Since, I never known Capt Dom to err, I went over my log books to see if I had been filling them out right. I have only held a commercial CT finfish license for thirty years, so one would think I would know what I am doing when it comes to filling out logbooks which have been around now for about ten years, more or less. Capt Dom's statement about reporting discarded fish at sea was my focal point. My first error came about because on my lobster catch report the DEP clearly states do not record released lobsters, which of course, makes sense. If one returns a live lobster to the sea, the environment remains exactly the same as if one never put to sea as nothing was damaged or changed. I allowed this common sense statement to carry over into my scup pot fishery. When pot fishing, I would grab the half dozen or so keeper porgies out of the pot and flip the pot over as quickly as I could so everything else (except spider crabs of course) could swim away. I assumed the DEP would not want to know about the small porgies that swam away since once again nothing was damaged or harmed. The by-catch that dies from the pot fishery is just about zero. However, after carefully looking at my log book, it appears that I am wrong again and as usual Capt Dom is right again. The third thumbnail is a species code list for my logbook entry. Simple enough to understand. The first thumbnail contains a Catch disposition Code List for which the code 90402 clearly indicates Released or Discarded at sea as a possible entry, so Capt Dom is right. The middle thumbnail is an actual log page that has to be filled out. Note that for the bottom section tittled End-Of-Trip Landing Record the entry (next to the last column) "Pounds Sold/Kept" is a rather obvious entry. But think about this; how could a catch disposition of 90402 ever be enter if there is an entry under Pounds Sold/Kept? Should you discard or release something you cannot sell or keep it. From a practical standpoint I think the DEP really does want know if a dragger dumps 2000 pounds of anything at sea so to be legal he should enter zero under Pounds Sold/Kept and enter the appropriate code of 90402. However, this still does not indicate what got tossed over the side as the entry is zero. I look at it this way, the DEP has had ten years to look over my log entries, and several times they have called me to question some entries but never anything about 90402. If they start to require entries of everything tossed back, the men in white coats are going to come for me as I enter 150 pounds, disposition code 90402, for species code CRNS (spider crabs).
Capt Dom, it is getting to be a little bit too much for me to row out the EEZ zone any more. |