Alabama’s gillnetters are unhappy with the rules that were changed for an emergency and now they need to make flexible so that the industry could survive. The Coastal Conservation Association informed that they will try to have a bill introduced in the state Senate in coming days that seeks to outlaw gill nets in state waters altogether.
According to the emergency rule prohibit gillnetters from fishing for mackerel between every Thursday night and Sunday night since April 2007. Alabama’s 105 net fishermen are now facing critical situation and are asking to be allowed to fish in places that have long been off limits for much of the year, which include more than half of Mobile Bay and the state’s most popular stretch of Gulf beachfront, from Old Little Lagoon Pass to the Florida line.
The netters explained that they need more access to those areas to make up for all the fishing time they’ve lost due to the weekend closure enacted last year. Ben Harvard, a Baldwin County gillnetter and vice president of the Alabama Seafood Association, opined that the authority has given too many different types of regulations at one time to try and fix a problem that isn’t really a problem.
According to Harvard the regulation is full of problems and the major one didn’t just affect netters Spanish mackerel fishing in the Gulf. Harvard said the existing rules drastically brought down the harvests of other targeted species, including blue runners and ladyfish and also cut into the industry’s bottom line.
Barnett Lawley, who heads the state Department of Conservation, said the new proposal from the netters is under consideration.
