial fisherman?

Here is my answer. Recreational fisherman have an allocation of 200 per day daily limit. They also have to deal with closures and pulse fishing throughout winter. If the reduction was because the stocks were not healthy and index showed that than that is different story.

The reduction proposed is being pushed by a north island First nations band that has a commercial license.

Just because you feel you are Ok with a reduction doesn't mean others are. Some people only get a few trips a year if any.

Not in favour yet again of giving away our quota as part as done type of reconciliation agreement, so government doesn't rock the boat. The government needs to deal with First nations properly and , stop using big band aids. All it does is divide us all. So yes completely opposed to any reduction, but I know it will be coming. Have no trust in our fisheries minister or Ottawa.
 
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Ill say it now and always once you give up something with DFO it will never come back FYI... if you think otherwise you havent been around much . if you so chose to take only 50 prawns so be it thats entirely up to you thats "your Choice"
 
Ill say it now and always once you give up something with DFO it will never come back FYI... if you think otherwise you havent been around much . if you so chose to take only 50 prawns so be it thats entirely up to you thats "your Choice"

Just like all the other fisheries - I don't mind doing my part for conservation, HOWEVER - If I am having my take reduced, just so that some other group/sector can take it, that really pisses me off. I prawn fish maybe a dozen times over the course of a year so my take is a TINY fraction of what a commercial prawn boat would take in 1 day. If my limit is reduced by 50% and commercial prawn boats have no reduction, that tells me that the measures have NOTHING to do with conservation! My 4 traps have very little impact on the prawn population. Just check out the number of traps on a commercial boat that are fished each and every day from the start of the season until it is not worth it to fish any more.
Here are some quotes from the DFO page on prawn fishing - https://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/mplans/prawnshrimp-trap-crevette-casier-ifmp-pgip-sm-eng.html

Recreational fishery

"There is limited information on recreational catch and effort"
(Therefore they have NO IDEA how may prawns are taken and from where in the public fishery)

"The recreational catch limit is under review and subject to further discussion."
(Based on what????)
 
Simply a re-allocation to the commies. Seriously, the sport prawn catch is so little threat to the commercial catch that this proposal is ridiculous. As above, If I caught 500 prawns last year, it would be an overstatement.
 
Do not confuse this attempt at DFO Shellfish Management with science, or logic, or fair debate, this is an inside attempt to sole a perceived problem by making an arbitrary decision by the senior Director to solve what he sees as a problem that cutting our access can solve. Bombarding the regional Director General or Minister with your concerns is a great way to go...it is our only way to fight arbitrary decision making by managers...let their supervisors know this is not fair or sustainable management practice.
 
This post said it best and is re-post from Searun on this issue.

DFO is managing on perception!!

This is DFO managing again by perception. Faith Based Science in action - they don't provide any analysis to support their claim that the recreational fishery is out of control - no numbers, no catch data, no comparative analysis to show the commercial catch has been severely impacted by an increasing rec catch. Nothing.

What DFO won't tell you is that in the 1990's they created the problem. They allowed a 300% increase in the number of commercial prawn licenses. They created the over-capacity. Moreover, they allowed a highly mobile fleet to develop with no control over how fast the fleet can move from place to place. So in season, the fast boats can be moved great distances to hit even more areas in a gold rush fishery. No longer are the local prawn fishers encouraged to tend the garden and not over-fish their area. DFO long ago should have put in place area licenses to restrict movement from place to place. Only then would fishers not fish down the prawn population until it was wiped out.

Prawns don't move around, so once you fish out an area it will take a long time for them to come back. These new boats that move around quickly allow a fisher to move very quickly from place to place once they clean out an area with little consequence or skin in the game to properly tend the garden.

So what is happening here is the Commercial catch is crashing due to the Commercial over-capacity, and the only way for DFO to manage their way out of the bed they crapped in, is to take away the rec catch and fill the gap. Its a false economy, and left alone DFO and the Commercial fleet will manage to zero. Only then will we see a fleet rationalization to reduce effort/capacity.

East coast cod fishery is a lesson not learned.
 
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