40 



through by the ASMFC in a vote which, by the way, totally dis- 

 regarded the public process. 



Mr. Saxton. Let me just make sure that we explore this point 

 to the extent possible. You would agree then there is a book that 

 has been written by a gentleman by the name of John Hersey who 

 published the book in 1987 and it is called "Blues" and he notes 

 that boom and bust cycles have been observed in Atlantic Coast 

 bluefish since pre-Revolutionary times and that those cycles run 

 opposite to those observed in striped bass. 



Mr. BOGAN. That's correct. 



Mr. Saxton. Would you agree with that sentence? 



Mr. BOGAN. Absolutely, and I think it is proven. We only have 

 data that is scientifically verifiable as of, I think it is 1918 or 1919, 

 somewhere around there, where it is verifiable and those cycles are 

 confirmed. 



As to the striped bass issue, again, I want to emphasize that our 

 opinion is that we do not believe that the striped bass situation is 

 as much them preying upon juvenile bluefish, even though that is 

 obviously a significant factor, but what we think is most significant 

 is the competition for the bait source. The only fish that you can 

 think of that is half as voracious for its size to a bluefish is a 

 striped bass and our folks who have for years been on the sea have 

 seen this. 



Mr. Saxton. Let me see if we can get the opposite side of this. 

 Gil, would you like to address this? You are an advocate of greater 

 controls vis-a-vis recreational and commercial fishing, is that true? 



Mr. Radonski. Well, not quite. I am for rebuilding the stocks and 

 I felt for a long time that bluefish are cyclical. I think it is almost 

 impossible to deny that fact. My question is how far are we going 

 to push that cycle and still get a recovery. Overfishing is a factor. 

 We have tremendous pressure. 



I made a comment before about the commercial catch being rath- 

 er stable. It has declined somewhat because of the quotas, the 

 numbers have gone down. When I was on the Mid-Atlantic Council 

 the commercial fishing industry came before us and testified that 

 there is a very minuscule amount of directed fishery for bluefish. 

 The bluefish commercial catch is largely an indirect catch. They are 

 fishing for other species and catch bluefish. 



The reason that it has remained fairly stable is because you can 

 overload the market very quickly and drive down the price to the 

 point that it is not even worth bringing the bluefish in. So, you 

 can't look at the commercial catch being flat as an indication of 

 abundance. It is a condition of market and market price. 



That is what drives the bluefish commercial catch and I would 

 like to see the allocation process changed from the present system 

 where it is based on recreational catch, that triggers the commer- 

 cial quota, to one of fishing mortality. It would still be an alloca- 

 tion, you can't get away from allocation, it is allocation based on 

 historical harvest levels and would be based on mortality not catch. 



For example, I mentioned that recreational fishermen are pun- 

 ished for conservation. That is because up until this year when 

 they revised it downward, they assumed that 30 percent of all blue- 

 fish caught and released by recreational fishermen would die. They 



