Using the Cooperative Research Mid-Atlantic Set-Aside Program to Benefit Recreational Fisheries

The pitfalls and progress made over the past 10 years of successfully having recreational fisheries research projects approved and the research conducted through the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council’s Research Set-aside Program (RSAP) will be discussed.  This program awards pounds of fish of from one to six species.  These pounds must then be converted to dollars to fund the research project.   During the first 3 or 4 years of this program, the recreational fishing sector struggled with how to raise money to conduct a research set-aside project that did not include the selling of fish.  The first recreational proposal that was submitted by a for-hire organization in partnership with an academic institution was approved and the research was planned for 2002.  The for-hire organization had no plans to sell the fish to convert the pounds to dollars, but instead wanted to use the pounds on the research fishing trips to double the bag limit for each angler.   All expenses incurred while conducting this project were to be paid directly by the for-hire organization.  The funding agency could not understand that no fish sales would occur to raise the funds and the necessary permits to conduct the study were not issued in a timely manner to conduct the study.  Another recreational fishing organization that represents for-hire and private anglers submitted a proposal in conjunction with an academic institution to conduct a study onboard for-hire vessels and figured out that they could partner with the NFI-SMC to conduct an auction to sell the research set-aside fish pounds to raise money to fund the research project.  This was only the second recreational RSA project approved by the RSAP that was actually completed.   In 2010, a third recreational RSAP project was approved that also utilized the mechanisms of the NFI-SMC to raise the necessary project funds through an auction.  This project involved partnering of an academic institute with both commercial and recreational fishermen to conduct the study.  The various issues involved in obtaining permits to harvest the research set-aside pounds (compensation fishing) and to carry out the research project as well as the conductance of the auction and monitoring of the research set-aside will be presented.