If you're day fishing, you can have up to 800 pounds for any part of a DAS.  For instance, if on Monday you call in at 0600 and call out at 1500, you can unload up to 800 pounds of cod with no penalty.  BUT...you can't make another landing of GOM cod until 24 hours have elapsed since the start of your last trip, in this case Tuesday at 0600.

Once you exceed 24 hours at sea you become a trip boat, and the program changes.  You can land up to 800 pounds for the first 24 hours you spent at sea.  Once the next 24 hours starts (at one minute after midnight), you can land another 800 pounds -- but you must let your DAS clock run until it reaches 48 hours.  Not only that, but you must let your DAS clock run even if you have only 100 pounds of cod for the second day.  The key here is to realize that NMFS is not thinking in terms of anything other than blocks of 800 pounds and 24 hours.  There's no consideration for fractions of days spent at sea.

Click here for a table to show you how this translates to real life.

If you're a day boat, you can't land over 800 pounds.  If you're a trip boat, you can (a) go fish on sculpins until the clock catches up with the amount of cod you have on board, or (b) start discarding until you are no more than 800 pounds over your limit. 

The cod overage hail line was eliminated on May 1, 2000, which means two things: (A) One less phone call to make, and (B) No tolerance from NMFS for overages.

Does this mean you might have to get up at some foolish hour of the night on your one day off, just to shut off you DAS clock?  It sure does.  Does this seem far more complex than it needs to be?  It sure is.