Releases – May 21, 2015
At a meeting held May 13 at the Carolina Beach American Legion Hall, the Recreational Fishing Alliance North Carolina Chapter outlined the issues with current and historical southern flounder management in the state, discussed management alternatives currently under consideration by the state’s Marine Fisheries Commission, and recommended their preferred options for consideration by the MFC.
During a meeting in New Bern on May 20-22, the commission will decide on one of three options: rejecting a Draft Supplement to the southern flounder Fishery Management Plan, approving the Draft Supplement, or modifying the supplement and approving the modified version for public comment.
The RFA-NC chapter supports the third option, which would add additional management strategies and open a 30-day public comment period on the modified supplement plan before it is presented to the MFC at an August meeting.
Size limit, season closure, and bag limit changes are all options the commission is considering to achieve a reduction in total southern flounder landings throughout the state. The RFA-NC supports adding an option to the Draft Supplement that includes a November 16-December 31 closure to the commercial season and an increased commercial size limit of 16”. Commercial fishermen take the majority of the southern flounder in the state, and a seasonal closure and increased size limit would achieve the reductions the commission is seeking without bag and size limit reductions for the recreational sector (which has seen many of both over the past decade).
The group also believes that serious consideration should be given to a total closure of commercial gill net fishing in state waters, which would achieve the target reduction in catch with no other regulation changes for the commercial or recreational sectors.
Other recommendations to the southern flounder fishery the group supports include a prohibition of new pound net permits, quota-based management of the species, a moratorium on recreational commercial gear (RCGL) licenses, and species-specific reporting for all commercial fishermen and dealers in the summer and southern flounder fisheries.
While most user groups agree the state’s inshore flounder fishing has been in decline for some years, questions exist about the stock assessments used to manage the fishery. RFA-NC supports additional peer review of the 2014 assessment by reviewers approved by the DMF in collaboration with the RFA and other stakeholders in the fishery.
More information about the RFA-NC and their efforts to protect recreational anglers’ access to southern flounder and the state’s many other fisheries can be found at the Facebook Page RFA-North Carolina.
North Carolina’s commercial fishing harvest increased by 23 percent in 2014, boosted by higher landings of blue crabs, spiny dogfish, and summer flounder.
Commercial fishermen sold 61.7 million pounds of fish and shellfish to North Carolina fish dealers last year, according the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries’ Commercial Trip Ticket Program. It was the first year commercial fisheries landings rose since 2010, an upward tick in a long declining trend since the late 1990s.
The estimated dockside value of the commercial harvest climbed 19 percent in 2014 to $93.8 million, continuing an increasing trend since 2011.
Recreational fishermen harvested approximately 9.6 million fish, weighing about 9 million pounds in 2014, a 25 percent decrease in pounds from 2013, according to the division’s Coastal Angling Program. It is 29 percent lower than the average of recreational landings from 2010 to 2013.
Commercial: As usual, hard blue crabs topped the state’s commercial harvest in 2014, followed by spiny dogfish, shrimp, summer flounder, and Atlantic croaker.
Commercial fishermen sold 2.9 million pounds of summer flounder to North Carolina dealers in 2014 – five times more than in 2013. The increase was a direct result of a more restrictive state policy on allowing boats to land their harvest in Virginia and other states. In previous years, the state allowed more boats to do this because of shallow waters in Oregon Inlet. It required North Carolina to transfer much of its summer flounder quota to other states, causing federal quota allocation concerns.
Hard blue crab harvests increased by 18 percent from 2013, as the number of fishing trips with crab pots rose by 5 percent and the average catch of hard blue crabs in the pot fishery increased by 42 pounds per trip. The estimated dockside value of blue crabs in North Carolina rose by 13 percent, as well.
Spiny dogfish landings rose by 88 percent to 5.7 million pounds due to an increase in the state’s allotted quota.
Shrimp harvests decreased by 4 percent from 2013 to 4.7 million pounds in 2014.
Atlantic croaker landings increased 36 percent to 2.6 million pounds.
Overall, commercial finfish harvests increased by 34 percent to 29.4 million pounds in 2014. Shellfish and crustacean harvests increased by 15 percent to 32 million pounds.
Recreational: The top recreationally harvested fish (in pounds) in 2014 were dolphin, bluefish, yellowfin tuna, spot, and red drum.
Recreational dolphin landings decreased by 14 percent to 1.3 million pounds, bluefish landings decreased by 3 percent to 961,222 pounds, and yellowfin tuna landings decreased by 37 percent to 913,785 pounds.
Red drum harvests decreased by 12 percent to 598,166 pounds, after the highest landings on record in 2013.
Spot, however, returned to the top five after an absence since 2007. Recreational spot harvests increased by 53 percent in 2014 to 704,445 pounds.
While the number of private boat and for-hire fishing trips dropped by 18.7 percent and 8 percent, respectively, the number of beach and bank fishing trips increased by 37.3 percent.
For a full landings report, click on the 2014 Annual Fisheries Bulletin link at http://portal.ncdenr.org/web/mf/marine-fisheries-catch-statistics.
For more information, contact division License and Statistics Section Chief Don Hesselman at (252) 808-8099 or Don.Hesselman@ncdenr.gov.
Stock assessments for mutton snapper, hogfish, and blueline tilefish top the agenda for a meeting of the Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC). Members of the SSC will review the recent stock assessment for mutton snapper and provide fishing level recommendations to the Council. The SSC will also review revised stock assessment projections for hogfish.
A recent benchmark stock assessment for hogfish, conducted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, identified three separate stocks for hogfish, one in the Gulf of Mexico and the other two in the South Atlantic. The SSC will provide input on the projections for the “Southeast/South Florida” stock, identified as overfished and undergoing overfishing in the recent stock assessment. The projections will be used by the Council when making future decisions on management of the stock and may impact current regulations.
Members of the SSC, including representatives from the Mid-Atlantic, will address issues concerning the geographic range of the most recent stock assessment for blueline tilefish. The SSC’s input could directly impact regulations for fishermen targeting blueline tilefish in North Carolina and possibly as far north as New England.
Committee members will also review several proposed amendments to the Council’s Fishery Management Plans. In addition, the SSC’s Socio-Economic Panel will meet from 8:00 a.m. until 12:00 noon on Tuesday, April 28, 2015. The Panel will review proposed management measures, the Council’s System Management Plan for Marine Protected Areas, and the Vision Blueprint for long-term management of the snapper grouper fishery, and provide a report to the SSC. Public comment will be accepted during the SSC meeting.
The meeting location is Crowne Plaza Airport Hotel, 4381 Tanger Outlet Blvd., North Charleston, SC 29418, and the phone number is (843) 744-4422. To learn more about the Council’s advisory panels and SSC and their role in fisheries management, visit www.safmc.net.
