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Final Report: Assessing Recreational Haddock Discard Mortality On New Hampshire Sea Grant, University of New Hampshire and Eastman’s Fishing Fleet Analysis of Recreational Haddock Discard Mortality: Results and Findings from Year 1 and Year 2. Final Report to the Northeast Consortium Project Title: Assessing Recreational Haddock Discard Mortality on Jeffrey’s Ledge Through an Industry-led Collaborative Mark-Recapture Tagging Program Award Number: 14NE99 Period of Award: March 1, 2015-December 31, 2017 Final Report Submission Date: January 20, 2017 Principal Investigators: Gabriela M. Bradt, Ph.D. New Hampshire Sea Grant University of New Hampshire Cooperative EXtension 164A Morse Hall 8 College Rd. Durham, NH 03824 603-862-2033 [email protected] Lester and Philip Eastman Eastman’s Fishing Fleet LLC 5 River St Seabrook, NH 03874 603-474-3461 Abstract: New Hampshire Sea Grant, UNH Cooperative EXtension and Eastman’s Fishing Fleet LLC administered a cooperative mark-recapture tagging program in which 16,677 Atlantic haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) were tagged and released as part of regular recreational fishing operations in fishing areas 513 and 514 over two fishing seasons (May-Dec 2015, 2016). Tagging these fish was intended to provide a more accurate estimate of recreational fishing mortality of Atlantic haddock. Fish were captured by Eastman’s recreational fishing vessels using hook and line gear (rod and reel) and tagged using yellow t-bar anchor tags. The tagging program used recreational fishing clients to help capture the fish while trained crew members handled, tagged and released the fish. The program attempted to capitalize on recreational fishermen networks, marinas and social media to enlist participation on tag returns. Additionally, four cash lotteries were held to further incentivize fishermen to return tags. Data management and returns infrastructure were performed by New Hampshire Sea Grant, UNH Cooperative EXtension and Eastman’s Fishing Fleet and scientific program oversight was provided by New Hampshire Sea Grant and UNH Cooperative EXtension. As of November 2016, there were 75 reported tag returns, a rate of approXimately 0.5%. Due to the very low rate of return, a statistically robust estimate of recreational discard mortality of Atlantic haddock could not be calculated. Introduction: There is a large recreational fishery for haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) in the Gulf of Maine (GOM). It is estimated that in the last ten years, the recreational haddock fishery has accounted for 29-86% of the total haddock catch (NESFC, 2014b). Estimates for recreational removals have varied annually from a low of 39 mt in 1981 to a high of 618 mt in 2007 (NESFC, 2014b) with an average of 17% of annual removals from between 1977-2013 (NESFC, 2014b). Although there are better estimates of removals attributed to the recreational haddock fishery, it is currently not known how many of these removals are then discarded (NESFC, 2014a). The most current stock assessment for GOM haddock has used a baseline discard or release mortality of 50% based primarily on informal communications with recreational groundfish fishermen (NESFC, 2014a,b). To date, there continue to be no available published scientific studies on discard mortality of haddock released from the recreational fishery (NESFC, 2014a). Because the recreational haddock fishery in the GOM is large, that a recreational discard mortality rate is not known is problematic both for the sustainability of the fishery ecologically but also economically. According to the latest assessment (NESFC, 2014a), the contribution of recreational discards to the total recreational catch has been increasing over time, however, although discards have been reported in the assessment updates (NESFC, 2014a), they have not been included in the catch at age models due to the limited length frequency data on recreational discards (NESFC, 2014a). Therefore, given the large magnitude of recreational releases in recent years, discard mortality is an important metric to have to more accurately assess the status of the GOM haddock stock. The fishery regulations for the recreational haddock fishery for Fishing Year 2014 (FY14) dramatically decreased the number of haddock that anglers could keep per day from an unlimited number to 3 fish per angler per day. This dramatic decrease was placed into effect because according to NOAA, the recreational fishery had eXceeded the catch limit in place for FY 2013 (GARFO, 2014a) and in order to assure that overages didn’t occur again in 2014, regulators felt this was the best course of action. Additionally, and more relevant, fishery managers eXplained that they had arrived at a limit of 3 fish per angler per day based on communications with recreational fishermen indicating that in general, anglers tend to keep >1 haddock /angler and that decreasing the bag limit to 10 fish per angler would not reduce the catch by any significant amount (GARFO, 2014a). Thus, because anglers keep so few haddock, the number of fish that are released back into the water is significant enough that a