Longlining
Beginning - Description
Longlining was introduced to the Territory of American Samoa by Western Samoan fishermen in 1995. The local fishers have found longlining to be a worthwhile venture to engage in because they catch more fish with less effort and use less gas for trips.
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| A longline equipped alia at work |
The vessels most frequently used in the beginning were alias. These are locally built twin aluminum hulled boats with fiberglass or wood superstructures. They are about 30 feet long and are powered by small gasoline outboard engines. Navigation on the vessels is visual, using landmarks. The gear is stored on deck on a hand-crank reel which can hold as much as 10 miles or as little as 2-3 miles of monofilament mainline.
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| A hand cranked mainline reel |
The gear is set by spooling the mainline off the reel and retrieved by hand-cranking the mainline back onto the reel. Trips are one day long (about 8 hours). Setting the equipment generally begins in the early morning; haulback is generally in the mid-day to mid-afternoon. The catch is stored in boxes built into the hull of the boat or in portable coolers or freezer chests.
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| Albacore being unloaded from an alia |
Albacore comprised the majority of the catch with yellowfin tuna and blue marlin, respectively, the second and third most abundant component of the catch. The albacore are all sold to the cannerries and is generally stored in personal freezers until a sufficient amount is accumulated to sell. Most of the remaining catch is sold to stores, restaurants, locals and donated for family functions.
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| Faivaimona - the first large Longline Vessel in Samoa (Click on picture for a larger picture) |
Late in 1997 a different kind of vessel began longline fishing. It was 89 feet long, displaced 163 tons, had a crew of 7 and a full complement of electronic navigation and communications equipement . It had a mechanically powered reel with 20-30 miles of monofilament mainline on it and from 1600 to 2000 hooks suspended from 60 floats. This boat would set and haul this gear each day that it was actively fishing. This boat made 3-4 week trips, some of them as far way as Tonga, and could hold up to 44 tons of frozen albacore which it brought back and sold to the canneries after each trip.
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| Tracey C - One of many large longliners in Samoa (Click on picture for a larger picture) |
This boat was an oddity in the Samoan fishery until 1999 when two other similar large monohulled longline vessels arrived in Samoa and began longline fishing. In 2000 and 2001 this trend grew rapidly with large monohulled longline boats arriving from places such as San Diego, Korea, Tiawan, Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia. They now dominate the American Samoa fishery and even though they are one-third the size of the Hawaii longline fleet may they may surpass it in total catch in 2002 due to the much more favorable fishing conditions in Samoa.
Monitoring System
From 1995 to the present, data are collected through an Offshore Creel Survey that includes subsistence and recreational fishing as well as commercial fishing for the alias. Since the Offshore Creel Survey was designed for small boats making one or two day trips it can't be used for the larger longline boats that stay out for weeks.
Starting in 1996 American Samoa longline fishermen were required to have on board and maintain a NMFS Western Pacific daily fishing longline log. This was used to collect data on the larger boats and to check against the Offshore Creel Survey data. The Creel Survey Data showed that there was a delinquency rate in submitting Logs that reached a peak of around 30% in 1999. The delinquency was almost entirely by alias with only 19 of the 26 alias fishing in 1999 even turning in logs.
To deal with the delinquency problem a Daily Effort Census (DEC) was initiated in 1999. A daily log of each boat's activity was kept and a report generated for boats that were out longline fishing but failed to turn in a log for the day they were fishing.
The DEC didn't work as well for the larger boats that stayed out for weeks or sailed away entirely as one could only assume that they were longline fishing when they were gone. To check on them, their logs are compared with unloading data from the canneries where they sold most of their catch. These two methods reduced the delinquency rate to 5-6% by 2001 with most of it due again to alias.
Monitoring Results
In mid-1995 five vessels began longlining, landing 58,446 pounds of albacore, 5,267 pounds of blue marlin and 4,022 pounds of yellowfin tuna.
By 1997 33 vessels had permits for longline fishing and 21 of those were actively fishing in the American Samoa fishery, making 1,536 sets. About 421,000 hooks were set with an average of 274 hooks per set. The primary catch in 1997 was 680,806 pounds of albacore tuna with a catch rate of 31.2 fish per 1,000 hooks. Yellowfin tuna was the second largest catch at 47,996 pounds, with a catch rate of 2.25 per 1,000 hooks. The catch of 31,869 pounds of blue marlin was surpassed by a 33,031 pound catch of mahimahi.
In 1999 there were 26 alias and three large monohulled longline boats fishing in American Samoa. They set 1,229,000 hooks in 2978 sets with the average number of hooks/set climbing to 412. These three large monohulls accounted for a third of the catch of 744,980 pounds of albacore, 140,061 pounds of yellowfin tuna and 48,303 pounds of wahoo which became the no. 3 species at that time.
By 2001 the number of larger boats had swelled to 32 and the number of alias grew to 35. They set 5,792,000 hooks in 4798 sets with the average number of hooks/set climbing to 1207. The monohulls now accounted for 88% of the catch of 7,125,203 pounds of albacore, 417,186 pounds of yellowfin tuna and 165,000 pounds of bigeye tuna which became the new no. 3 species.