Coastal Conservation Association (CCA)

A Swordfish Legacy, in Real Time
The meaning of conservation becomes as clear as the night sky during a father-daughter fishing trip off Florida.

By Dr. Russell Nelson
CCA Gulf Fisheries Consultant
TIDE
Nov/Dec 2008

The December night is gentle and the clear sky is awash with stars. The Gulf Stream is in close, about 13 miles from Miami Beach. The engines on Bouncer’s Dusky are off and it is quiet as we drift across a track of seamounts and ridges about 15 miles east of the shoreline. I’m fishing with the legendary Miami Beach guide Capt. Bouncer Smith, my good friend Capt. Dan Kipnis and an eager young lady angler named Kate fresh out of the fall semester at Florida State University.

We are after swordfish.

“It used to be everyone would head out after dark and stay until early in the morning,” said Bouncer, “but you don’t need to take those long trips – the fish are here and we regularly get our fish in a three- to five-hour trip between 5 and 10 p.m..”

This is my third trip and I’ve taken fish on the first two. The swordfish grounds off south Florida are not regularly home to giants, as fish seem to average between 70 and 100 pounds. They are here in numbers, though, and the incredible resurgence of this recreational swordfish fishery has anglers traveling from around the globe for an almost sure shot at a sword. Tonight, we want to see the girl from Tallahassee try her hand.

HASN’T ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY

By the late 1980s, North Atlantic swordfish stocks were in terrible shape with scientists estimating that the population had been reduced to less than half the biomass necessary to supply maximum sustainable yield. Fishing effort from Spain, Canada and the U.S. and Japanese fleets had been increasing without bounds. While the scientific arm of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) annually pointed out that fishing mortality was too high and the catch was increasingly dominated by younger and younger fish, the Commission could not get consensus to set a quota consistent with the science.

The recreational fisheries for swordfish in the western Atlantic were basically non-existent and the traditional harpoon fishery was disappearing along with the large broadbill’s that once supported it. Domestically, an effort to enact strict conservation measures by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC) was slammed to a stop when Congress removed their authority to do so. A new special office for Atlantic Highly Migratory Species was created within the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), effectively delaying any action to protect the fish in U.S. waters. ICCAT met every year, received the grim news and recommendations for setting a quota of less than 24 million pounds, and did nothing.

“By 1990, the U.S. fleet was targeting fish further and further away and catching smaller fish. The inefficient harvest methods – recreational hook-and-line and harpooning – were all but gone,” recalled CCA General Counsel and ICCAT Recreational Commission Bob Hayes.

In the mid-1990s, even the U.S. and Japanese fleets began to acknowledge that there was a problem, having seen the unrestricted catches fall from a 1987 high of more than 44 million pounds to a little more than 30 million in a decade. As then-director of Marine Fisheries in Florida, I had served on the U.S. ICCAT Advisory Panel since its inception and had participated in the dead-end action by the SAFMC. In 1996 I, along with Bob Hayes, Dr. John Graves, Glen Delaney, Mike Nussman and other members of our delegation to ICCAT, headed for Madrid and another annual meeting.

The new Head of Delegation that year was a cagey attorney from Nashville named Will Martin. All U.S. fishing interests were in strong agreement that we had to come away with a new means of agreeing on how the swordfish catch could be distributed among nations and a quota at the level recommended by the scientific stock assessment team. NMFS had come full circle from earlier years where its advocacy for conservation at ICCAT was, in an attempt to be kind, less than forceful. We prepared for the meeting with a shared sense of purpose.

A MAULING IN MADRID

Decisions at ICCAT, like other international fisheries commissions, are made by consensus. If a single member nation disagrees, there is no action. In 1996 the challenge was not only to get a quota set, but also to formally allocate the catch among the fleets of the U.S., Spain, Japan, Canada and Portugal, with every nation but the U.S. conniving to get their share jacked up as high as possible.

The U.S. delegation had previously agreed – to the credit of our commercial fleet – to accept a small reduction from our historic share to use as a bargaining chip to get the quota in place. Halfway through the 10-day meeting no progress had been made on swordfish. Spain and Portugal were posturing over imaginary past catches that had somehow never been reported and negotiations were at a standstill. In a lull between rounds of the swordfish talks, John Graves and I were able to get the Japanese to agree to a small concession for blue and white marlin – a requirement to release all longline caught fish that remained alive at the boat – that was the first ever for billfish.

One day before adjournment, Delaney, Hayes and Martin had finally juggled all the balls in the air successfully and agreement was reached on how to allocate the catch. The last day was spent in a series of closed door meetings between the chief delegates from the five nations. The U.S., Canada and even Japan were in agreement on the quota – Spain and Portugal just said no.

The last night of the 1996 meeting ended at approximately 3 a.m. the next day. When the empty blathering of counter-punching diplomats finally ended, we got the quota passed. North Atlantic swordfish harvest would be limited to 24 million pounds for the following three years. This was the only international fisheries meeting, past and future, I left with a feeling of satisfaction.

