Big Game Fishing Journal

    I know what you’re thinking. “Who is this chick whose photo is at the top of the page here? And what the heck happened to Capt. Len?”
    (OK, maybe you’re not using the word “chick.” But I digress.)
    If you missed last month’s issue of the Journal, Capt. Len wrote that Hurricane Sandy convinced him it was time to step back and enjoy life now.
    Retirement is not an easy decision for anyone to make, but faced with significant damage to the Journal’s offices and the work it would take to get back into production, Capt. Len decided now was the time; but he didn’t want to shut down the Journal.
    “We are the only magazine voice out there fighting for the fishermen,” he said to me in late December. “I don’t want that to go away.”
    Capt. Len and I have known each other for nearly a dozen years. I first met him in Cape May, standing under the tent at the Mid-Atlantic $500,000.
    I was covering the tournament for the Asbury Park Press, something not many newspapers were doing at that time, writing articles nightly on a portable word processor. I was new to the big game tournament scene, and Capt. Len took an enthusiastic 33-year-old under his wing, sharing his phone line so I could file my stories (wireless computers were still more than five years off at that point) and sharing his knowledge.
    We became good friends over the course of my annual trips to Cape May, and soon came to understand we had a shared opinion on the state of fisheries management -- though mismanagement might be a more accurate term for it.
    In December, however, I got a note from him.
    “Call me. It’s urgent.”
    I called him a day or so later, and he told me of his decision to retire, but how he wanted the magazine to continue and flourish. But they needed an editor, and he thought I would be a good choice. Needless to say, I was honored by his faith in me.
    After a few conversations with Ken, Linda and Steve, I was jumping in with both feet.
    I have a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Michigan State and spent nearly 20 years as a reporter and editor at the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey. In 1999, I made my first casts into the world of saltwater fishing and it wasn’t long before I found myself delving into the political side of the sport. I wound up spending much of the next 10 years concentrating on fishing, becoming the full-time editor of Hook, Line & Sinker, a weekly fishing section in the Press, in 2003, and moving to The Fisherman magazine’s New Jersey edition as editor in 2007. I left The Fisherman in May 2011 to pursue freelancing, but always kept an eye on what was happening in the fishing world.
    That includes the devastation of our New England fishery by the failed catch share policies of Jane Lubchenco, and the continual attacks on fishing by the Pew Environment Trust and other non-governmental organizations who claim they care about protecting the future of the fishery while they line their pockets with funds contributed by well-meaning citizens who are misled into believing the ocean is nearly empty of fish.
    Lubchenco may be gone from NOAA, but the impacts of her failures will be felt for years to come, especially since the Obama administration shows a complete lack of urgency when it comes to helping those devastated.
    Richard Gaines of the Gloucester Times in Massachusetts notes an emergency fisheries disaster declaration was issued last September, nearly a year after states impacted by the New England groundfish fishery requested it.
    The declaration should have cleared the way for money to be appropriated to help those impacted.
    It’s been nearly eight months since that declaration, and there still isn’t a dime being invested by the federal government to help. Money -- $150 million -- added into the bill to provide relief to the victims of Hurricane Sandy was cut out during the absurdly partisan battle over the bill that punished the victims of Sandy by dragging out the relief efforts. But neither the Obama administration nor Congress has done anything to get the financial aid ball rolling again.
    Instead, they’re content to sit by and watch as more and more small, family fishing businesses close up shop and more jobs are lost.
    While the Obama administration and most of Congress sit idly by, the Pew Environmental Trust has ramped up its attacks on the New England fishery, starting a petition drive to stop an attempt change some of the protected areas of the New England groundfish fishery. A proposal under consideration by the New England Fishery Management Council would reopen some areas that have been closed to fishing and has the support of the council’s Science and Statistical Committee, which undertook a detailed analysis of the proposal before supporting the move.
    Anyone who has spent any time following the management council process will tell you that the Science and Statistical Committees do nothing these days without cautiously considering every possible impact. The SSCs routinely turn a deaf ear to the urgings of fishermen seeking increased access, even when it appears the SSC’s very own information shows increasing access wouldn’t be harmful.
    Pew and its many anti-fishing brethren routinely hold up the SSC decisions as well-thought science-based decisions when those decisions favor taking access away from fishermen.
    Now, however, because an SSC is actually saying, “Yes, this access can be granted,” even though that determination is based on a careful, scientific analysis, Pew is attacking it.
    That, my friends, is the very definition of hypocrisy. Not that any of us should be surprised by that after all that’s occurred in the last 25 years in fisheries management.
    Just another tactic to delay help for people whose only desire is to make a living doing what they love, and further destroy an industry that is an integral part of the fabric of American history.
    We must keep standing up to the tyranny Pew would try to impose on our fishing. It’s our only hope.
    You can be sure of one thing: The Journal will continue to fight for fishermen. Capt. Len promised that, and I will carry out that promise. Not because I was asked to do so, but because you deserve that voice fighting for your rights.
    And I have always believed that.


Karen Wall