41 



revised it downward recently to 15 percent and tacked that on to 

 the fishing mortaUty for recreational fisheries. 



The only basis for the commercial quota is on landings. There is 

 no consideration of fish dumped overboard or killed in other fishing 

 operations, shrimp trawls, whatever, it is just pure landings. It is 

 a totally antiquated way of doing things, totally unfair, and will not 

 solve the problem. 



Mr. Saxton. Let me interrupt you for just one minute. I don't 

 know this aspect but let me ask Karter, do commercial fishermen 

 have a directed fishery on bluefish today? 



Mr. Larson. There is a point in the summertime where they go 

 out for bluefish but like you said if price drives everything, there 

 is no reason to catch them. If they are not going to make a living 

 doing it, they are not going to. However, if they do make a good 

 living catching bluefish. 



Mr. Saxton. Do they make a living at 37-cents per pound. 



Mr. Larson. That doesn't sound very good to me. 



Mr. Saxton. It doesn't sound very good to me either. I just can't 

 imagine firing up your boat for 37 cents a pound. 



Mr. Larson. If you are going to go low price, then it is going to 

 be high volume like the dogfish. 



Mr. Saxton. So what do you do with high volume bluefish? What 

 is the market? 



Mr. Larson. Low. 



Mr. Saxton. Supermarkets, human consumption, cat food, proc- 

 essors? 



Mr. Larson. I don't know. It is my favorite fish so I always eat 

 it. 



Mr. Saxton. Yes, Tom. 



Mr. FOTE. Just to follow-up, in our state there has been always 

 a directed fishery for bluefish on a small scale because of the mar- 

 ket as a whole. Point Pleasant Co-op, Barnegat Light, and they ba- 

 sically will direct at certain periods of time because they can get 

 a good price. 



What you find up in other areas like in Maine where people don't 

 want to eat bluefish, they go for bait for other things like lobster 

 bait which has been discussed in the Atlantic States Marine Fish- 

 eries Commission and we need to find out how much is going for 

 lobster bait. Those parts of the fishery are there. 



But here you usually get a good price and at 37 cents per pound 

 if you can make a big enough catch and the market will bear it and 

 give you 37 cents, if you are just running out of Barnegat Light 

 and netting on Long Island Beach State Park, that will make a 

 good pay day for you and so yes, it is important to the commercial 

 fisherman and the recreational fisherman. They need that fish. It 

 is needed to provide an income in this area. 



We talk about the stocks going up and down and whether it is 

 cyclical or not. I listen to striped bass being blamed for a lot of 

 things and I think of the story I was reading about the Potomac 

 River and where we had 427 million river herring caught one year, 

 something like 27 million shad and the average for the whole thing 

 was 450 striped bass at the average weight of 60 pounds and that 

 was 1832. By the 1900's we had to build all those hatcheries. They 



