I’m honored to get invited every August to give a presentation to a group of kids in grades 5-10 through the IGFA’s Reel Into Fishing program. Held in conjunction with the Rutgers Cooperative Extension, these clinics are designed to introduce young people to fisheries management, environmental science, fish biology, and fishing techniques in a classroom environment, capped by a day of head boat fishing and fish tagging with the American Littoral Society.
Obviously, when you have a couple of dozen young anglers, fishing on a small center console or six-pack charter isn’t practical. Thus, a larger multi-passenger vessel like a party boat is the only option for big groups, as well as individuals. As I explain to these kids from Ocean, Burlington and Atlantic counties every summer, it’s like taking the bus to school; in terms of mass transit, a head boat is the fishing equivalent of a bus or train.
So, carrying a large group of like-minded individuals from point A to point B in the most economically efficient fashion, a party boat – like a New Jersey transit bus – is ideal. For individuals coming from out of state, or from urban areas, a head boat provides anglers of various economic means access to coastal fisheries. Of course, if you have the cash, and a smaller group, an Uber or limo (charter boat) is a great way to travel if you don’t own your own car (or boat).
During the public striper hearings, I heard a lot of anti-industry rhetoric from folks arguing that for-hire boats – head boats in particular – should be designated as commercial because they make money on the fish. Actually, for-hire captains make money on recreational fishermen, same as light tackle guides, bait shops, tackle manufacturers, and marinas. These customers are anglers, and they have a right to access a sustainable fishery, whether they choose to keep a fish for the table or not.
Our nation’s federal fisheries law – the Magnuson Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act – defines “recreational fishing” as fishing for sport or pleasure, whereas “commercial fishing” is when “fish harvested, either in whole or in part, are intended to enter commerce or enter commerce through sale, barter or trade.” As for “charter fishing” existing federal law defines it as “fishing from a vessel carrying a passenger for hire who is engaged in recreational fishing.” You have to sell fish to be considered commercial; selling an actual fishing trip is, by law, recreational.
Folks who wish to redefine who and what constitutes recreational fishing would first have to change longstanding federal law. Legally, passengers aboard for-hire boats are anglers, and they’re engaged in recreational fishing. And whether or not a licensed captain refers to himself or herself as a guide, a charter captain or the skipper of a head boat, those who pay to fish for “sport or pleasure” are all the same in the eyes of federal law, even if some would eye up other anglers just because of their mode of transportation.
During the ongoing striper debate, I also saw a lot of anger and hostility directed towards anglers who keep fish. I would note that the “subsistence” fisherman is also part of the lawfully defined “recreational fishing” community, as is any angler who chooses to sustainably harvest a fish during sport or pleasure trips. Natural Resource, by legal definition, includes “materials or substances such as minerals, forests, water, and fertile land that occur in nature and can be used for economic gain.” Thus, if you don’t have harvest or extraction, it’s no longer considered a resource, nor is it technically a fishery.
Like it or not, the backbone of our federal fisheries law is sustainable access to a natural resource for the good of a national economy. Tread carefully along that slippery ideological slope my friends; if you slip, then we all may fall.
