Alaska Gold Forum :: Alaska Fishing Forum :: Reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act will affect your fishing

URGENT ACTION NEEDED NOW!
The reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act will be voted out of committee in a few days. There is one killer clause for the recreational sector that we need to let all of our Senators know that we oppose.

The language says at Section 303 (15) "specify, in the plan or implementing regulations, annual catch limits, which shall be established by the Council or Secretary based on the best scientific information available at a level that does not exceed optimum yield, and, for the purposes of which harvests exceeding the specified annual catch limit (including the specified annual catch limit for a sector) shall be deducted from the following year’s annual catch limit (including that sector).’’

We are all well aware of the problems associated with recreational harvest estimates by the MRFSS system. This system samples less than 1% of the recreational harvest and continues to over estimate what we are catching! If the above language is adopted we will continue to see shorter seasons and lower bag limits.

Below is a form letter I sent to both Murkowski and Stevens to use as a guide if you like or send in your own words.

"Senator Murkowski
The reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act will be voted out of committee in a few days. There is one killer clause for the recreational sector that we need to make sure gets changed before passage.

The language says at Section 303 (15) "specify, in the plan or implementing regulations, annual catch limits, which shall be established by the Council or Secretary based on the best scientific information available at a level that does not exceed optimum yield, and, for the purposes of which harvests exceeding the specified annual catch limit (including the specified annual catch limit for a sector) shall be deducted from the following year’s annual catch limit (including that sector).’’

We are all well aware of the problems associated with recreational harvest estimates by the MRFSS system. This system samples less than 1% of the recreational harvest and continues to over estimate what we are catching! If the above language is adopted we will continue to see shorter seasons and lower bag limits. We would like you to support this ONLY IF they add a clause stating, " a recreational data collection method will have to be created that provides a comprehensive real time data collection system that will be comparable to the commercial sectors data collection method to insure that the harvest data is correct and not just a guess".

I'm sure you can see why this added statement is so important to Alaskans. We want our fish managed properly and only with good, acurate, sound data can this be accomplished.
Thanks for your support."