New Bahamas Fishing Regs

[thoward]

New Catch Limits For Sports Fishermen

The implementation date of the new limits is January 1, 2007, according to Agriculture and Marine Resources Minister Leslie Miller.

The rules currently allow for six crawfish per person, but that will be changed to six per vessel. Similarly, sports fishermen will no longer be allowed to catch conch at all in Bahamian waters.

The catch limits for demersal fish - groupers and snappers, etc. - will be changed from 20 lbs per person to 20 lbs per vessel and from a total of six pelagic species - dolphins, kingfish, wahoo, tuna, - per person to six per vessel.

 

[Paul45c]

Wow, if you're talking good fishermen, these new regs will cut down the catch limits to about 1/4 or 1/5 of what they are (typical boat load of active anglers, I figure); that, plus no harvesting conch on rest breaks at peaceful anchorages. Man!

I'll leave it to the Bahamians to decide if they really have the makings of depleting fish stocks, but this is going to really hurt them boat-tourism-wise. Pretty as it is over there, the scenery alone won't get people making the efforts they need to -- customs & immigration on both ends, expensive fuel & water over there, shopping ain't the greatest for stuff you run out of, etc. More people will decide to just do the Keys.

 

[MarioG]

The Bahamians make it harder and harder to justify going over there. Jacked up entry fees and weird fishing regs. I guess if your not in their casinos or the other tourist traps, they really don't want you. It's a shame, I love those blue waters and small islands. I use to go all the time, but I haven't been there in a while.

 

[thoward]

If you catch a 22# grouper you will have to release it! This will also cut out most of our 3 day trips.

 

[thoward]

Here is the Email address where you can send your comments on the 2007 rules. michaelbraynen@bahamas.gov.bs

I sure wish Cuba would open up.....

 

[Trojan]

With Cuba's new leader comming up. Maybe it will change a few things, for the good. For better or worse. Time will tell.



BILL

 

[Capten]

I am not too familiar with the regs in the Bahamas but did see this comment about the subject on another site.......

"Actually the way the limit is determined is by fillet weight. A loop hole is that you can store it on land and fly it home with your people. Its about time they slowed the bug and conch pilfering.

Heres a funky cross of laws... You can only have 20lb of fillet over there. Its illegal to have filet aboard your boat in the states. Some of our officers on this side may let you slide but others go right for the throat.

Two years ago I had a FWC guy saw me with my quarantine flag comming in and wanted to board. He figured he'd have an easy bust... I stopped him as he was ready to come aboard. "Permission to board, denied! IN fact if you step one foot on this boat I'll take you down and place YOU under arrest. That yellow flag there signifides that yes I am returning from abroad. It also signifies that I have not cleared customs yet and right now my boat and I are property of US Customs. UNtil they clear me you best not even touch my boat. It'll probably be a few hours. You're welcome to wait til they're done."
Boy did he turn purple. Not many people know thats the law and even less have the stones to back a cop off their boat like that.

My island guests each leave with all the fish they can carry. They can purchase conch and bugs (in season) from the natives. We don't dive anyway. Those are the ones who do the most damage over there and now will be the ones who stand to lose the most..."

 

[Paul45c]

The NATIVES are the ones who do the most damage; don't ever let the bleeding hearts over here convince you otherwise. I'm no racist, but I get a little tired of the rich Americans always being to blame for Bahamian resources woes. My brother-in-law lived for 4 years in two different remote little island outposts working as a subcontractor for NASA on radar & telemetry stations (as an aside, it was an incredible job -- one that even came with a boat, fuel, free food and a cook/housekeeper), and he told me plenty of stories about the locals' lobstering and fishing practices.

Seeing as how they're freediving everywhere they go for lobster & fish, they don't have time to fool around with the niceties -- like "tickling" a lobster out of the hole. Nope, they use a squirt bottle with a strong bleach concentrate to sting the bug's eyes. Yeah, you'd come out of a hole, too, if somebody blasted your eyes with bleach. Guess what, Johnnie Bahama...it kills the reef.

As for catch limits? Ha! Ever anchor up in a place like Honeymoon Hbr (N side of Gun Cay just south of Bimini) and have a local show up in his jonboat offering to sell you lunch? Every time we've been there, locals have done that, and those jonboats are literally FILLED to the gunwales. Uh, I'm no Bahamian fisheries official, but that's got to be verboten even for a local.