more accurate release discard rate needs to be calculated. If, in fact, more released fish survive than is estimated, then the assumption would be that catch limits for the haddock recreational fishery should be increased as well as bag limits. While this study was underway, the regulations for Fishing Year 2015 (FY15) increased the number of haddock that anglers could keep to 15 per day as a result of an updated stock assessment, however, the discard mortality rate for the recreational fishery that was used was 50% and it was again, not based on any scientific estimates. Therefore, the current study was of utmost relevance and while the bag limit did increase during this time period, estimating a discard mortality rate for the recreational haddock fishery is still important. This tagging study was designed to leverage recreational fishing operations “in real time” using anglers and trained crew to catch and tag 20,000 haddock. By tagging fish under normal recreational fishing trip conditions we anticipated the ability to estimate an accurate discard mortality rate Figure 1. Overview of the Northeast Statistical Fishing Areas. Red asterisks indicate fishing areas where this study took place. Project Objectives: • Conduct an intensive mark-recapture effort of 20,000 haddock on Jeffrey’s Ledge in the Gulf of Maine over a 24-month period to get a better understanding and assessment of recreational discard/release mortality of this species. • Develop and maintain a tagged haddock database • Calculate an accurate recreational discard mortality rate for haddock • Develop a collaborative haddock tagging program involving recreational fishermen Participants Scientific Partners (primary contacts) NH Sea Grant UNH Cooperative EXtension Gabriela Bradt Phone: 603-862-3033 Fisheries Specialist email: [email protected] University of New Hampshire 164A Morse Hall 8 College Rd Durham, NH 03824 Eastman’s Fishing Fleet, LLC 5 River St Seabrook, NH 03874 Lester Eastman Phone: 603-772-7839 email: [email protected] Phillip Eastman Phone: 603-929-0291 email: [email protected] Elizabeth Geis Eastman’s Fishing Fleet, LLC Business Manager Phone: (603) 474-3461 Table 1: Fishing Vessel Participation (Vessel and Captain) Lady Merrilee Ann III Philip Eastman Lady Audrey Mae Tory O’Byrne Table 2: Fishing Vessel Crew/Technicians Philip Eastman Curran Flanagan Nicole Gagnon Matt Day Zach Eastman Les Eastman, Sr. Nathaniel Ribblett Jake Wiser Methods Proposed Tagging Leveraging already scheduled recreational fishing trips, clients and crew on the largest vessel in their fleet, the Lady Merrilee Ann III, our goal was to tag 20,000 haddock caught by hook and line during an 18-month period, using T-bar style Floy tags. All tagging of haddock occurred in Fishing areas 513 and 514 around Jeffrey’s ledge (Figure 1) and took place as part of normal charter business operations. Trained crew members were deployed on all trips to ensure that accurate tagging, fish measurement and data recording occurred. Actual Tagging and Fish Release Tagging began in May 2015, a month later than anticipated due to the haddock season remaining closed until May 1st of that year. Tagging for the first year continued until December 26th, although effort was significantly reduced (only occasional trips from November through December). During this first year a total 134 scheduled recreational fishing trips were made. During the second year of tagging, tagging began on April 2, 2016 and continued until December 2, 2016. A total of 185 trips were made. During this time, a total of 339 recreational fishing trips during which tagging occurred took place and a total of 16,677 fish were tagged. Tagging Protocol Haddock were captured during normal recreational fishing operations by anglers using rod and reel. Haddock were gently removed from the hook by either the captain or by trained crew and minimally handled to ensure that the slime coat was not removed. Fish were placed into a live well for 30 seconds – 1 minute to let the fish equilibrate and then they were measured, condition scored, tagged and released (a total of 20 seconds for the entire tagging procedure). If it was not possible to tag the fish immediately, fish were left in the live well for up to two minutes before being tagged. If fish were not tagged after two minutes, they were released. As part of the training, crew were trained how to handle the haddock to cause minimal stress and damage which included not touching gills and eyes. Additionally, crew were trained to score fish condition based on the degree of severity of injuries (if any) the fish had or level of resistance to being handled (See Scoring table below). Prior to tagging, every fish to be tagged, was measured and its condition evaluated, scored and recorded as either Good, Fair, Poor or Dead following the criteria in the table below. Table 3. Fish Condition Scoring G Good strong resistance to being handled and uninjured F Fair moderate resistance to being handled and /or minor injuries P Poor weak, little resistance to being handled and/or significant injuries D Dead Not viable Only fish that were in releasable condition (i.e.
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