STOCKS DO RECOVER,
SUCCESS CAN BE REVERSED

In the years since 1996, every assessment has shown that swordfish were increasing in abundance. Two robust year classes of juveniles showed up in 1996 and 1997, and the new catch restrictions have helped them add to overall population biomass. In 1999, after three long years of debate, NMFS closed the waters from South Carolina southward through the Florida Keys to longline fishing in a successful effort to reduce juvenile swordfish, billfish and sea turtle bycatch mortality. A similar closure went into effect in the Desoto Canyon area of the northern Gulf of Mexico and the impacts served to accelerate the recovery of swordfish. The rapid increases in abundance in both areas have stimulated the development of dynamic sport fisheries.

By 2001, the word was out that catching a south Florida sword was a possibility. By 2002, fish were plentiful, but small. By 2004, the action was almost guaranteed and fish over 300 pounds were being taken. Ellen Peel, president of The Billfish Foundation (TBF), has watched the rebirth of this fishery from her offices in Fort Lauderdale.

“The recovery of North Atlantic swordfish is a success story for which we all should be proud; it took international and national regulations and two large year classes to make it happen,” she said. “Now the challenge is to retain the gains.”

The 2006 ICCAT assessment showed that swordfish had recovered to the biomass that could support maximum sustained yield and for a decade landings had averaged about 25 million pounds. It seems that success did not sit easily with some bureaucrats at NMFS.

In the following two years, attempts by NMFS and the longline industry to reopen the closed areas to longlining put this recovery at risk. A proposal to allow 13 longline vessels into the conservation zone was successfully fought off by CCA and TBF, but a smaller effort to permit a single vessel this year was forced through by the NMFS hierarchy.

The ill-founded logic of NMFS seemed determined to undermine the successful rebuilding of swordfish and reduction of billfish bycatch – sailfish action in south Florida has been at a four-year peak – in order to increase the commercial take. Fortunately, strong and united action by the conservation and angling communities has thus far prevented this catastrophe.

The Lady Lands a Broadbill

So there we were floating the Gulf Stream with Bouncer. All the lines were in by 6:30 p.m., all set with 15 feet of 300-pound test leader, 10/0 hooks, 2 pounds of weight and light sticks. We rigged with large squid and had two baits under lit jugs floating 50 yards from the boat, set at 300 feet and 150 feet.

A hauntingly beautiful green light surrounded the starboard side of the boat, the 4-foot light tube attracting a variety of small fish. We fished two tip rods standup from the boat …and we were fishing them, not standing by watching.

“You have to constantly keep the baits moving up and down in the water column between 30 feet and 300 feet down,” instructed Bouncer. “Keep them moving slowly up and down so the swords have every opportunity to see them in whatever depth they swim.”

We kept a single rod baited and at hand in case a swordfish came up into view in our light, a not uncommon occurrence. A month earlier Bouncer put a client on to a hefty fish on a fly rod.

“We look down and there she was, just resting about 12 feet under the surface,” he recalls. “He stripped a big streamer forward and then back and the swordfish hit it as soon as it saw it.”

At 8 o’clock the drag screamed as one of the jug baits tore off. I took the rod and reeled like crazy – the fish often swim straight up after taking a deep bait – but never felt a thing. It was a little after 9 o’clock when Kate was diligently reeling, slowly reeling, her squid from about 100 feet towards the surface when the fish slammed her. The rod bent, drag screamed and a solid hookup pulled her backwards and up tight against the gunnel.

“Just let it run Kate,” Bouncer cautioned. “Don’t fight it until this first run slows.”

For 40 minutes Kate traded line with the fish and gradually started gaining on it. And she clearly was tiring fast. Bouncer’s 50s were in the shop – she was fighting stand up with an 80 wide. Finally the fish appeared at depth and suddenly swam right towards the boat, right toward Kate and in a flash the mate had a tail rope tight and the fish was aboard.

“Congratulations Kate, that will be one tasty little sword,” I said.

Flushed and panting next to the lit-up sword, Kate looked me in the eye.

“This fish is too beautiful to kill, Dad, and its going right back in the water,” she said. A quick picture and that is just what happened.

A Father’s Parting Thoughts

I was, as I am always, proud of my daughter that night. She was one of the first 50 or 100 women to ever take a swordfish on rod and reel. She released the fish without a thought of the kitchen. She fought like a trooper with a rod and reel that would have wasted many large men.

Thinking of the long story of swordfish and their comeback from the brink, I also realized that right before me was the living proof of the value of the fight to get the fish back. An old saw heard often in conservation circles goes something like … “I want to conserve these fish so that my children and their children will have the same chance to enjoy them as did I and my father.” In a single moment of clarity I realized that the rewards gained from fighting for conservation were right there in front of me, in a daughter who was enjoying access to a resource that would not have been possible without a coordinated and determined effort by a large group of people who fought for more than a decade to put the fish first.

And that felt good.

Dr. Russell Nelson is CCA’s Gulf of Mexico Fishery Consultant, a member of the U.S. Advisory Committee to the International Commission for Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, Chief Scientist for The Billfish Foundation, and a 20-year veteran of marine fisheries conservation, management and research.