REMINDER!! 2019 ROFFS™ New Year Pricing – Discount Plans for the 2019 Fishing Season NOW on Sale! Loyal and valued clients, it is that time of year again! It is time to take advantage of ROFFS™ pre-season discounted plans.  Save up to 40% on your fishing forecasting analyses for the upcoming season.  Take a look below and evaluate which plan best compliments your fishing needs. Please note, we did not raise prices this year, however; we did restructure the sizes and discount rates of the pre-paid plans to make them more consistent and easier to understand and we have also presented them in a more organized format.  Pre-season discounted plan prices are only valid between January 1^st – March 15^th, so call us now at 321-723-5759, or visit our web site to order (https://roffs.com/select-analysis/discount-plans/).  As always our friendly staff looks forward to assisting you with any questions and are excited to talk to you. Please click HERE to read more and to purchase your 2019 pre-paid plans with a pre-season discount on our website now!

Offshore Wind Farms: Allaying Concerns About Hurricanes and About Fishing Article Courtesy: wunderground.com | By: Dr. Jeff Masters | Originally published: January 22, 2019

America’s only offshore wind farm is the 30-megawatt Block Island Wind Farm, a set of five 600-foot tall wind turbines located about four miles southeast of Block Island, Rhode Island. Construction began in May 2015 and the farm began producing power in December 2016, allowing the island to draw power from another source besides their expensive diesel generator.

With the National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimating that U.S. coastal waters have approximately 4,000 gigawatts of offshore wind energy resources (if all the resources over the waters from the shore out to 50 nautical miles out are included), the U.S. offshore wind energy business is set to boom, with several large projects due to break ground in 2019 and 2020—for example, an 800-megawatt farm (100 turbines) 14 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and a 400-megawatt farm (50 turbines) 15 miles south of the Rhode Island coast. The Block Island Wind Farm is an interesting testing ground, then, to study the controversial aspects of offshore wind farms, such as their vulnerability to hurricanes, and their impacts on local fishing. Above: A boat passes one of the wind turbines of the Block Island Wind Farm on October 14, 2016 off the shores of Block Island, Rhode Island. Image credit: Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images. Please click HERE to read the full article on our website now! REMINDER All Anglers: Tropical Tuna Tagging Program

The Atlantic Ocean Tropical Tuna Tagging Program (AOTTP) was established by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in 2015 to study key aspects of bigeye, skipjack, and yellowfin tuna life history and movements in the Atlantic Ocean. Over a five year period, the AOTTP aims to partner with scientists and commercial and recreational tuna fishermen to tag at least 120,000 tropical tuna with conventional and/or electronic tags throughout the Atlantic. The data generated from these tags will be essential in improving understanding of these important species, which will enhance fisheries management and promote sustainability of the stocks.  Given the status of the stocks, data on tropical tunas are desperately needed to preserve fishing opportunities in the western North Atlantic.

As part of the AOTTP, Dr. Walt Golet from the University of Maine will be working with colleagues at the New England Aquarium, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, University of Miami, and NOAA Fisheries to deploy 5,000 conventional tags on bigeye, skipjack, and yellowfin tuna in the western North Atlantic from Canada to Venezuela, including the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. However, to do this, we need your help! If you are interested in participating in the AOTTP project and would like to volunteer to tag bigeye, skipjack, and yellowfin tuna, simply contact Dr. Walt Golet (walter.golet@maine.edu) and we can provide you with more information on how to become involved in this free program. Signing up is easy. Just provide your contact information and mailing address and we will send you all the necessary information, instructions, and materials to start tagging tuna. Every fish tagged will not only allow you to become involved in important scientific research, but also give you a chance to win one of 20 individual cash prizes totaling more than $39,000 US dollars that will be awarded at the end of the project.

For more information visit: https://www.iccat.int/aottp/en/index.html

Or call Dr. Golet at 1-207-351-5413.

Please click HERE to read more on our website now! SECOORA Data Challenge – Opportunity to win $3,000 Web cameras are transforming environmental monitoring. Increasingly, scientists are analyzing video data to improve forecasts, answer questions, and support decision making. Although camera data are being applied for environmental monitoring, they are currently underutilized. SECOORA is hosting a data competition to identify ways in which video footage from web cameras can be applied for societal benefits. Data challenge contestants must use the WebCAT camera data and create a data visualization, mobile application, product, tool or some other creative submission that answers a real-world question or solves a problem. There are two categories. Each have a $3,000 prize.  Join us for a kick off webinar on Friday January 18, 2019 at 12 PM ET- click here to register.

Please click HERE for more information! PLEASE NOTE that we are currently open until 5:00 PM EDT Monday through Friday and CLOSED on Saturday until May 2019.  Please order by 2:00PM EST 10/1/2018-3/31/2019, order by 3:00 PM 4/1/2019-9/30/2019.  We may also remain open later some days based on demand and workload. Please call the office (321.723.5759) or email the office (feedback@roffs.com) with any questions/concerns.  Thank you! Please click HERE to place your order online today… Backlash? Feedback?

As always, please send comments & feedback on Fishy Times newsletter content directly to us at feedback@roffs.com. If you do not want to wait for our next Fishy Times newsletter, please visit us in the meantime to get all your fishing news using the social media/web links below.  Safe and successful fishing until next time!

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