BajaNomad - Nets off of coast north of Ensenada

Nets off of coast north of Ensenada

Timbercrete - 4-15-2006 at 10:55 AM

While traveling both north and south on MX highway 1 last week, I noticed what appeared to be floating circular nets off the coast just north of Ensenada. The looked to be in the same configuration several days apart. Does anyone know the story on them? :?:

jerry - 4-15-2006 at 10:59 AM

aqua culture there raising fish
have a good one jerry

DanO - 4-15-2006 at 11:08 AM

Yep, tuna. Most of it goes to Japan. There were two of those pens down off of Puerto Santo Tomas, but the huge storms last year took them out.

Tomas Tierra - 4-15-2006 at 11:11 AM

Blue Fin, and yellow fin tuna...They wrap em out at sea, drag them in to the Salsipuedes area, put them in the circular pens, then feed them rediculous amounts of sardines to fatten them up. then sell em to the Japanese.

Kind of like wild fish farming..no bueno in my book!

jerry - 4-15-2006 at 11:27 AM

its everywhere its everywhere

DanO - 4-15-2006 at 12:07 PM

Blame the Australians. It started there.

Tomas Tierra - 4-15-2006 at 01:07 PM

yeah the greeks I think..they cut off some sort of shallow water migration route of the giant blue fin, and ran them through a net maze and into traps.. Wild fish though, not farmed
I saw a documentary on that..centuries old technique

Farm, what farm?

Sharksbaja - 4-15-2006 at 01:20 PM

It certainly is not a fish farm.

Same as fattening pigs in a pen. Only with pigs they are raised in captivity from birth. Gathering up wild tuna off Mexicos' coast and using huge amounts of gathered baitfish to fatten them up will inevitably have a negative effect on the whole fishery. Probably globally.

I counted 20 last trip off Ensenada. That's a huge increase from what I saw 3 mo earlier.
Mexico should think twice about selling off their resources to the best bidder. Can't they learn they can exploit the ocean themselves w/o Asias' help? :wow:

Tomas Tierra - 4-15-2006 at 01:34 PM

"Farmed"

I used the term loosely..You are corect Sharks,not a farm..Are they giving those fish juices up pellets as well,do you know??ie hormones, antbio's etc.

That's a good question Tom

Sharksbaja - 4-15-2006 at 01:50 PM

DanO - 4-15-2006 at 02:13 PM

This particular version of raising tuna in pens for slaughter was first implemented in Australia. In any event, here's what Wikipedia says about the reason for the existence of the Ensenada operations:

"More than 90 species are commercially fished in Ensenada, the most important of which are tuna, shrimp, lobster, abalone, sea urchin, sardine, mackerel and seaweed. A large percentage of all catches are exported to the Far East.

A tuna embargo imposed on Mexico during the 1990s caused most of the fishing fleet to relocate to the southern Mexican ports of Guaymas and Mazatl?n. In order to survive, Ensenada's tuna industry has shifted its focus to tuna farming, exporting the highly valued meat exclusively to Japan."

Here's a detailed piece on the guy behind the Ensenada operations:

http://www.baja-web.com/punta-banda/tuna.html

And here's an article about plans to implement these pens in U.S. waters:

http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040927/pf/431502a_pf.html

Subject thoroughly discussed last year!

thebajarunner - 4-15-2006 at 03:27 PM

http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=10163#pid7873...

Biz as usual

Sharksbaja - 4-15-2006 at 03:34 PM

The spill-over ramifications are years down the road. Or are they? The US gov ( and greedy oil corps) with it's infinite wisdom wholeheartedly support the effort to make money selling fish.
IMHO it won't be disease that topples this industry. It will be the upstream tuna harvesters that will determine how many go as ar north as Sta. Barbara. But if they succeed , well I guess that puts Oregon downsteam.
The usual thing happens to this natural, and I mean natural, resource. You can take it away but without smart management, the resource will disappear. When you think about the high demand and cash made by taking something wild and not replacing or otherwise protecting current and future populations well.... On the other hand, we have failed miserably at saving Salmon stocks. Five yrs ago everyone was patting themselves on the back. OOP!
Blame the Sea Lions. Yes, they ARE part of the problem we created. OOP!

