National Marine Fisheries Service requires a new Billfish permit
on March 1, 2003

The National Marine Fisheries Service will require all boats involved in the recreational billfish fishery to register and purchase a Highly Migratory Species Permit (HSMP), at a cost of $27, to participate in billfisheries in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. The permit also covers tunas, except blackfin, sharks and swordfish. Permit holders will be required to report all landings of HMSP species to NMFS. The permit will be available on-line (http://www.nmfspermits.com/PermitList.asp) beginning March 1, 2003 at the NMFS site, or by mail from NMFS. You may also request that an application package be mailed to you by calling the NMFS Customer Service Center at (888) 872-8862.

To apply for a billfish permit before March 1 anglers need to purchase a current tuna permit for $27. The tuna permit will expire on May 31, 2003. It behooves boat owners to wait until March 1 to purchase the combined HMSP, which are valid for another year.

Additionally, tournaments must apply one month in advance of the tournament dates to NMFS for an events permit and report catch statistics after the event. NMFS's reasoning behind this massive licensing push is billfish data collection, controlling U.S. anglers billfish take in accordance with the International Commission of Atlantic Tunas (ICAT) Western Atlantic Quotas. U.S. Recreational anglers are permitted 250 marlin landings per year for the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico. The average take of one mid-Atlantic European longliner is 2500 marlin on the dock per year. Conversely, the combined marlin take in both tournaments and recreationally for 600,000 U.S. registered vessels is just 250 fish!