TBF Welcomes the International Game Fish Tournament Observers as a new Tag & Release Industry Sponsor!
The Billfish Foundation (TBF) is excited to announce the International Game Fish Tournament Observers (IGFTO) as a new Tag & Release Industry level sponsor. IGFTO support of our cornerstone program makes sense. IGFTO supports tournaments that advocate the release and conservation of the billfish species and those programs who study and protect game fish, making this collaboration with TBF a natural choice. Their team travel all over the world like Aruba, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic to authenticate the “Catch & Release” of billfish & game fish during big game fishing tournaments. Learn more about taking part in one of their
Tropical Tuna Taggers Needed!
Photo courtesy of Trey Russo/Miles Charlesworth
The Billfish Foundation (TBF) is looking for anglers and crews interested in tagging tuna in the Northern Atlantic. TBF is working with scientists from the Atlantic Ocean Tropical Tuna Tagging Program (AOTTP) to learn more about certain tuna species. This program, which is part of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), looks to study key aspects of bigeye, skipjack, and yellowfin tuna life history and movements in the Atlantic Ocean. The AOTTP partners with scientists and commercial and recreational tuna fishermen to tag tropical tuna with conventional and/or electronic
2018 Tag & Release Award Winners
Overall Award trophies
Each year The Billfish Foundation recognizes the best of the best in the billfishing community to acknowledge the significant effort they contribute to our Tag & Release Program and billfish conservation. Since its inception in 1990, the program has grown to accrue nearly 240,000 tag and release records to become the largest private billfish tagging database in the world. In the last year alone, TBF has collected nearly 15,000 records! The information gathered through tag and release efforts has been invaluable to help better manage billfish stocks, better understand these fish, and preserve the sport we
TBF Welcomes T-H Marine as a New Tag & Release Industry Sponsor!
T-H Marine Joins The Billfish Foundation as Tag and Release Program Sponsor Fort Lauderdale, FL – January 9, 2019 – T-H Marine Supplies, Inc., of Huntsville, Alabama, announces it has partnered with The Billfish Foundation, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as a program sponsor. Sponsorship will focus on The Billfish Foundation’s Tag and Release Program, where T-H Marine will provide both financial and product contributions. “Billfish have a special place in my heart,” T-H Marine’s President, Jeff Huntley, stated. “There’s nothing quite like the sport of catching them and we need to make sure these beautiful fish are plentiful
Modern Fish Act Signed Into Law
Courtesy of Jasen Gast – Rehab
The Modern Fish Act (MFA), signed into law at the end of 2018, is to improve recreational fishing landings data, increase allocation of fish to anglers by expanding access in mixed-use (commercial and recreational both targeting the same species) fisheries, re-evaluate limited access systems and provide greater flexibility to fishery managers. Flexibility is to be achieved by removing the current hard recovery deadlines (as “short as possible” and “not to exceed ten years”) and establishing recovery deadlines to be “as short as practicable.” Access for 11 million saltwater recreational anglers to fish is
Counting Blue Marlin in the Ocean
How many blue marlin are in the ocean? Counting them isn’t exactly feasible (though you could have fun trying!) so scientists rely on catches and how much effort these catches took over the years. This is called a catch per unit effort (or CPUE) index. But how do you measure effort? And what if the effort has changed over time? Or if the fish moved because the environment changed? To help deal with these challenges, scientists use standardization methods to smooth out changes in fishing gear or the environment. The standardized CPUE index shows the trend of the fish
Recreational Fishing Opportunities Maybe Threatened in Panama
A nice yellowfin tuna caught off Panama
Recreational fishing in Panama and throughout Central America is likely to feel negative impacts from a fishery partnership between Panama and China established through recent trade agreements on December 3, 2018. The agreement will allow tons of skipjack tuna to be caught by purse seine vessels and transshipped to Chinese commercial factory trawlers in international waters. TBF has learned that 13 purse seine vessels in Peru are being brought to Panama to fish in Panama’s waters. Debate on whether purse seine vessels can fish in Panama’s waters has been on-going since
Changes in Mahi-Mahi allocation coming up in the Atlantic?
Fly Navarro and Adrienne Katz with a nice mahi-mahi
The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC) is considering management options to Amendment 10 on the Dolphin Wahoo Fishery Management Plan. The Amendment offers an important opportunity to modify management strategy for mahi mahi that would better insure healthy population levels intothe future. Central to protecting mahi mahi is restriction of pelagic longlinegear by not authorizing the fishery an allocation. Overfishing mahi-mahi stocks are a genuine concern if
Changes in Reporting for HMS Tournaments
Beginning January 1, 2019, all Atlantic highly migratory species tournaments will be required to submit catch summaries. An Atlantic highly migratory species (HMS) tournament is a tournament that awards points or prizes for catching Atlantic highly migratory species (i.e., swordfish, billfish, sharks and/or tunas). All Atlantic highly migratory species tournament operators will be required to submit an HMS tournament catch summary report within seven days after tournament fishing has ended. NOAA Fisheries uses the data to estimate the total annual catch of highly migratory species and the impact of tournament operations in relation to other types of fishing
Deep-set Buoy Gear set for California
Deep-set buoy gear finally has management alternatives for use in a swordfish fishery off southern California, where the fishery will be a limited entry to approximately 300 commercial vessels. Once the fishery opens (off the Southern California Bight, southeast of Point Conception), 50 permits will be issued immediately, with 25 more permits following each year. The gear lessens the amount of bycatch, which is a major improvement over the previous gillnet gear used for swordfish. Outside the government-specified area for the fishery, anyone can use the gear with a general highly migratory fishery permit. The Pacific Fisheries Management