Don't we ever learn? :?:

jerry - 4-15-2006 at 04:00 PM

environmental watchdogs, such as the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, based in Minnesota, continue to argue that these dreams of economic success court environmental trouble. If others make money out of such farms, they point out, perhaps this is because of lax rules that allow for short cuts in their management ? which is precisely the sort of situation that creates environmental fall-out.

so in this light if you dream of success the so called environmentalists will target you as anti enviromental but not with facts but with the lack of facts

crappola it all because that where the moneys at and it give the inviromentalist creedence in the eyes of the populas on the surface but more inportant cash to run their non profit origanization that the lawyer and adminastration stuff there pockets from
if the same logic was applyed to the origanazation that made this statment the organazation should not exist
just my thoughts jerry

When oil concerns

Sharksbaja - 4-15-2006 at 05:54 PM

trump the concerns of ANY industry it signals (to me anyway) that somehow they stand to make big profits. Afterall :lol:

they wouldn't invest in something that they wouldn't benefit from. They are the masters of profit.

As far as environmental issues go......

Fish farming and other aquaculture has been fraught with eco probs. The huge shrimp plants in Thailand, Indonesia and throughout the wolrd have left a legacy of damage.
This is not to say they are not necessary and can be appropriately modified as most eventually will be. That is not rocket science. Forecasting wild fish stocks is.

Of course this newer method is at a loss for data.

The point I am trying to make are the ramifications behind harvesting these types of pelagic species. Sure it can be shown as a sound cash crop as long as they still keep coming. But how will they augment the numbers or do they just hope and pray for reproductive success by way of natures rule.
Sorta like oil..... there is a finite amount for an infinite amount of people.

Don Alley - 4-15-2006 at 07:19 PM

Another factor is the new concept of ocean zoning.

Marine Protective Areas, or no fishing zones, are a current rage worldwide. But also being promoted are areas zoned exclusively for aquaculture. The US government is considering such a plan to regulate aquaculture outside the state controlled three mile limit. It's a way to effectively privatize the ocean, which will bring all sorts of wonderful economic miracles, yada yada yada.

So from the perspective of a sportfisher, on the one side we'll have no fishing zones, on the other closed fish farms. Hope they leave something for us.

Maybe eventually some clown will license a big tuna pen and sell tickets to fishermen. :lol:

Tomas Tierra - 4-15-2006 at 08:49 PM

So all these cow yellowfin(2-300#r's) are gathered 60 or so miles off of Mag bay this year..Never been there before in these numbers,the fish to big for the commercial ffleet, or they can't find them or whatever the reason for no commercial harvest..They are being annialated by the San Diego sport fleet, to the tune of thousands of fish in the last 8 months or so....Are they there spawning there??are the sporty's messing with reproductive success by way of natures's rule?? What is someone who is not supposed to sell these going to do with a dozen of these cows??? Is this waste of the recource??

[Edited on 4-16-2006 by Tomas Tierra]

Don Alley - 4-16-2006 at 07:52 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tomas Tierra
So all these cow yellowfin(2-300#r's) are gathered 60 or so miles off of Mag bay this year..Never been there before in these numbers,the fish to big for the commercial ffleet, or they can't find them or whatever the reason for no commercial harvest..They are being annialated by the San Diego sport fleet, to the tune of thousands of fish in the last 8 months or so....Are they there spawning there??are the sporty's messing with reproductive success by way of natures's rule?? What is someone who is not supposed to sell these going to do with a dozen of these cows??? Is this waste of the recource??

[Edited on 4-16-2006 by Tomas Tierra]

A dozen per fisherman? That's a little steep, the best experienced long range fishermen may get three or four, if it's VERY good fishing. Some fishermen are lucky to get one "cow."

The frozen fish are collected at the docks by processors. You can have yours custom prepared, smoked and or canned, or trade on the spot for already processed fish.

It's tuna fish. You can it, eat it in sandwiches and stuff. It can last for years. But, yeah, I suspect some sport caught fish is wasted.

BUT:

Waste: you want to talk about waste, it's nothing compared to the waste of commercial bycatch, which can include sea turtles, salmon, rockfish, all kinds of stuff.

