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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 37 Number 12
August 2010
Fishermen help locate, tag SNE winter flounder
NEW BEDFORD, MA – Commercial fishermen with years of experience in the Great South Channel are helping scientists this summer track down, measure, and tag winter flounder to obtain better information about overall stock abundance and distribution.
The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) is overseeing the industry-based survey, and five prominent New Bedford-based fishing vessels are participating in the work – Seel, Sasha Lee, Sea Siren, Iberia II, and United States.
Barring complications, each vessel will make one, 10-day trip during an assigned month from June through October when winter flounder historically have been found throughout the Great South Channel. Many fishermen who work this bottom refer to the fish as “channel blackbacks.”
The first trip got underway in mid-June aboard the 88' Seel, owned and captained by Toby Lees. Over the course of the week-and-a-half-long survey leg, two SMAST scientists and the Seel’s five-man crew tagged and released roughly 4,800 winter flounder.
“The trip was a great success,” said Greg DeCelles of SMAST, who was aboard the boat.
“Capt. Lees had extensive knowledge of winter flounder in the study area, and by working cooperatively with him and the crew, we were able to get the fish tagged and back into the water very quickly,” DeCelles said.
The work is especially important because the fish are from the Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic winter flounder stock, which, during the last assessment, was determined to be overfished with overfishing occurring. Assessment scientists projected that even in the absence of fishing, the stock could not possibly be rebuilt by the federal 2014 rebuilding deadline.
This bleak projection led fishery managers to set the possession limit for Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic winter flounder at zero, which has caused considerable problems for the fleet and has completely changed fishing patterns in the area. In fact, many traditional channel fishermen aren’t fishing there at all right now.
More fish out there?
While fishermen aren’t claiming that Southern New England winter flounder are anywhere near peak abundance, many who know the channel nonetheless are convinced there are more fish around than scientists think. To prove this point, they agreed to take part in a cooperative survey.
Good thing, it seems. According to DeCelles, SMAST could not have done this particular winter flounder survey without industry’s help.
“That’s a really, really tough place to fish,” he said of the channel. “All of the captains we are working with have been fishing there for years, so they have the know-how. We think we’ll have much better results because we’re cooperating with them.”
Toby Lees, for example, has been fishing the channel for over 30 years.
“We made a good living there in the early ’80s to mid-’90s, and all we worked on was winter flounder and cod,” he said.
Lees thinks part of the current stock assessment problem stems from the fact that government survey vessels simply can’t tow where many fishermen fish for winter flounder. He took DeCelles and SMAST survey project leader Sally Roman to some really rough areas.
“I took them to places where we had a rip on either side of the boat and we steamed through a sliver,” he said. “You’d never see a research boat put a net out there.”
The objective of the industry-based survey is to gather better information on abundance, distribution, and biological characteristics of winter flounder, primarily in the Great South Channel.
The work is being funded by the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Institute, a partnership between SMAST and the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. Both institutions hope the new information will enhance future stock assessments.
The project has two parts. First is the survey itself, which will help scientists estimate “relative abundance” and distribution of winter flounder so people have a basic idea of the size and range of the population in the study area.
The second part is the tagging work, which has multiple purposes. Not only will it lead to a more solid estimate of population size and allow scientists to determine survival rates for winter flounder, it also will help them learn more about winter flounder migration patterns.
Industry input
SMAST researchers started off by holding two meetings with New Bedford fishermen who helped identify traditional winter flounder fishing grounds.
The SMAST team then picked a large study site encompassing the Great South Channel and the northeast portion of the Nantucket Lightship Closed Area (see chart). Next, the study site was carved up into 132 three-mile-square grids, also known as cells.
The work plan called for 30-minute tows – 64 per trip with 16 selected by the captain and 48 selected randomly among the available cells. The plan also called for a quick sorting of the catch, by hand with no picks, to ensure that all fish went back overboard alive.
Winter flounder in “good” or “excellent” condition were to be measured, tagged, and released, although a total of 50 fish per trip would be saved to be taken back to SMAST for more detailed study.
The goal was to tag roughly 25,000 winter flounder over the five survey trips.
SMAST’s Dave Martins is heading up the tag-return phase of the project, and he said researchers did a presurvey tag retention study in the lab to see how winter flounder held up under the process. Tagged fish were put in holding tanks for several months. Most survived, he said, and none of the tags fell off.
“We think winter flounder are pretty hardy,” Martins said.
Finding fish
Toby Lees thought trip #1 on his own boat went well, and he had good luck taking the SMAST technicians straight to the fish.
In fact, he said the tows he selected almost always turned up more winter flounder than the randomly selected ones.
“I think about three-quarters of the tags were used on my tows, not the random ones,” he said.
But that’s why Lees got involved in the project in the first place.
“I said to myself, ‘I can definitely show them where there are some fish,’” he said.
The crew handled the gear and helped sort the catch and put live fish overboard quickly, while SMAST researchers measured and tagged winter flounder. None of the catch was landed or sold.
At press time in mid-July, trip #2 was underway aboard the Sasha Lee. The boat, owned by Carlos Rafael, was being captained by Cesar Verde.
The next three trips were planned for mid-August, mid-September, and mid-October. Jose Janardo will be captaining the Sea Siren, which is owned by Manny Vinagre. Armando Silva will be captaining his own boat, the Iberia II. And Tony Cravo will be taking the helm of his own vessel as well, the United States.
Watch for tags
Now that the survey is well underway, tagged fish will begin showing up in nets – and may continue to show up in the catch for a few years to come.
Project leaders are emphasizing the importance of reporting tagged fish to SMAST.
Dave Martins said fishermen don’t need to return the tag itself but should record critical information and then call or e-mail SMAST with the details.
Specifics include: the tag number, which is printed on the T-bar tag and is plainly visible; the date the fish was recaptured; the location and depth of the tow; and the length of the fish.
Martins said fishermen could call him personally at (508) 910-6392 to report the recapture or e-mail him at <dmartins@umassd.edu>.
“It’s imperative that fishermen return the tags to us so we can get good estimates of abundance and movement,” said Martins.
“If we don’t get returns back, we’re going to have continued uncertainty over the status of this stock. That’s another reason fishermen are key participants in this project. We need them to report back to us.”
Janice M. Plante
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