Comment from David Haggerty

Hi my name is David Haggerty. I am the skipper of the F/V Harmony. I have been a commercial fisherman for 30+ years. I have done all different types of fishing. Mackerel, herring, squid, ground fishing, mid-watered, bottom trawled , and pare Trawling. Pair trawling is a very dirty business. there is a lot of by catch that goes unreported. I was happy to read there was going to be 100% observer coverage for the pair trawlers But after reading amendment 5 this is not the case. I am not sure what has happened between 2 years ago and now? if this does not get addressed soon I fear there will not be a Haddock fishery on Georges Bank. They can't continue to fish on bottom with 3/4 mesh. they are supposed to be mid- water trawlers. I personally witnessed a set of pair trawlers towing behind me earlier this spring, supposedly catching mackerel, i'm not sure if you are aware, but mackerel is caught on bottom. at the time we were seeing under 18 inch haddock. All that I saw was small haddock on the edge. In the 4 toes I had made I had seen 2500lb of undersized haddock per tow. With a 6.5 cod end. how many could they have possibly caught that tow with an1 inch and 3/4 cod end broiler. Peter Mullens quoted in one of the fisheries magazines " he looks forward to the day he has 100% observer coverage to disprove all the ground fish by-catch rumors."...... let’s give him what he wants, 100% coverage. Regards, David Haggerty