Commercial harvest of yellowfin tuna is done using nets, either drift gillnets, with terrible potentials for bycatch mortality, or by "wrapping" the schools in nets, ideally taking much if not all of the school. It's been very common for schools of tuna to provide sport angling for days or even weeks until the commercial boats show up, then it's all over. What they don't catch doesn't stick around.

Sport fishing: the tuna are visible either on the surface feeding or by sonar. Each fish is an individual fish caught by an individual angler amidst these large schools, and these catches make only small reductions in the schools. There are usually only about twenty anglers on these boats and they are never all hooked up to fish. These guys are very hard to catch. And, these are not spawning fish.

Yellowfin reproduce and grow very quickly, making them an ideal fish for sport and commercial harvest, with proper regulation.

The last sport season was the best ever for a sport fleet that has been targeting these fish for years, so it doesn't appear that they have overfished the resource yet.

Tomas Tierra - 4-16-2006 at 02:04 PM

"these are not spawning fish"

Not sure about that..when my buddy came back last december off the excel with eight over 190#'s. When we cut the few he brought back whole, they had Heuvos in them..
It is no doubt a fenominal cycle on those fish however..
Oh yeah and they cut off anything under 150, at the boat. Do they make it??doubt it..Couple a day got cut off, for him. for the boat, who knows?

Now my buddy is a bad a$$, and was the high liner on that rip, but, don't think there isn't damage being done.

know that I am a "commercial fisherman".Just one that is not in favor of wastefull killing..sport or commercial..

I doubt very much that rockfish or salmon are wrappedwith yellowfin

[Edited on 4-16-2006 by Tomas Tierra]

Don Alley - 4-16-2006 at 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tomas Tierra
"these are not spawning fish"

Not sure about that..when my buddy came back last december off the excel with eight over 190#'s. When we cut the few he brought back whole, they had Heuvos in them..
It is no doubt a fenominal cycle on those fish however..
Oh yeah and they cut off anything under 150, at the boat. Do they make it??doubt it..Couple a day got cut off, for him. for the boat, who knows?

Now my buddy is a bad a$$, and was the high liner on that rip, but, don't think there isn't damage being done.

know that I am a "commercial fisherman".Just one that is not in favor of wastefull killing..sport or commercial..

I doubt very much that rockfish or salmon are wrappedwith yellowfin

[Edited on 4-16-2006 by Tomas Tierra]

I know that rockfish and salmon aren't wrapped with yellowfin. They have other ways of wasting those, and many other species.

And I know of, and have been very critical, of poor sport fishing practices. And I've spent a lot of dollars, and a lot of time, with groups, meetings, boards, task forces, hearings and all that jazz to try and do something about it. But maybe since you are a commercial fisherman, you should concentate more on the problems associated with commercial fishing before you invent non-existant "problems" with a sport fishery.

Rockfish are taken as bycatch by shrimp trawlers. In some areas, such as the northern Sea of Cortez, 90% of the sea life pulled up by trawlers is wasted bycatch. Tons. And the habitat is damaged.

Currently Northern California is proposing shutting down a recreational salmon fishery that they estimate may kill hundreds of Klamath River salmon, whose population is very low due to irrigation. Yet thousands are killed as bycatch in a commercial whiting fishery. Any restrictions on THAT fishery is not even on the table.

Sardines are back off the California coast, after being absent most of my lifetime. So guess what? This important forage fish is being scooped by commercial fishermen FOR FERTILIZER! They did the same thing to the bonito and destroyed a great recreational fishery for decades.

Now I'm in Loreto and find the yellowtail bite picky-just nor that many fish. But there are commercial gill nets here, in a so-called marine park.

And there are countless examples. Even the great Atlantic cod fishery, one of the most important fisheries in history, was no match for modern commercial market fishing and corrupt government.

Hey, yeah, sport fishermen are a little hot under the collar, between environmental lobbies demanding closing the best sport fishing spots, and commercials hammering everything else.

We have some serious problems with overfishing drastically depleting fish stocks. Sport fishing of yellowfin tuna is not one of those problems.