Sorry for the sermon.

 

[thoward]

"Actually the way the limit is determined is by fillet weight. A loop hole is that you can store it on land and fly it home with your people.

Nope not anymore, I did not post the whole writeup on the regs but they changed the rule on fillets as well. The fish must have its head now! If you catch a 20# grouper you can not clean it until you leave the country. Same with pelagics. As far as lobster, I sleep 8 people and now I can not feed one to each of my guests. No conch salad for a fresh lunch? Talk about bitting the hand that feeds you, this is silly and I bet it will be reversed in short order. If not it sucks for them because there are lots of people canceling trips right now.

 

[captadamr]

It seems like I am the only Bahamian member of this forum i should speak up.

The New regulations have been put into effect to control what certain boats were coming over and doing. Limiting out on conch and lobster each day, filling coolers with yellowtail snapper and grouper. Ive pulled into out island marinas and seen american boaters standing at the cleaning table with well over their limits of conch. There were many boater abusing the old limits, so newer harsher limits had to be created.

Bleaching is Illegal and is rarely practiced, that is something that happened many years ago, and if you are caught with lobster and bleach at the same time you are in it deep! The younger generation Bahamian is better educated on the importance of the reef ecosystem, so lets hope the mistakes of the past are not made again.

Dont the citizens of a country have more rights over the fruit of the sea than a visitor? The fishery of the Bahamas is under pressure and the new regulations will ensure a healthy fishery for many years to come.
You can feed anyone you would like, the new regs also stimulate the commerical fisherman, as now more will be purchased from locals as opposed to diving it yourself. At a few bucks a conch i dont think anyone will go broke buying conch from a local fisherman.


PS: Cuba will not reopen in my Generation

 

[Paul45c]

Dont the citizens of a country have more rights over the fruit of the sea than a visitor? The fishery of the Bahamas is under pressure and the new regulations will ensure a healthy fishery for many years to come.

Every sovereign nation has the right to regulate any way it sees fit, no question...it doesn't always work out in practice (northeast U.S. & Cdn cod fishery is a great example -- U.S. fishermen are getting bought out by the fed gov't, but Portuguese fishermen still limit out to the extent of their luck inside of 200 miles from U.S. shores & all over the Grand Banks), but that's almost secondary to the big question for the Bahamas, which to me is whether fishermen will continue to come in anything close to the numbers they used to with these new regs.

Believe me captadamr, I'm not down on the Bahamas by any stretch -- it's a beautiful place to take a boat, and I've done so several times. It's just getting harder and harder to justify for the kinds of short trips that bring a lot of Floridians over to Bimini and West End. Someone coming over for an extended 2 or 3 week cruise probably won't grouse as much.

BTW, I'm glad to hear the lobster-bleach practice is going away, but I'm gonna still play the skeptic on locals taking WAY too many lobster themselves. I've seen it too recently, I'm afraid.

 

[captadamr]

Taking too many lobsters does occur. I wish the goverment would put a cap on what a local boat can capture per day. I personally stop at 15 a trip with a couple grouper and maybe a hogfish thrown in.

The stream jumpers are those who will be most effected, the Western Islands will hurt the most. The Central and Eastern Islands have more to keep you entertained than Bimini or GBI, ie exumas, abaco.

I run charter boats out of Nassau and i rarely catch more that the old limits allowed 6 per person, our company tries to be conservation minded in our fishing practices.

The Brightside is you can catch em, give em a big kiss and send em back home to multiply

 

[thoward]

There were many boater abusing the old limits, so newer harsher limits had to be created.

How does that make sense? Why will people follow new rules if they did not follow the old ones? So blame it on the theaving rich American sportfishermen. Bottom line, this will hurt a country that DEPENDS on tourism. As a charter boat captain I would expect you would like these regs for it will not hurt your business and it will decrease competition. I bet the hotels and marinas will see it very different. Take a look at it from my point of view(Joe Fisherman). Why would I come over for a long weekend of fishing and partying if my fishing is over after 1 fish? Do you really think 3-4 guys are going to get together and spend $500 each for 1 20 pound fish?

 

[captadamr]

To catch one 20 pound fish and stop, then i would stay home. But to anchor up and catch and release fish all day no prob. We do it all the time. Nearly all my reef fishing charters on my boat are mostly catch and release, we keep a few large snappers for the guests for dinner, mackeral for billfish and cudas for shark bait.

