Port Aransas Fishing and Rockport Texas Fishing guide: Bay Fishing, Offshore Fishing and Duck Hunting! Capt. Scott McCune

URGENT ACTION NEEDED IMMEDIATELY!

Senator Lott from Mississippi has added language to the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stephens Act that will be a killer for the Gulf!

We need everyone to contact their Senators immediately and voice your objection to the language. Lott's language requires the Gulf Council to have 5 commercial representatives and the current aquaculture representative would not count as a commercial representative! More times than not he votes with the commercial sector because that is who he represents. This would give the commercial sector 6 votes out of 11 appointed seats and currently we have one environmental seat so that leaves the recreational sector with 4 seats!

Here are some points you can make when you contact your Senator.

The value of the recreational sector is 10 times more than the commercial sector, including the shrimp and commercial fisheries.
The New England Council is dominated by commercial fishermen and their fisheries are collapsing. Do you want that for the Gulf too?
The recreational sector will lose their ability to do anything to benefit the recreational fishery.
The number of Council seats held by any sector should be based on the greatest economic benefit to the nation.
We support a council balance of 3 commercial, 3 charter boats, 3 private recreational and 2 academic/ environmental. The support for this is that no one sector will have a clear majority and the council will be forced to act on consensus by more than one user group.

Another issue that will be harmful to us is the addition of language that says, ‘‘(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. All you have to remember is red snapper or red grouper! Tell your Senator you will support this 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.

We have listed below all Senators contact information. This needs to be done immediately. Either phone with your comments, fax or an email right now. They will be voting this out of committee within the next few days. You will note that some senators have an online submittal comment area, just cut and paste the address in your web browser and it will take you directly to their comment site. This is extremely important to your future! Please include your full name and address when contacting them.

Please do it for yourself and the entire recreational sector. Pass this email along to anyone you feel will support this and contact their Senators.

Thanks

Bobbi Walker

Executive Director

National Association of Charterboat Operators

ALABAMA RICHARD SHELBY (R)

Email: senator@shelby.senate.gov

Fax: (202) 224-3416

phone: (202) 224-5744

JEFF SESSIONS (R)

web form: sessions.senate.gov/email/contact.cfm

Phone: (202) 224-4124

FLORIDA