Releases – June 30, 2011
Returning to the Beaufort town docks for the eighth consecutive year, the Barta Boys and Girls Club Billfish Tournament is offering even more ways for participants to enjoy some friendly competition and raise money for the Boys and Girls Club of Coastal Carolina. This year the event dates are July 14-16.
The event’s Inshore Tournament is new this year, and it will award trophies to the five heaviest spanish mackerel and bluefish, as well as the largest pinfish weighed in.
In a meeting earlier this year, the event’s Board of Directors decided to add the inshore division to the event’s offshore billfish and meatfish leaderboard to open participation in the event to anglers and families without access to large boats (with equally large fuel bills).
“Let’s face it, billfishing is an expensive sport,” Tournament Director Cynthia Barber explained. “This is a family tournament, and that goes against our core values. We want everyone to be able to participate.”
Along with the fishing competition, the $350 entry into the Inshore Tournament will provide participants with all the amenities enjoyed by the boats fishing the offshore side, including a Captain’s Bag and a quartet of tickets to each of the event’s three catered dinners and open bars.
The Offshore Tournament remains unchanged, awarding prizes for billfish release points, and leaderboards for dolphin, tuna, wahoo, and king mackerel. As a fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club, the event strongly encourages participation by Junior Anglers, rewarding all who catch a fish during the event with a trophy.
Tournament namesake and television personality Tred Barta will be aboard boats fishing both divisions of the event, one day inshore and one day off.
In addition to providing a great experience on and off the water for families and children, the Barta Billfish Tournament’s main reason for existence is to generate proceeds for the Boys and Girls Club of Coastal Carolina, and the event has succeeded heartily in that regard, donating over $600,000 to the organization over the past seven years.
“A lot of that money comes from the raffle and silent acution,” Barber continued. “So in order to keep it up, we need people to come out for them on Friday.”
More information and online registration for the Barta Billfish Tournament can be found at www.bartabillfish.com.
The N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries is accepting proposals for the Boating Infrastructure Grant, or BIG, Program for federal fiscal year 2012. BIG is a grant program of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that reimburses up to 75 percent of costs for projects that construct, renovate, or maintain tie-up facilities and related amenities for recreational transient vessels that are at least 26 feet long.
It was authorized by Congress in 1998 and is funded by excise taxes on fishing equipment and motorboat fuel. The division serves as the liaison between projects in North Carolina and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the BIG Program.
Proposals must be submitted to the division to be considered for this funding opportunity. Some examples of potentially eligible activities include transient slips, mooring buoys, day-docks, safe harbor facilities (including temporary safe anchorage or a harbor of refuge during a storm), floating and fixed piers and breakwaters, dinghy docks, restrooms, retaining walls, bulkheads, dockside utilities (water, electric, telephone, Internet), sewage pumpout stations, recycling and trash receptacles, one-time dredging, navigational aids, and marine fueling stations.
BIG funds are distributed each year. Grants are available on a two-tiered basis. For Tier 1 grants, all states may receive up to $100,000 per grant cycle as long as proposals meet the program’s guidelines. Tier 2 grants are reserved for large-scale, more expensive undertakings and are awarded on a nationwide competitive basis.
For information about grant availability, project eligibility, and proposal development, please visit the division’s website at www.ncdmf.net/grants/index-grants.html or contact Kelly Price, Federal Aid Coordinator for the division, at P.O. Box 769, Morehead City, N.C. 28557-0769.
You may also contact Price at (252) 808-8168 or (800) 682-2632 (in North Carolina only) or by e-mail at Kelly.Price@ncdenr.gov.
The deadline for applications to be received by the division is Aug. 5. Electronic submission is preferred.
A bill introduced by Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA) seeks to ensure that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Marine Fisheries Service is required to set catch limits based on sound science. The bi-partisan legislation, known as the Fishery Science Improvement Act (FSIA), is endorsed by the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus as well as a broad coalition of conservation, sportfishing and marine industry groups.
Original co-sponsors of H.R. 2304 include Rep. Wittman’s colleagues Reps. Mike Ross (D-AR); Jeff Miller (R-FL); Heath Shuler (D-NC); Bob Latta (R-OH); Jo Bonner (R-AL.); Dan Boren (D-OK); Charles Boustany (R-LA); Bill Cassidy (R-LA); Jeff Duncan (R-SC); John Fleming (R-LA); Frank Guinta (R-NH); Andy Harris (R-MD); Martin Heinrich (D-NM); Duncan Hunter (R-CA); Jeff Landry (R-LA); Scott Rigell (R-VA); and Steve Southerland (R-FL).
“We applaud the vision and leadership of Mr. Wittman and the other FSIA co-sponsors,” said Congressional Sportsman’s Foundation President Jeff Crane. “The sportfishing community is facing an unacceptable situation in which arbitrary deadlines are being allowed to trump the essential need for science-based management of our marine resources. We are grateful to Mr. Wittman and his colleagues for identifying the problem we have in federal saltwater fisheries and taking action on this issue.”
As amended in 2006, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA) requires Regional Fishery Management Councils to put in place annual catch limits (ACLs) and accountability measures (AMs) for every fishery by December 31, 2011. The requirements were intended to end overfishing by 2011 but were predicated on two critical assumptions: NOAA Fisheries would make decisions based on up-to-date and accurate stock assessments; and the agency would improve catch data to better anticipate potential problems in a given fishery. Neither of these obligations has been met.
To maintain the conservation tenets of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, FSIA would not apply to stocks that are determined to be overfished. However, it offers three key components that are intended to steer NOAA Fisheries back to the true intention of the 2006 MSA reauthorization:
If the agency has not done a stock assessment on a particular stock in the last five years, and there is no indication that overfishing is occurring, an annual catch limit on that stock is not required.
FSIA gives NOAA Fisheries three years to work with the regional councils to figure out how to implement science-based measures that are appropriate for each region and its fisheries.
To avoid removing fish species from management entirely due to lack of data, NOAA Fisheries is currently designating a limited number of such stocks as “ecosystem components,” allowing the continued federal management of the stock without the requirement to implement an annual catch limit or accountability measure. FSIA codifies the agency’s designation and expands the universe of stocks protected in this category.
The federal government currently has approximately 528 fish stocks or complexes of stocks under management, and only 110 of those stocks are considered “adequately assessed.” If the agency does not have the data to even guesstimate an annual catch limit for some species, there is currently an option for the agency to simply remove those stocks from all management protections, which is not a desirable result. H.R. 2304 provides a timely path for NOAA Fisheries to manage all of America’s marine fish stocks based on sound scientific data.
The Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus—the largest bi-partisan, bi-cameral caucus in the U.S. Congress with nearly 300 Members representing all 50 states—has lent its powerful voice for this legislation that will safeguard the strong conservation standards of the Magnuson-Stevens Act while addressing the shortcomings within NOAA Fisheries.
The bill also has the support of American Sportfishing Association (ASA), Center for Coastal Conservation (Center), Coastal Conservation Association (CCA), Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF), International Game Fish Association (IGFA), National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) and The Billfish Foundation (TBF).
