Email to Prawn Industry Caucus, Feb 9, 2001
Jim Morrison - Shellfish Management Biologist

A number of changes are planned in this year’s commercial fishery:

1. The Department will no longer collect management fees in addition to licence (access) fees, during licence renewal. This was formerly $1470. Access fees remain at $320.
2. The licence holder will be responsible for making arrangements with an industry service provider, for trap tags, for vessel fishing location hails, and for the sampling of spawner index information in-season on the fishing grounds. The licence holder is required to provide a letter to the Department indicating that such arrangements have been made, when applying for licence renewal.
3. Trap tags are only available from an industry service provider. The Department will no longer issue them, and will not issue replacement tags.
4. The 1-800-990-6692 hail line will no longer be in service. Vessel masters shall arrange with an industry service provider for fishing vessel location information to be provided to a Department database by means of an internet page.
5. Fishers may fish 500 traps on 10 strings if they stack two trap allocations on one vessel for the fishing season, except in Special Management Areas where they may fish 250 traps on five strings. The Special Management Areas are Saanich Inlet, Alberni Canal, Howe Sound/Indian Arm and Salmon/Sechelt Inlets. Single licence trap allocations remain unchanged at 300 traps on six strings in general, and 150 traps on three strings in Special Management Areas.
6. There is no area licensing this year. Area licencing last year was part of a one year pilot program in the 2000 fishery, only.

 The following conditions will apply if an industry – DFO collaborative agreement is established prior to the 2001 fishing season:

7. Gear may be hauled only once per day, coast wide. This applies to all parts of the gear, including floats and lines. This condition applies whether or not gear is hung up on the bottom. Gear may not be handled, then revisited later that same day.
8. Gear may only be hauled or handled between 0700 and 1900, daily.
9. The latitude and longitude of a string of gear shall be entered on the logbook, and the time at which the gear was hauled shall be entered on the logbook in the comments column, within 30 minutes of completion of hauling of that gear. This shall occur prior to commencement of hauling of another string of gear.
10. Logbook catch data shall be recorded on a string by string basis, to comply with requirements for lat/long positional information and for recording of haul time.
11. Closures will take effect at 19:00 hours local time, unless otherwise announced. Holding cages may not be hung on the same line as trap gear. Holding cages may be visited on more than one occasion daily, and outside of the specified daily hauling hours.

The commercial fishery is planned to open May 1.

As a result of changes in the way that the Department receives funds to support in-season management and stock assessment, the Department is negotiating a collaborative agreement with an association representing commercial licence holders. Some of the changes which industry representatives have requested to limit gear hauling to once per day coast wide, can only be implemented if additional funds are provided to the Department. As well, without the additional support provided by a collaborative agreement, it is anticipated that the fishery may only last 30 days. If funding is provided, a regular season of 75 to 85 days is expected.

A change is also under review for the recreational harvest of prawns. At present, fishing 2 or more recreational traps on a single bottom line requires that a buoy be attached to each end of the bottom line. It is proposed that in the case of two traps, only one buoy will be required in future. It has been noted that the use of two buoys and buoy lines on a two trap "string" usually results in the buoy lines being tangled and difficult to recover.

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