Draft PWS commercial Pot Shrimp Management plan

[breausaw]

Got this in the mail mail today, needs scrutinizing and a close look.
From what I can see area 1 encompassed Perry Island, that too bad. And I see no wording limiting days of the week. If there is to be a commercial Pot Shrimp Plan I think it should exclude weekends, perhaps only 4 days a week. I have no problem sharing the wealth, but let’s keep the small bays off limits.
A lot to think about, a least the proposal recommends rotating the 3 areas by year.
Hope the forum keeps this post here for a while before burying it in the Alaska Fisheries Management area.

[Brian M]

Hope the forum keeps this post here for a while before burying it in the Alaska Fisheries Management area.

When we move threads, the intent is not to bury the post. In fact, we intentionally leave behind links so that people interested can find the thread. Posts like this are moved to the fisheries management forum because they're about managing a fishery.

[spoiled one]

Just a little clarification here. You have some bays highlighted in yellow on pages 6&7. Are these the proposed commercial areas?

[fishook]

Breausaw if I read the proposal right, there was a 50 pot limit to each vessel? If that’s the case you shouldn’t have much to weary about that’s not enough pots per catch to pay for the commercial fisherman’s fuel, let alone food, bait, lost gear, ect ect. That is a two set string of 25 pots which can be done in one hour. Not much of a commercial proposal, sounds more like a weekend worrior table fest able.

[willphish4food]

sharing wealth

I'm all for sharing wealth. If a fishery can sustain both a recreational and commercial harvest, then by all means let it. That said, I am very leery about the "foot in the door." If there is overharvest, the commercial interests WILL attempt to push the sport fishery aside, until utter collapse of the fishery, and will probably win. They will pit different sport, personal use and subsistence users against each other, until there is no fishery left. Just look at the current debates on halibut fishing.

[akfishnut]

Commercial Shrimp - 50 pot limit

From what I see it all depends on how many people they allow to go into a small bay and set their 50 pots for commerical use. If ten commercial guys are allowed to go into a bay and set 500 pots for a few weeks in a row you can guess what that would do to the stocks available. Everyone says that they will never make any money on it - I think the fisherie will be made of the several people that have large boats that want to write off their expenses for and still make some money on the side.
I guess it all depends on how it comes out at the meetings in a couple weeks. I would encourge anyone interested in the future of this fisherie to show up.

[akfishnut]

Commercial Shrimp - 50 pots

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[270ti]

From what I hear, Shrimp in SE was not worth very much this last year. Most of the commercial guys didn't even bother with it. Can't see 50 pots making those guys that much money, unless your area is just crawling with shrimp.

It would suck if those guys wiped out the resource, to break even......

[gusdog44]

Sorry it took so long to get this to you all but my wife has had me busy painting the house.......

Attached is a link to the department of F&G's comments on the proposals for a commercial pot shrimp fishery. They are starting on page 3 and reference proposals 306-312. the resource is nearly fully allocated among subsistance, personal use and sport at this time - the figures they provide in the report are from 2006 and with the increase in useage I would guess that most of the 40K lbs of harvestable surplus are already being taken or will be within a couple of years by the current user groups.

I note also that the department was not able to manage the fishery and extreme overfishing occured causing the stocks to crash. I don't think we want another closure for years and years to result from a short term, not very cost effective, commercial fishery.

Read the comments, look at the numbers and see what you think.

http://www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/FedAidPDFs/sp06-10.pdf

[akfishnut]

Interesting Reading On The Past Usage

Thanks for the input on http://www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/FedAidPDFs/sp06-10.pdf

It shows me that the fisheries people have a hard time keeping the commercial catch within the alloted range, and there seems to be a lot of data showing over harvest and then closures to allow the resource to replenish.