520lber caught!

[Broadbill]

That is 18 pages of fish from people all over the United States for the year 2005. That seems like a lot of fish to you???? What do you think we are fishing in a 10 acre pond??? Why don't you go back to carp fishing or whatever you do over there. I'm sure you could catch one of those in "60 - 90 minutes". ******!!!!

[Scotty T]

lol

[Ian Burrett]

Broadbill:

That is 18 pages of fish from people all over the United States for the year 2005. That seems like a lot of fish to you???? What do you think we are fishing in a 10 acre pond??? Why don't you go back to carp fishing or whatever you do over there. I'm sure you could catch one of those in "60 - 90 minutes". ******!!!!

Buffalow yesterday - Swordfish today

[Fin-S]

Broadbill, Thank you for taking the time to respond to the thread, however I would appreciate that firstly you drop the condescending tone regarding us not catching broadbill and secondly try and understand a bit more about your target species and your governments protection of them.

1. I live and fish (as a professional skipper) in Cape Town which until 6 years ago was world renowned for xiphias, and a 300lb fish was average. I have caught 26 broadbill personally and have been involved with the capture of at least 50 more. I have killed one fish, the IGFA record at the time, which I still regret. I appreciate that they are awesome fighters and can take some time to bring to the boat, however that is compounded by inexperienced anglers and crew - if you have fought the fish hard, you should be able to revive and release. There is no excuse to kill a non record fish in most circumstances. Oh, and if this 17 year old can exert 30lbs of drag on stand up for 2 hours then I suggest he get a WWF scholarship.

2. The Cape Town fishery is no more due to the longliners cleaning out the entire fishery within 12 months. Not recreationals, but commercials. The catch registers for these vessels show that the majority of their catch is destined for the USA!

3. I understand the fisheries protection in the US and in most cases think it is commendable, however when you protect your own waters and then support the rape of third world countries, then I find your moral standpoint to be below sealevel. Take the Florida net ban, the bluefin limits etc, where do you think most of your population gets its fish from - certainly not the pond! ( remember the cod stocks!). And as for suggesting that we look at South America for bad fisheries management - again look at where the catch goes. It is known that upwards of 67% of the tuna fleet catch goes to the US, OVER 71% of the billfish catch and over 80% of the crustacean catch is destined for the US market.

Sorry if this seems rather harsh but I am immensely p**sed off that my kids will probably never catch a broadbill in their home waters due to the greed of a population a few thousand miles away.

Finally, perhaps the reason the UK has good carp fishing is because they don't kill them! Consider your children / grandchildren next time someone wants to boat any fish, particularly a billfish.

Flame away, I'm off for a cold one.

[Scotty T]

Well said Fin-S, good post mate.

 

Scotty

[Broadbill]

Fin-S,

First you probably shouldn't bash our angling techniques as I wouldn't yours until you've seen them. Second, I'm not sure where your statistics come from. 67% of the tuna catch to the U.S.??? What about Japan. 80% of the worlds crustacean catch to the U.S.?? Pretty sure we catch plenty of shrimp in the gulf and a crab or two out of Alaska. No wonder we have so many fat girls over here we eat all of our fish and crustaceans and then all of the rest of the worlds.

p.s. Sharks suck!!! and they taste like chicken!!

[n4lly]

Funny that, read Broadbill's post and agreed,

then read Fin-s post and also agreed, Funny that.

[Scotty T]

Hilarious

[Ron@.38 Special]

OK, I'll try again to respond to some of the info in this thread.

 

First, Swordfishing has always been a traditional commercial fishery. These are not billfish, they are quite different in many ways. Swordfish produce many more eggs in a season than any billfish and as such are able to commercially exploited in ways that billfsih could never be.

 

Its great to see that your group is committed to C & R and most US anglers are also. In fact, we are limited to 250 marlin kills per year and that includes a traditional handline fishery for food in the Puerto Rico area where most of the recreational take comes from. We agreed to that limit to get concessions at ICCAT from other countries to promote catch and release of billfish which are bycatch of the longline industry. Longlines are where most of the North Atlantic kill comes from.

 

South Florida anglers fought for and ultimately won a closure of the Straits of Florida to all longline fishing. This has helped not only thw swordfish population but more importantly the billfishery. We release 99% of all sailfish, and marlin. We will soon be restricted to circle hooks only in the billfishery, and will be prohibited from killing any white marlin.

 

We are the most proactive country in the world when it comes to protecting billfish. No other member country of ICCAT has promoted billfish preservation like the US. We lead at ICCAT, and the entire world. Most third world fisheries for recreational anglers in this hemisphere were changed to a catch an release fishery for billfish by US lead and commitment. No other country has stepped up to the plate like th US has in this arena.

 

Our swordfish population in the North Atlantic is at somewhere between 90 and 110% of MSY meaning we are at a population level which can support the current effort and catch of swordfish. Compare that to 19% for white marlin, and maybe 35% for blue marlin. BYW, the low numbers for marlin are due soley to bycatch by the commercial longline fleet while fishing for swords or tuna.

 

It is estimated that the recreational fishery wil take something like 50 tons of the allowable 2000 tons of swordfish allocated to the US fleet. We are something like 27% stakeholders in the North Atlatic Swordfishery compared to Spain and Japan as largest stake holders.

 

Our recreational swordfishery selectively takes the medium fish leaving the smaller fish to grow and reproduce, and the larger breeders mostly get away from rod and reel anglers. We are a very environmentally friendly fishery compared to most.

 

We also have a commercial handgear fishery in this area which also takes a small percentage of the US catch.

 

As for releasing a 500# fish: Most rod and reel caught swords over about 300#'s fight until death. We have fought a 322#er for over 9 hours one night last year and that fish could not have been released sicne if came to the boat dead after a great battle. These fish pull hard in this hot water but die quickly when they deplete their oxygen levels. In most cases, release of large swords is not an option. That may be different in colder waters but it doesn't work here.

 

As far as posts here suggesting that the fish could have bee restrained in less time, we fought a 275#er two day ago with 38#'s of drag and it still pulled for nearly two hours.

 

I agree that 350#'s of steaks from a 500# fish is a lot of fish, but I understand that it was spread around between several anglers. Still a lot of fish, but not wasted.

 

Please look at this fishery for what it is, and respect the right of a recreational angler to kill a swordfish while the foreign longline fleet takes over 14,000 metric tons of fish annually from the North Atlantic.

[Warrior]

WOW!