Who's really catching all the halibut?

[PNW]

One of my primary concerns regarding the impending halibut allocation meetings is these draggers that work in the shallow banks off of Barkley Sound. They seem to operate in 50-70 fathoms. When they come through, you can forget about coming back with your rods and reels as they will change a productive Halibut hole to a lifeless wasteland in a matter of a few passes with those big nets.

Where do these draggers fit in to the picture? How much of a role does their indiscriminate fishing practice on our shallow halibut banks effect the current halibut situation?

 

[Sushihunter]

quote:Originally posted by PNW

One of my primary concerns regarding the impending halibut allocation meetings is these draggers that work in the shallow banks off of Barkley Sound. They seem to operate in 50-70 fathoms. When they come through, you can forget about coming back with your rods and reels as they will change a productive Halibut hole to a lifeless wasteland in a matter of a few passes with those big nets.

Where do these draggers fit in to the picture? How much of a role does their indiscriminate fishing practice on our shallow halibut banks effect the current halibut situation?

I hate draggers - they should be totally banned for all the damage they do to the bottom habitat.

Jim's Fishing Charters
www.JimsFishing.com
http://ca.youtube.com/user/Sushihunter250

 

[scott craven]

A buddy of mine has worked on these boats for years...
even though it is his living, he disagree's with the huge by-catch
and destruction of habitat.
A set targeting hake can yield salmon,halibut,sharks,seals,and
numerous other species.
We argue amongst ourselves ,sports, F.N., commercials etc.as to who
is taking all the fish, but the dragger's are truly responsible
for the rape of our oceans.

 

[gpspowell]

And when they're targeting salmon they throw back the hake. When I took this picture I was 3 miles behind the dragger, this "slick" was over 100 yards wide, and he was still actively dumping bycatch when I caught up with him.

 

[PNW]

Sickening picture. They were probably targeting petrole sole. The hake float, but the halibut must sink like a rock.

 

[fish4all]

quote:Originally posted by gpspowell

And when they're targeting salmon they throw back the hake. When I took this picture I was 3 miles behind the dragger, this "slick" was over 100 yards wide, and he was still actively dumping bycatch when I caught up with him.

Draggers don't target salmon.. Don't get me wrong I disagree completly with "bottem" dragging and sorting. I believe it is ok to "mid-water" trawl as long as everything goes in the hold to be validated. Pictures like the one above are good to get out.

 

[Trowser]

gps... I saw the same thing off of Carmanah when I was running back from the bank. Brutal!

 

[the fog ducker]

Ya know , ya see sh_t like this , really makes ya wonder who allows this crap to happen , that absolutely disgusts me , I know what ever species of fish those are that are " Freaking " DEAD , floating may not be of huge value to these clowns , , I'd be completely Disgusted if they were freacking Bullheads , I know people have to make a living ,but man , If these guy's feel good about making a living , causing this kind of death and distruction at the end of the day, they need some SERIOUS HELP , really pisses me off to here that guy's have seen this off Carmanah , that's to close to home in my books , I thought this kinda crap was done in international waters , other Countries ,etc... Unreal.
FD

 

[spring time]

hey gpspowell did you do anything about it or just take pictures.I believe it is illegal to dump by catch did you report it to dfo. or even get the media involved. if you guys want this stopped then do something about. the media would have a field day on stuff like this.just my two bits worth

 

[gpspowell]

On that trip I had launched out of Neah Bay, Washington (That was before I discovered how much more beautiful it is at Ucluelet). I took a couple of dead hake back with me to the dock and sought out an officer from Washington Fisheries who identified the species for me. The boat was a large dragger out of Alaska and I gave her the name. She told me it was a "Native" or "First Nations" owned commercial vessel and that she had no authority over it as long as it was more than 12 miles out (it was). This boat was dragging a large, flat, shallow (50 fathoms) area about 17 miles due west of Tatoosh Island. It still makes mw sick to look at the picture and remember the thousands of dead & dying hake that were wasted. And that was from a single drag.

 

[powder]

I have seen a similar slick of pinks, dumped and floating in a seine opening....come to think of it I have seen lots of floating discarded pinks around the sports fleet in the Charlottes, to be honest.

 

[quicksilver11]

AS I have said on my only other posts the Trawl fleet (bottom) is the real culprit for the killing of thousands of halibut a day. They probaly catch more than the sportys and commercial longline fleet combined and the mortality rate all depends on how fast there returned to the water and how long the tow is. Its nice to see this issue raised keep it up.

 

[fishspoon]

It is part of DFO mismanagement: It is all about money....fish stocks are diminishing quickly. [xx(]

 

[Gunsmith]

You would think that with our scientific advances we would have a way of harvesting without mass destruction... but this is the way of big business not a mom and pop deal.

 

[fish4all]

quote:Originally posted by Gunsmith

You would think that with our scientific advances we would have a way of harvesting without mass destruction... but this is the way of big business not a mom and pop deal.

we do, it's called longline.
Interesting enough you would be shocked to know that an observers on board one of those draggers made entries in their logs as to the amount of small hali they caught that had their throats cut and were tossed back for bigger ones by the sports boats. Maybe our own fishery is not as clean as it should be..

 

[Gunsmith]

So the dragging method is part of the Halibut allotment?

 

[scott craven]

quote:Originally posted by Gunsmith

So the dragging method is part of the Halibut allotment?

Dragging usually targets hake,idiots,snapper,sole etc.
Halibut and salmon are usually incidental in the catch.
They target specific depths, and try and take out large schools
identified on their electronics.

 

[Gunsmith]

I see that dragging is the scourge of the fishing fleet. This type of of pursuit is more of a rape and pillage of the ocean. Nothing is left alive when they go through.There is a lot that I don't know about the fisheries but this is obviously wrong.
Thanks for the info.

 

[The Fish Assassin]

In my youth I used to work on a small shrimp dragger. The amount of bycatch was unreal. We never caught any Salmon, or Halibut. They swim too fast to go in, they simply just swim away. We caught about everything else under the sun however. Once we caught 4 ling cod that were about 40 pounds. The skipper said that they swam into the bag and ate, then usually swim out but we just happened to pull up and trap them in there. I don't know if it is true or not but they did have full bellies of shrimp and we never caught them regularly. What we did regularly catch was rockcod, ratfish, soul/flounder, and all kinds of weird stuff too. Oh yah... And the odd prawn []

Take only what you need.

 

[Gunsmith]

I can see that I should not be too critical about thing that I no little of but I sure hate to see indiscriminate killing of fish that are not even used.