Test turbot fishery lands large cod bycatch

By Barbara Dean-Simmons

FOR THE SOU’WESTER

N.L. fisherman Albert Johnson won't be fishing turbot any more this year.

His 45-foot fishing boat, Lucy Belle II, was one of 24 that took part in a test fishery last week to determine how much cod might be caught as bycatch in a full-fledged turbot fishery.

Of the 30,000 pounds he hauled using six-inch-mesh gill nets, Johnson caught 2,600 pounds of cod - nearly 10 per cent of his catch.

That's close to 3,200 pounds of cod allocated this year to each commercial fisherman on the North East coast.

Under Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) rules, once a fisherman lands that much cod - even if it comes aboard while they're fishing for turbot or other groundfish - they are not permitted to land any more cod.

And that means not fishing for turbot, flounder or any other groundfish, since they are pretty well guaranteed there will be cod among the catch, no matter what they're fishing.

Johnson fished for turbot in zone 3. That is an area of deeper water that extends to 120 miles offshore. Nearer to shore, the bycatches of cod are even greater.

Some of the eight fishermen who participated in the test turbot fishery close to shore - from 20 to 40 miles beyond the headlands - report up to 50 percent cod bycatch.

Bonnell Squires of Eastport, landed 22,000 pounds of cod during the one-week turbot fishery. That was about half of his total catch.

He says from some of his 50 gill nets he was getting one pan of turbot and four pans of cod.

"You're looking at about 600 pounds of cod in one net; that's phenomenal.

"I've been fishing for a long time and I've never seen the like of it in my life," he says, adding the places where he set his turbot nets are not traditional cod fishing grounds.

Like Johnson, Squires won't be allowed to fish for turbot when DFO opens it up to the entire fleet. He has his allocated cod quota for the year.

That means he will have to stay off the water.

And that's frustrating, he says.

"There's no one can tell me there's no (cod) fish. I don't believe scientists; never did and never will," he contends.

He figures there's enough codfish, at least in the inshore zones, to allow each commercial fisherman to catch 50,000 pounds.

Increasing the catch limit would then enable fishers to catch more of other species because, he says, it's pretty well impossible to avoid catching cod.

"It's littered out there; the bottom is covered with cod," says the small-boat fisherman.

Johnson agrees, saying DFO scientists are wrong in their calculations

"Whatever they're doing, it's not working," he says of the governments' estimations of fish in the water. "They're not recognizing the cod that's out there."

The rest of his five-man crew agrees.

"It's maggoty with cod," says Neal Johnson, while another crewmember says the fish are thick inshore and offshore.

"The fishermen are frustrated," says Johnson. "Even more so this year, it seems like there's more codfish around...I think they (DFO managers) know, but they are gun shy because of what happened in the past and we had the moratorium."

Cod feed off capelin, shrimp, and even small crabs. Johnson predicts if something is not soon done about the cod, other species will feel the pinch.

"If we don't start catching the cod and turbot, the crab and shrimp stocks are going to decline," he says.

Squires agrees, noting the cod they caught last week were full of shrimp.

Johnson says it's time DFO acknowledged that fishermen are right, that the cod stocks are healthy.

"There's lots of fish out there, we just can't catch it."

Be it turbot or cod, Johnson and Squires would just rather be fishing. Instead, they and their crews will wind up another season.

"That's it for use this year," says Johnson. "We'll put the nets away."

Derek Tobin, DFO staff officer for groundfish, says the department is still compiling the data from the test fishery. However, he acknowledges the data so far shows significant cod bycatches, especially in zone 1, where in some cases half the catch was cod.

During the one-week fishery, he says, fishers landed 480,000 pounds of turbot and 108,000 pounds of cod.

"So, the preliminary numbers show about a 22 percent bycatch of cod overall."

With just over 500 tonnes of turbot left in the water, the task now is for DFO to determine the rules to allow fishers to catch it, without catching too much cod. Tobin, and other DFO officials, will meet with Albert Johnson and other fishermen this week to ponder that issue.

As for whether some areas might be closed to turbot fishing, due to the risk of high cod bycatch, Tobin agrees that could happen.

"In some areas, that's a strong possibility," he says, "but we will be pursing options to allow fishers to catch the remaining 500 tonnes. The objective is to give fishers the opportunity to harvest this allocation."

(Barbara Dean-Simmons is a journalist with Transcontinental Media’s Packet newspaper, which is a contributor to the Sou’Wester.)