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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 5
January 2007
Gillnetters get Georges Bank cod fixed gear sector
NORTH CHATHAM, MA – The Georges Bank Cod Fixed Gear Sector is now an entity of its own. In late November, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) approved the formation of the sector and allocated its one eligible member a share of the 2006 Georges Bank cod target total allowable catch (TAC).
According to sector manager Eric Brazer Jr., between 12 and 15 fishermen are expected to sign into the sector for the 2007 fishing year. But the months-long uncertainty of whether the sector would be authorized this year made it financially difficult for fishermen to commit for 2006.
The 2006 fishing year began on May 1, but the sector couldn’t begin operating until Nov. 22, when Framework Adjustment 42 to the groundfish plan went into effect. Sector authorization was linked to the framework’s implementation, which lagged almost seven months behind the fishing year’s start.
“People just couldn’t afford to forego fishing until Framework 42 was approved,” said Brazer.
Amendment 13 to the Northeast multispecies plan outlined a process through which industry members could establish groundfish sectors, and it also authorized the formation of the region’s very first sector – the Georges Bank Cod Hook Sector.
Following on the hook sector’s heels, fishermen in the Cape Cod Gillnetters Association proposed forming their own sector since the hook sector didn’t authorize the use of gillnets. They signed on Brazer to help.
The gillnet association submitted a proposed operations plan to NMFS and, with one exception, the agency approved the sector’s formation and published an announcement in the Federal Register on Nov. 29.
Hard TAC
Concurrent with the approval, NMFS intended to allocate the sector 1.98% of the 2006 fishery-wide Georges Bank cod target TAC, which turned out to be 121 metric tons (mt), and those were the figures published in the Federal Register.
However, the numbers were based on the sector having two members in 2006, and as it turned out, one was ineligible because he made a fishing trip prior to sector authorization.
Under sector rules, members must sign into the sector for an entire fishing year and cannot fish outside of the sector agreement.
According to Brazer, that means the sector’s single member this year will receive a hard TAC allocation of 56 mt or 0.91% of the fishery-wide Georges Bank cod target TAC.
The TAC and percentage figures are calculated by dividing the sum of the eligible sector members’ total Georges Bank cod landings from fishing years 1996 through 2001 by the accumulated Georges Bank cod landings of all groundfish vessels during the same timeframe.
The 2006 fishery-wide target TAC for the stock is 6,132 mt. As it stands now, the fixed gear sector will receive 0.91% of the total and the hook sector, which followed the same formula, was allocated 10.3% or 615 mt for its 37 members.
Under Amendment 13, no sector can receive more than 20% of a TAC in any given year.
Sector area
Fixed gear sector members must use jigs, demersal longline, handgear, or gillnets and stay within the “sector area,” which is north of 39°00'N latitude and east of 71°40'W longitude.
The sector had requested a larger area to pursue an offshore gillnet fishery for monkfish, but this was the request that NMFS denied, saying it was not consistent with the objectives of the groundfish plan.
Although many potential sector members often fish with hooks, Brazer said they still needed a separate sector to continue fishing with gillnets, an important gear type for them.
“There are a lot of similarities between us and the hook sector,” he said, “but we’re a completely different group. A lot of our guys started off hook fishing, but we wanted the flexibility to use both hooks and gillnets.”
Despite the fact that fixed gear sector members will be working under their own hard TAC, they still have to use days-at-sea “to account for any incidental groundfish species they may catch while fishing for Georges Bank cod,” said NMFS.
More sectors?
The New England Fishery Management Council knew that the fixed gear sector had been approved when it met in Gloucester Nov. 14-16. Recognizing that numerous other groups in several fisheries were expressing interest in forming sectors, the council decided to make it a priority during 2007 to establish a uniform sector policy that would apply to all of its fishery management plans.
Brazer said, “The council is really starting to recognize the value of sectors and community based management. I’m really excited to see what’s developing with the council.”
According to the gillnetters association, the fixed gear sector will give its members more control over how to best utilize the resource.
In a statement released soon after the sector’s approval, fisherman John Our said, “The broad-brush approach to management isn’t working. We need to be able to manage ourselves and hold ourselves accountable for how much fish we are taking out of the water.”
Fellow fisherman Stu Tolley added, “We wanted to form a sector because we were sick of discarding cod. The days-at-sea system is producing a lot of waste. As a group, we can do a much better job of protecting the fish and making sure that we have fishermen left in Chatham.”
Janice M. Plante
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