The Outdoor Line Forum

How has the Blackmouth season for MA6 ended a week early (5 weeks) due to supposedly reaching encounter guideline numbers? Since there was no fishing starting in the new tracking year (October) until 1 March it seems a bit suspicious.
This year the scheduled season was 1 March thru 15 April (6 weeks) compared to last year's 1 Dec thru 15 Apr (14 weeks). "Yes" I know last year the season did close for a few weeks mid season, however, we lost 2 months worth this year and the season still ended early!
I see an issue with the allotted "Encounter Guidelines" for MA6, of the five listed for the sound's MA's, MA6 has the least allotted with 2302. With a derby having sold over 800 tickets I am curious how many encounters were charged during the derby period, if each of the 800 plus ticket holders was credited with just one "encounter" that's 1/3 rd of the allotted encounter number.
It seems with the large amount of derby entrants, others coming from other MA's ("yes" I do fish MA9 and MA7 occasionally) an increase to the "encounter guidelines" is needed.
I have commented on the WDFW site and to our local adviser committee member, not optimistic but maybe something positive will come from the NOF meetings addressing this issue!

Dilly Dilly!! I couldn't agree more!!

Hi grizz80. When I read your post I come away with you saying the number of encounters should increase with the number of fishers. My understanding is that the number of encounters would increase with the number of fish, and that this might be based on the number of wild fish based on the following:
If 2302 fish are encountered, a certain percentage could be wild fish, and be released. A certain percentage of released wild fish will die (incidental mortality IM). I do not know what IM percentages are used for this, but studies have shown IM percentages are in the 15%-30% range. Just because a fish swims away does not mean it will not die within days or be eaten by a predator in it's weakened state.

As I read the Management Plan, every fish hooked and reported (even those lost or released) are counted as an encountered fish. Thus, it is assumed that 15% to 30% of those fish will die. So, those fish are counted against the recreational angler limits. It appears the recreational angler is penalized for encounters with wild fish. This way more fish are available for the nets.

The netters have their quotas as well. They can probably keep wild fish as net mortality is at least 90%. Once they hit quota they stop fishing. If we kept wild fish, then the netters would have to catch other wild fish to fill their quota, increasing the Total Mortality.
I do agree it is a bad situation (nets) as they are all none-selective.