NAGS HEAD, N.C. — For many fishermen, catching a bluefin tuna from the pier or shore would be the catch of a lifetime.
“I don’t think I’d ever imagine hooking up with one off a pier," said Fin Brophy, a young Outer Banks local fisherman who was at Avalon Pier Thursday afternoon.
Earlier this month, that’s what happened during a rare time period when bluefin tuna were present near Jennette’s Pier.
“The first time in recorded history, [they] came within casting distance of the pier. So, we had three anglers that hooked into 150-pound to 300-pound bluefin tuna," said David Harding, the founder of FishingPiers.Info.
A few were caught legally from kayaks near Jennette's Pier during this time. But it’s illegal to target the fish from the pier, and a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration law enforcement officer came to Jennette’s Pier to make sure fishermen knew that in early April.
“NOAA came out and said, ‘Hey, even though you did catch and release, if you guys try to target bluefin tuna again, we're going to give you a $2,000 fine,'" said Harding.
We reached out to NOAA about the laws, and they provided these answers to our questions:
Given the wide geographic range of Atlantic tunas and the fact that they spend the majority of their time well offshore, NOAA Fisheries issues permits that must be associated with a vessel. This system allows us to best quantify, regulate, and monitor these marine resources and make sure the United States does not exceed international quotas. Annually, there are over 30,000 vessels permitted to fish for highly migratory species, including bluefin tuna, both recreationally and commercially.
This permit structure provides an exact number of participants in the highly migratory species fishery. It also allows us to enact rules and regulations that adhere to internationally and domestically mandated permitting, reporting, and monitoring obligations.
Bluefin tuna are rarely present in waters close enough to shore to make them available to shore-based anglers, so there is no federal permit to allow for this activity. If bluefin tuna are caught incidentally during fishing activities from shore, they must be released in a manner that will ensure maximum probability of survival, but without removing the fish from the water.
But the recent news about the NOAA law enforcement officer at Jennette's has sparked a movement called "Operation Inflate: The Bluefin Uprising."
“You start talking about needing a boat or needing a vessel in order to apply for a permit, we're not talking about conservation anymore. We're not talking about protecting the species; it's just access discrimination," said Harding.
The protest: register inflatables as vessels, which in theory would mean someone could fish for bluefin tuna.
“That's not really the purpose of us to go out and be drifting out five miles out to sea with an inflatable. It's more just to show that shore anglers and pure anglers should have access to this open recreation and bring awareness that this is an absurd protest," said Harding.
The hope is to inspire change on a potential catch of a lifetime that some fishermen on the pier were able to experience.
“As the population continues to increase, we think we are going to see more chances now of the bluefin tuna coming in closer. We love what they're doing for conservation. We want our access to a legal fishery, and we hope that it's not even changing the laws necessarily; it's including the laws so that it's not just for vessels," said Harding.
The protest was previously scheduled next to Jennette's Pier on April 19 but was postponed due to the weather. A new protest date is to be determined right now. Harding also encourages fishermen to attend the virtual NOAA HMS Advisory Panel meeting from May 6-8 to raise awareness about the laws and the want for change.
