THE PROBLEM WITH VESSEL TRIP REPORTS

For a number of years, we’ve heard for-hire operators, and party boat operators in particular, complain that federal fishery managers require them to fill out vessel trip reports, usually referred to as “VTRs,” but then don’t consider information included on such VTRs when they perform stock assessments, calculate landings estimates or engage in similar analyses.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has recently issued a rule that will require charter and party boats in the northeast and mid-Atlantic to file their VTRs electronically, with NMFS saying that

“The time delays and inaccuracies associated with current data collection in the charter and party fishing fleets reduce our ability to use the data in making management decisions.  The action is intended to improve the data collection and improve the utility of the data.”

There have even been proposals at the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council suggesting that the use of such electronic VTRs could justify reopening the black sea bass fishery during January and February, which has been closed in part because no reliable estimates of recreational landings are available from that period.

And maybe that would be possible, provided that the information provided in such vessel trip reports was accurate, and that vessels which intentionally or negligently submit inaccurate VTRs were subject to penalties harsh enough to discourage such behavior.

Unfortunately, right now, neither of those things is true.

A little over ten days ago, I was told about a party boat out in Montauk that returned to the dock with over 1,000 illegal black sea bass on board—yes, that’s over 1,000 illegal fish on a single eight or ten hour trip.  I didn’t say much about it at the time, even though the information that I received was very reliable, because I didn’t want to take even the slight chance that I might be unintentionally impugning an innocent operation, and doing someone unjustified harm.

But the facts have now been made public, so I’ll let the East Hampton Star tell the story.

“Marine enforcement officers…saw what they estimated was hundreds of pounds of fish being thrown overboard from a Montauk party boat and wound up ticketing eight people, including the boat’s captain…

“According to a [Department of Environmental Conservation] spokeswoman, the officers approached the 75-foot Fin Chaser, based on Star Island, and ordered the anglers to stop what they were doing.  Their orders were ignored…

“[The captain] was issued a violation for an incomplete trip report.  Seven other violations, each carrying a penalty of up to $250, were issued, as well as a misdemeanor charge of failure to stop dumping upon command, for which the penalty is up to $1,000 and imprisonment for up to one year.

“Details about what occurred…were made public on Sept. 5 on Capt. Gene Kelly’s website Montauksportfishing.com…

“’As they continued the inspection on the starboard side, there was a massive fish kill on the port side, with dead sea bass floating all over the place,’ Capt. Kelly wrote, with ‘anglers who had not caught anything during the trip filing off’ the boat.  Additional officers were called to help recover fish from the water, according to the spokeswoman.

“’After the dust cleared,’ Capt. Kelly wrote ‘there were over a dozen coolers left with no owners,’ which held more than 1,000 sea bass.  [emphasis added]”

The key takeaway here is that, if the enforcement officers had not intervened, the illegally-harvested black sea bass would not have appeared on the Fin Chaser’s VTR, and managers would have no way to know that they were taken.  Given the millions of pounds of black sea bass caught by anglers in the northeast every year, missing just an accounting for that one day wouldn’t have any significant impact on fishery management decisions.

Of course, that assumes that the Fin Chaser was caught the very first time that it landed illegal fish and provided an “incomplete” VTR.  That is certainly a possibility, although I leave it up to your judgment and experience to decide just how likely it is that such possibility reflects the truth…

And, unfortunately, the Fin Chaser isn’t alone when it comes to having a lot of illegal black sea bass on board.  In one highly publicized incident, which occurred back in 2012, the Brielle-based party boat Jamaica, a 125-foot vessel that operates all year long when weather permits, returned to the dock with 819 illegal (out-of-season) black sea bass on board.

Howard Bogan, the captain, does not deny what happened on the trip.  According to an article that originally appeared in the Asbury Park Press, which is no longer freely available online, but has been reproduced in its entirety in a post on the website stripersonline.com,

“[Capt. Bogan] did see fishermen keeping black sea bass, but said ‘I didn’t think it was that many.  And I’m not getting paid by the state of New Jersey to take fish out of people’s buckets.’

“He said no customers called to complain after drawing summonses.  They were made aware of the law, both before the trip and through warnings posted inside the boat, he said.”

There is no indication that law enforcement authorities found any problems with the Jamaica’s VTR that day, so without knowledge to the contrary, we have to assume that it was complete.  But still, one has to wonder.  If the captain knew that black sea bass were being kept, but “didn’t think that it was that many,” how likely was it that all 819 illegal fish would have made it onto his VTR had law enforcement not intervened? 

You can’t report fish if you don’t know they’re there.

Even though the stories of the Jamaica and the Fin Chaser are more than five years apart, and come from two different ports in two different states, we also have to wonder how many serious violations are out there that were just never detected, particularly in the black sea bass fishery.

Certainly, there are rumors.

I belong to a good-sized fishing club.  Because the folks there know that I am involved in fisheries issues, I hear a lot of complaints when they think that something illegal is going on, and want to get a message to law enforcement and regulators.

I’ve frequently heard complaints about the large fleet of party boats who dock at a nearby state park.  Folks tell me that when they fish close to them, either anchored up on a wreck some distance offshore, or drifting close by on a nearshore reef, they see a lot of clearly out-of-season and undersized fish—not only black sea bass, but scup, tautog, summer flounder and even a few cod—come up out of the water, but except for the short summer flounder, don’t see very many going back.

Others tell me about trips that their neighbors take—particularly evening and night trips for black sea bass—where the 15-inch minimum size and 3-fish summer bag limit is largely ignored.  One club member told me about an acquaintance taking home five or six times as many black sea bass as the law allowed, and when the club member expressed surprise over the angler being able to find so many 15-inch black sea bass on a single trip, the response was that the folks on the boat didn’t worry about the 15-inch limit, so long as all fish were cleaned on the boat before the angler left, making it impossible to prove that they had been undersized.

No, I don’t have personal knowledge of such violations, but the sheer volume of the stories I hear make it likely that a lot of illegal fish are being landed.

And it’s pretty likely that few, probably none, of those illegal fish are showing up on the boats’ VTRs.

That means that, under current conditions, the VTRs being filed—whether paper or electronic—just aren’t reliable enough to use for management purposes.  That’s unfortunate, because there are a lot of legitimate captains out there, particularly on the charter boat side, who would be glad to provide good information that might help to improve the management process.

Unfortunately, laws aren’t written to protect us from the honest folks, but to protect us from the other sort, who would violate the law with impunity in order to make a little more cash.  That being the case, if NMFS truly wants to use VTRs when compiling fisheries data, it needs to adopt policies—and primarily penalties—that would make filing intentionally or negligently inaccurate VTRs a serious offence.

Cash fines, no matter how steep, aren’t likely to get the job done, because the odds of being caught filing a bad VTR are high enough, and violators would be caught so infrequently, that the rewards from turning a blind eye to poachers onboard would make any such fine just a cost of doing business.

Permit sanctions might be a better answer.  If a boat’s permits to fish in both state and federal waters were suspended for a significant period of time during peak season—say, no less than 15 days for a first offense, and no less than 30 for a second-time offender, with permanent revocation a possibility if chronic violations occur—VTR data might become reliable enough for managers to rely on.

It would be nice to see that occur, because the honest for-hire operators shouldn’t have to suffer because of the folks who countenance illegality.  But until penalties stiff enough to deter violators are handed down and publicized, there is going to continue to be a problem with VTRs.