Blog - ASGA Recap - Bluefin Tuna — Tightlined Conservation Coalition

ASGA 2020 RECAP / UPDATE - Bluefin tuna

February 7, 2020

The American Saltwater Guides Association held its Annual Board Meeting at The Fly Fishing Show in Edison, NJ on January 25.

At the end of the meeting, the ASGA held a public session, during which policy updates were presented, outlining the current status of management around fisheries and species that the organization (and that we at Tightlined) are focused on, including some general outlook as to what we might run into in the coming year.

Here’s the update on Bluefin Tuna.

Before we get into that, however, these recent videos from North Carolina of giant bluefins herding up and smashing big bluefish is just too cool to not include here.

With that, the status of the stock is that overfishing is not occurring, and they have been rebuilding on a fairly steep level since 2009. The studies say this and John McMurray has seen more and more fish spread out over a wider area over the past decade, so there’s first-hand observation supporting the rebuild.

With that in mind, Bluefin are a tough fish to truly understand given their wide-range and different recruitment scenarios. For a bit of background, it’s believed that the bluefin that appear off the coast of the Northeast are actually a mixture of fish that spawn in the Gulf of Mexico and those that spawn in the Mediterranean.

The belief and goal is to get back to historical levels of the bluefin stock, and they’re being managed to do so, however there are concerns about whether things like bait concentrations and carrying capacity that might prevent us from reaching it. That said, the management plan is conservative, and their rebound is further proof that science-based management works, even when dealing with a slow-growing, long-lived fishery.

While things are working, we’re not there yet. The species is not yet rebuilt, and there have been a few very recent changes that pull back some protections for them, which we covered in the January 29 WWRT. There are a few areas where longlining has been closed for about 30 years – including from the middle of the New Jersey Coast out to Georges Bank. What was announced a few weeks ago is that an Environmental Impact Statement has been filed to consider reopening that area to longlining moving forward. While you cannot target bluefin in that area, there are generally a lot of fish there, and bycatch numbers will likely be considerable. In addition, they’ll be lifting a gear-restriction off Cape Hatteras (which will have less of an impact b/c some boats have been able to fish there historically anyway), and also considering the reopening of restricted areas in the Gulf of Mexico.

Generally, any reduction in protection while a fish is still in rebuilding mode is not good, and the Gulf of Mexico is a critical area for spawning bluefin, so this is not a good development. Unfortunately, it sounds like it might be pretty much a done deal.

Overall, these fish are rebuilding, and they’re awesome. We’re all hopeful that lifting these restrictions won’t have a major impact and we continue to see more fish across a wider range moving forward.