New Regulations for 2024

[hammer4reel]

Commercial guys were at 10000 a week this time last year .
They’re cut back to 3500 a week right now .


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[Broad Bill]

[QUOTE=hammer4reel;580498]Hearing rumors of {2} fish over 18 1/2” with a short season

Thanks to all the idiots asking for the long season and ridiculous small slot , that we got slammed with the last 2 years .

Hutch wrote this a few months ago from Fisherman

In early August the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) met jointly with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board to set specifications and commercial measures for summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass. Members of the MAFMC also convened together with the ASMFC’s Bluefish Management Board to set specifications and recreational measures for bluefish.

In terms of summer flounder, the 2023 management track assessment indicated that the fluke stock was not overfished but overfishing was occurring in 2022 which is expected to result in a reduction of the recreational harvest limit (RHL) by nearly 40% – from 10.62 million pounds to 6.35 million pounds – for the 2024 season.

/QUOTE]

All the people who asked for a longer season, I couldn't agree more. People got what they asked for and now everyone's going to pay the price. Whoever decided on a 17"-17.99" slot in NJ missed the mark by a mile. We needed to start harvesting younger age class fish and let the breeders do their thing while offering the stock protection from commercials during the spawn. Neither happened. Commercial operators netting in September and October during the spawn are killing this stock along with the degree of discard mortality from year round netting, conservatively 3 to 4 times greater than what's being reported. The numbers are staggering, management knows it but instead of addressing it they sweep it under the carpet. A paper thin slot, the range NJ implemented two years ago, doesn't address the harvest of the proper age classes but while that decision was asinine, NJ is alone with a slot and it's not the main problem plaguing this fishery and placing it at death's doorstep.

6.35 million lb. recreational harvest limit for 2024 and 2 fish potentially at 18.5", that brings this fishery back to 1993 harvest levels, a few years after the stock crashed, and 3.5" from Emergency Measures under MSA if states go out of compliance with 2 fish @ 22". 30 years of sacrifice, pain and suffering and that's what NMFS, ASMFC and MAMFC collectively delivered in return. COMPLETE incompetence and mismanagement of the resource due to decisions being made for every reason other than what's needed and best for the sustainability and benefit of the stock.

This is a paragraph from the 2023 stock assessment. Two major commercial trawl fisheries exist — a winter offshore and a summer inshore. Summer flounder are also taken by pound nets and gillnets in estuarine waters. Throughout the 1980s, commercial landings ranged from 17.9 to 37.7 million pounds. In 1993, the coast wide quota was implemented for the first time. Commercial landings (which are limited by the quota) have ranged from 5.8 million pounds to 17.4 million pounds since 1993. Commercial landings reached a time series low of 5.8 million pounds in 2017, but have since increased to 12.5 million pounds in 2022. Commercial discard losses in the otter trawl and scallop dredge fisheries are estimated from observer data, and an 80% commercial discard mortality rate is assumed.

2017 wasn't a fight, it was an ambush. 2024 regulations will follow the same pattern for the same reasons. In 2017, the commercial sector got an almost 100% real increase in quota while the recreational sector got rewarded with no increase in quota when you factor in how MRIP statistics in previous years were manipulated. Statistics NMFS themselves have since admitted were grossly overstated.

The recreational and commercial sector combined are harvesting less than half the number of fish today than in the 90's when the stock was growing exponentially. A third grader could figure out where the problem is. How many people are going to pay $200 - $250 a day to maybe catch 2 fish over 18.5" AND those regulations will further hurt the fishery. As will on-going commercial regulations until the three bodies referenced above get their heads out of the sand and address commercial netting during the spawn, protection of the breeding classes and the rampant amount of waste in discard mortality caused by the commercial sector. They should immediately switch commercial to a keep what you catch mandate if they have any interest in saving this fishery. Problem is they won't because the summer flounder fishery is one of only a few fisheries accessible year round to the commercial sector, has year round market demand and commercially benefits every state making up the Mid-Atlantic region.

We can have all the data from all the science in the world, if management ignores it in the litany of bad decisions they've made managing this fishery, it's as they say as useless as tits on a bull.

[AndyS]

Don't forget the Golden Tilefish also.

[jmurr711]

20 striped bass over 12 inches

[pectoralfin]

MidAtlanic Fisheries December 2023 council meeting

[Gerry Zagorski]

Originally Posted by dales529

Do you have a link to these proposals? Is this from MAMFC or ASMFC?
Just asking as I haven't located this information.
Thanks

See page 2 of this document https://static1.squarespace.com/stat...FMC-Report.pdf

[frugalfisherman]

Just do what I do. Make your own "regulations".

[Gerry Zagorski]

Update.... If everything goes as planed, it looks like the final Fluke regs will be decided on the 3/7/2024 NJ Marine Fisheries Council Meeting. Not sure what the options are yet but will keep everyone informed. Looks like Seabass will remain the same as last year.

[hammer4reel]

Originally Posted by Gerry Zagorski

Update.... If everything goes as planed, it looks like the final Fluke regs will be decided on the 3/7/2024 NJ Marine Fisheries Council Meeting. Not sure what the options are yet but will keep everyone informed. Looks like Seabass will remain the same as last year.

Commercial,guys are already seeing the actual cutback already .
Which was more severe than initially slated .
Since cutbacks are the same across the recreational/commercial harvest .
It’s not looking good .

How many times do they get away with reducing bag limits due to their own bag limit choices ?

At the rate we are going right now , we are headed towards the same path as NC , a closed fishery that ended up opening for just 2 weeks last fall .
.

..

[Broad Bill]

Originally Posted by hammer4reel

Commercial guys are already seeing the actual cutback already .
Which was more severe than initially slated .
Since cutbacks are the same across the recreational/commercial harvest .
It’s not looking good .

How many times do they get away with reducing bag limits due to their own bag limit choices ?

At the rate we are going right now , we are headed towards the same path as NC , a closed fishery that ended up opening for just 2 weeks last fall .

Is the reduction in commercial quota you're referring to December 2023 or the first week in January 2024. Reason I ask is if the period quota has been attained for November - December 2023, daily cuts will be implemented and it's just their quota for the period being filled. If you're talking about 2024, whole different ball game. January - March historically makes up almost 50% of commercial landings. If your comment pertains to reductions put in place recently for the new period January - February 2024, which January alone historically makes up 20% of commercial's annual quota, that would be devastating news for the fishery and a dire indication of what the recreational regulations will be this year.

If the Pandemic didn't give the fishery a short term reprieve in 2020 and 2021 when foreign and domestic markets were shut down, what we're about to experience would have happened two years ago. You can't continue killing the breeding population of any stock, exploit the fishery during the spawn and expect any fishery to not fail. The consequences of those actions will end with one result and we're about to see it happen again. Think about the impact on businesses and recreational activities if this fishery, like winter flounder did, disappears. It's happening and for the exact same reasons.

For any commercial guys reading my post, for what it's worth, I feel your pain. Running 60 to 70 miles offshore during winter months to catch 30% to 40% of what you were able to harvest last year is a punch in the mouth. But at the same time, something needs to change because the path the management of this fishery has been on for decades isn't working. You'd have to be blind not to see that and if commercial and recreational don't work together to convince the management bodies to change their philosophies everyone, and I mean everyone, will lose.