Amendment 13 Road Trip (9/15)

[flatts1]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As you all know by now there is a very important public hearing scheduled for this upcoming Monday (9/15) in Hyannis at 7:00pm. This meeting relates to ground fishing here in New England. I expect the issue of federal recreational permits to be addressed there as well.

MSBA President, Patrick Paquette, and I thought it might be helpful if we arranged a car pool from the Viking Club in Braintree. For those interested, we will be meeting at the Viking Club at 5:00pm and we will probably return sometime before 11:00pm.

Please reply to mikef@basspond.com if you intend on car pooling so that we will have some idea on how many folks to expect. This offer is for MSBA members AND non-members alike. If you are concerned about fishing for cod or haddock, then I urge all who can to attend.

Finally, many of us fought hard behind the scenes to get this time slot so that recreational voices may be heard. If we don't turn out in large numbers then we may not be afforded this opportunity again in the future for other fishery matters that you may be more interested in, take striped bass fishing in the EEZ for example.

See You There,
Mike Flaherty

[flatts1]

Just a reminder.

[flatts1]

I'm not sure if anyone on this forum is intersted in groundfish but this is a summary of last night's meeting.

Without going into too much detail, I'm happy to report that the recreational turnout was rather decent at last night's meeting in Hyannis. I estimate that there were a total 25 people in the room. Of that 25, 10 were recreational fishermen. The rest were largely (if not all) charter boat captains.

The great thing is it didn't matter what group you may have been a part of because the message was unanimous by ALL.

1) SUPPORT Option 3 for recreational anglers.
2) DO NOT implement a permit for groundfish {1 person specified permits OK so long as no cost}
3) Level 1 closures (permanent no fishing zones for all species) are unacceptable.

For what it's worth, of the 10 recreational attendees, at least 7 were members of the Massachusetts Striped Bass Association.

Best,
Mike Flaherty
Proud Member of MSBA

[kwakr]

Thanks for the update and for attending the meeting.