Something will give

Sharksbaja - 4-16-2006 at 04:30 PM

Take away the baitfish, BAM there goes many fisheries. Take away broodfish, BAM, there goes the next generation(or part of).
Don, you are spot-on bout the Whiting bycatch. Our continental shelf was scraped bad with trawls here many years ago but the recovery takes maybe a hundred in cold waters. Pelagic sp. like tuna, are damaged in a different way so to speak IMHO. It is not necessarily their habitat being compromised, it's the overkill by netting. It is usually habitat distruction that has marginalized rockfish sp. although salmon do get it from both ends. Methinks the blame game is not working. The management of the oceans is something I fear has too many loop-holes, grey area and politics at work. People will b-tch when the Tuna go away. It is only a matter of time.
I don't have a solution. Iam not expert or anywhere close to it but I do feel the day to day drudgery of the industry. Afterall, all we serve is fresh local seafood. (excpt for prawns)

Tomas Tierra - 4-16-2006 at 04:41 PM

I know, I know, I'm one of "them" so I don't know caca and am a bad person in alot of peoples eyes...Do I care?NO! Do I have guilt for what I do? BIG NO! The fisheries I take part in are very clean...I dive and take exactly what i want, I fish with one hook and one line. My bi-catch consists of a few brittle stars and a few urchin shrimps, maybe a foul hooked blue bass here and there..CLEAN! yet I'm one of "them", and need to help change commercial practices.. Sorry i'm to busy trying to jump through hoops to continue what I love and make a living so I can make the odd trip to Baja with my family.
Sure,there are alot of comm. fisheries I would like to see discontinued, draggers #1! I don't know what goes on in the Sea of Cortez, i don't go there..Good luck with your efforts.
I was merely trying to bring to light something I see as possible waste of spawning fish, thats all.

Sharksbaja - 4-16-2006 at 04:56 PM

Tom, you are certainly in your rights and correct to defend yourself. However that seems totally unnecessary. I have comm friends who plead the same story. It's a legitimate scenario much like your own. We certainly care as much as you do, it's a livelyhood. One I'd hate to see disappear. The solutions are complex and evolving. Shame we just don't have a finger on it. What really bugs me though are certain lessons learned, like the sardine issue, only to give in to concerns like FERTILIZER when things get better.! :fire:

Reminds me of those old kelp-harvesters.

Tomas Tierra - 4-16-2006 at 06:32 PM

Had not heard of the fertilizer deal. Did see our harbor JUGGED with 14 inch sardines last year though. Pretty cool, we were getting 100#'s in the brailer at the slip!! Full of eggs!!Good cycle!!would hate to see them go again, but hey maybe that was a cycle to..Solo Dios Sabes..

Sorry to report, but, the kelp harvesters are at it again in recent years..Only see them at the outer islands,Nik,Clemente,Rosa,Miguel..Dreaded sight indeed!

Not sure what seems"totally unnecessary" to you?
My post was not directed at you, didn't see yours until after mine was posted..I guess you get a bit defensive when it comes from all angles all the time

Tomas Tierra - 4-16-2006 at 06:59 PM

No....we do shallow water nearshore..sheepshead primarily

[Edited on 4-17-2006 by Tomas Tierra]

Tomas Tierra - 4-16-2006 at 08:15 PM

No..They closed it(limited access), I think in '01..then only handed out a few permits based on past landings..I didn't have enough landings myself , but 2 guys I work with got them..lucky..Alot of the permits went to trap guys.now two years ago they changed the quota system to per permit quotas,2500 lbs per month.Instead of yearly quota for everyone, once its met they close the fishery(usully around august)peeed the trap guys off as they would get 2500#'s in one trip,great for us we are much smaller time on the live fish..we are primarily an urchin boat. it was a great move for the fishery I think..we may take a coupla hundred pounds of live fish off one spot and th leagal urchins, then move. the trap guys would fish a spot till they quit catching then move..plus the damage the traps do and all that..and the quota lasts all year, good for our little market here in the harbor....mandatory closure every year march/april...

[Edited on 4-17-2006 by Tomas Tierra]

Spawning tuna

BajaDanD - 4-16-2006 at 09:49 PM

OK. so how often do Yellowfin tuna spawn and how many eggs do they lay? I would like to see some data and not just hearsay. The hearsay is every 1.7 days during spawning season and 2 million eggs at a time and how many survive to reproduce. Im not taking any sides here I just want to see some data