Dont forger about the 6 pelagics per boat, so you can catch 6 tuna dolphin wahoo or kingfish as well. That just means you have to pick through and keep the 6 biggest you run into.

As far as me being a fan of the new Regs, Foreign boats are no competiton to me on the fishing ground, and the species most effected we do not target.Most are too busy running to Chub, Hole in the Wall, The Dutch Bars or AUTEC bouys,than to fish the areas we do on normal charters. We do no grouper fishing, and very little snapper fishing nor do we dive for conch and lobster on charters, so I was never competing with anyone for those.

Im not blaming it on all rich american boats, just a select few who abuse the law of the Bahamas. Unfortunatly the good must suffer with the bad. Everyone has heard the stories of boats not checking in and fishing ie Cay Sal, or fishing all day, then running across the stream to avoid being searched. I just read on another forum that there are now BDF officers on board the USCG vessels patrolling BAH waters and they can enforce BAH fishing regulations.

I personally do not agree with the lobster and demersal fish limits as they are a bit too strict. Perhaps 100lb per vessel whole fish would be more acceptable and a dozen lobster. But the problem with that is someone can catch 5 20lb groupers or 50 2lb snappers. The Regs should allow for boaters to capture enough seafood for meals while in the country, but not enough to carry excessive amounts of seafood back home. The problem is if everyone is free fish for what they want, then what happens to the small Island fisherman? There goes their source of income. The Issue of how strict the Regulations are is a tough one, and perhaps the new minister was trying to flex his muscles I do hope for a review of the demersal fish, conch and lobster limits, to an area that benifits both the visting angler and the local small scale commercial fisherman. Only time will tell what the Goverment will decide. Im not politician or marine biologist, all i can base my opinion on is what I have seen and heard.

The western islands stand to suffer the greatest, as Bimini and GBI see the majority of boats running over for the weekend. The Eastern Islands will not feel the pinch, as boats travelling that far arent only going for the fishing.

The Bahamas has lots to offer visiting cruisers besides leaving with a freezer full of fillets, conch and lobster. It is my hope that we can all work through the new Regulations, respect the descions of Fisheries Managers, and enjoy what has always made the Bahamas a great cruising spot. I look forward to seeing you all here this spring and summer.

Capt. Adam R.

 

[Boss Lady]

Everyone needs to figure out which is more important, a multi-billion dollar boating and tourist industry or a multi-million dollar fishing industry. Florida finally figured it out. I grew up in the panhandle of Florida, and speckeled trout fishing was a big, when the catch limit dwindled down so you could only catch two fish, the out of state fishermen quit coming, result was a big down turn in total tourism dollars. Now you can catch a reasonable number of fish and things have changed for the better. I live in NC and the commercial fishermen really abuse the resources, the bite here was way off this year, and the old fish finder was showing a barren wasteland down below. The shrimp boats kill 10 pounds of juvenile game fish and food forage for every pound of shrimp they catch. The sein net guys have completely collapsed the herring in the pamelico sound, it went from 8 million pounds per year down to 200,000 for the last two years, it will take 20 years for the stock to recover if they stop fishing now. Almost no flounder escape the rivers to get back to the Atlantic anymore, since they put nets across them and catch everything that comes out. I have found more illegal fishing gear around here than you can shake a stick at, but the law enforcement guys spend more time harrasing everyone counting life preservers and fire extinguishers than they do trying to catch the abusers of "our" resources. The commercial guys view everything as "theirs" and view the rest of us as taking away their livelyhood. Well I have some news for them, you don't own it, it is a resource owned by the people, I can't just go take what I want, so why should they be allowed to, maybe I should go cut some firewood from the governer's mansion, or dig up some shrubbery, I would get arrested for doing that, but you can get a commercial license and then just go take what you want. But I digress, the Bahamas has a major problem with everyone depleting the resource and the biggest abusers are the locals, they have the same mentallity, and will take from the resource whatever they can get away with as long as they are making money at it. They will only stop when there is nothing left to take unless there is some enforcement. It will be more lucrative to harrass wealthy Americans, than to go after penniless Bahamians. There is also some political motivation as well.

 

[Capten]

Just passing along what I've heard.....

