Capt Jack Graham
Friday, January 17, 2025
By
Captain Jack presented the "Challenges of fishing the Gulf Stream".
Click here to see video of Captl Jack Presentation
Capt Jack presented an interesting scenario that he, as a Charter Captain for recreational charters and commercial fishermen, has to deal with because of regulations governing fishing in NC territorial ocean waters.
As a recreational charter captain, he takes recreational fishermen into the Gulf Stream for the thrill of catching tuna. Unfortunately, in recent years, the tuna population has been decimated by an overpopulation of sharks.

The shark population issue is the result of regulations that were promulgated 25 years ago when regulators thought that the shark population was becoming extinct because of overfishing. At that time there was a need for regulation to stop shark overfishing. However, the regulation placed a 100-year moratorium on shark fishing.

The regulation was extremely effective. So much so that the huge population of sharks is reducing the population of game fish such as tuna. Now we have a situation where the tuna fishing in NC territorial waters is turning what used to be a rich source of tuna for recreational fishermen and commercial fishermen is becoming severely reduced to only being able to catch tuna that is so large they can't get the fish into the boat.

It sounds to me like the ecosystem that God has designed has a delicate balance to control such population surges. As it turns out, man is part of that ecosystem that controls fish populations and when we overfish it causes possible species extinction. Or, when we don't fish a certain species, that species can challenge the existence of other species in their demand for food.

Regulations promulgated by governing agencies can be a dicey challenge. In this case a well intentioned regulation appears to need editing to correct a problem. Capt. Jack suggests that folks contact their members of congress to create the pressure on the the agencies to make the necessary changes.