"As I thought about it some. I recalled hearing that those ideas were floating around their ministries earlier. So I did some digging. After all when has the press ever been right...
Seems one of their ministers Leslie Miler is getting a bit ahead of nimself here. It is as I thought just a proposal and is open for comment.

That info was forwarded to me by their department of fisheries and agriculture. The public is encouraged to voice their opinions to the following...

Fisheries, Department of
East Bay Street
P. O. Box N 3028
Nassau, N.P., The Bahamas

michaelbraynen@bahamas.gov.bs
phone 242-393-1777
242-393-1015
242-393-1096
Fax 242-393-0238"

 

[Boss Lady]

If you look into the harvest problems you will discover a different problem than everyone perceives. I can garrantee that the thousands of local fishermen with a jon boat do more damage in one day than a few renegade americans do in a decade. Also the foreign fishing fleets that pillage Bahamian waters are paying someone for the privilege to do so, and that someone is probably an elected official who is supposed to protect the resources but is instead benefitting at everyone else's expense. So the bogeyman becomes the most visible target, the american with a big boat. They can make a lot of political hay with this and will only need to find "one" violator every so often to take some pictures and show how the government is protecting the people's resources, to divert their attention away from the real problems.

 

[Boatsb]

In the 80's I saw lots of boats in the long Island area slaughtering tuna for no real reason. 1/2 million dollar boats ( then) woulg go out and take 5 friends of the owner along and each one probably made $250K+ a year but the caught everything they could to bring back and maybe net $2k-$3K for the trip. Do the math and you will see they lost money on the venture but killed as many fish as they could for "profit".

FYI most of their catch was not preped and stored correctly soit was of lower value. I would fish the same areas and 1 or 2 medium to large fish would talke all the ice I had to dress them properly si the trip would end when we got 2 nice fish. Once 1 large tuna 1 hour after arriving at the canyon took all the ice ( 360+ lbs) and we were home after only 8 total hours.

Don't blame all the americans on depleting the fishing stocks because many of us are more responsible than that. Education only works if the person in question feels the rules apply to them and they have some morals along with it.

I am sad to say that too many people who can afford the boats feel entitled to whatever they want because they have money. We all only lease or space here on the earth. We shuold try to leave it in the same condition when we move out as when we came.

 

[Paul45c]

Everyone has heard the stories of boats not checking in and fishing ie Cay Sal, or fishing all day, then running across the stream to avoid being searched. I just read on another forum that there are now BDF officers on board the USCG vessels patrolling BAH waters and they can enforce BAH fishing regulations.

That's interesting...I didn't know that. Maybe the BDF can cover more ground, now. When I read what you wrote, it made me think back and realize that out of maybe 8 trips I've taken over there in the last 4 years, I've never seen a Bahamian patrol vessel anywhere other than tied at a dock in Nassau. I've been to Great Isaac, Bimini, Gun & Cat, Chubb (and a little N of Chubb in the Berry's) and Nassau/PI.

Obviously the budget for enforcement isn't what it ought to be. Perhaps a good solution would be to put more money towards that and see what happens rather than entering in more draconian regs. Kind of like gun control over here -- if they'd just adequately enforce/punish offenses here you wouldn't need another law, but that's another soapbox!

 

[Mike36c]

As a long time Bahama visitor let pass along what I have seen over the years. Around most settlements the resources have been more than depleted, wiped out is a better term. Many a day I would dive for hours in search of a couple of conch for dinner around settlements only to find nothing, no juvenile conchs, no short lobsters, zip. Americans are not responsible for that, but as some of you know locals peddle lobster year round and a bags of shorts are plentiful. Johnny law just turns his head at this practice. Locals rarley throw anything back, period. Not until outside the locals fuel range (too far for profit) will fish, lobster, conch be found.

I know there are a few "KILL-KILL-KILL" americans out there but the vast majority of us love the Bahamas and do everything to promote and teach conservatism but it's just getting harder and harder to justify the trip. First they hit me with a $300 ($450 if I tow my skiff) customs fee then nail me for fuel/water. Between myself and friends we paid well over $50K this year. Why should I make the trip for six lobsters? If I catch a Tuna and want to eat SOME of it for dinner, how do I do it? Filet half the fish and leave the head attached to the other half? This is crazy! All they need to do is ENFORCE CURRENT LAW. It's very unfortunate for the out Islands that rely so heavily on the sport fishing crowd but the Florida Keys will be my next years destination if this law passes. (rant over )