Summer flounder and black sea bass regulations to tighten

Captain Dave Monti
Posted 12/18/14

Last week the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council (MAFMC) and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) had a joint meeting to discuss summer flounder (fluke), black sea bass and …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

Summer flounder and black sea bass regulations to tighten

Posted

Last week the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council (MAFMC) and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) had a joint meeting to discuss summer flounder (fluke), black sea bass and scup. These two organizations have a direct impact on fishing regulations in Rhode Island as some of our species fall under the MAFMC and migratory species that travel the east coast are regulated by the ASMFC.

Scup saw liberalization in Federal waters with the recreational catch limit increased to 50 fish, scup regulations will likely be liberalized in RI waters too.

A summer flounder addendum will go out to public hearing in January. East coast anglers overfished their quota in RI and other coastal states this year. Capt. Rick Bellavance, president of the Rhode Island Party and Charter Boat Association, said, "Option 1 is the regional approach we had last year and there are several variations of regional configurations in the document. I am concerned about the options that bring RI into the NY/CT/NJ region, mostly because of the uncertain data and how dramatically it can change from year to year. I got the sense that a lot of people want to see us in the NY region which could reduce our (recreational) bag limit to five and shorten our season by quite a few days. We will need to attend the public hearing in January to voice our opinion."

Capt. Bellavance continued, "Black Sea Bass is a train wreck. The Northern Region has to take a 28% reduction so I would think we will look at a shortened season and a reduced bag limit. I know this does not make any sense with what we see on the water, but we are stuck with the existing law right now." Capt. Bellavance said the Technical Committee is working to develop new approaches for determining catch limits but he was not hopeful that any change would occur for the 2015 season. However, a benchmark stock assessment is currently scheduled for 2016, so maybe that will help in the future.

Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission

to meet February

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's 2015 Winter Meeting has been scheduled for February 3-5, 2015 at the Westin Hotel in Alessandria, VA. The agenda is available online at www.asmfc.

org/home/2015-winter-meeting. Meeting materials will be available on January 23, 2015 on the Commission website. Agenda highlights include such items as winter flounder plans, Atlantic herring, American lobster, Atlantic menhaden, weakfish and big decisions are on the agenda for summer flounder, scup and black sea bass.

The Striped Bass Management Board meeting is schlulded for Thursday, February 5 from 8:00 a.m. to noon. The key agenda item to be discussed and considered for approval are Addendum IV Conservation Equivalency Proposals and Implementation Plans which coastal states have been working on.

Rhode Island is expected to submit a plan that would allow the party and charter boat industry to take two fish at 32" or 33" minimum size which is expected to surpass the 25% reduction mandated by the new striped bass conservation equivalency threshold. Coastwide one fish at 28" was approved by the ASMFC for recreational anglers which is a 31% reduction. Other states may opt for a two fish solution for recreational anglers in general and/or charter boats as long as they meet the "conservation equivalency" reduction goal of 25%.

More conservative anglers want to stay with the one striped bass fish at 28" regulation for 2015 while other recreational fishermen (and states) want to meet the 25% reduction goal but do it with two fish rather than one even though the two fish would have to be a larger minimum size.

This ASMFC meeting is packed with agenda items that will impact fishing regulations here in Rhode Island this summer so it is important to engage on the issues locally and regionally when angler input opportunities are offered and attend public hearings.

Where's the bite

Tautog season closes, cod and black sea bass fishing still good. The tautog fishing season closed December 15th. Angler Larry Norin reports a slow cod bite off Jamestown and Newport last week. This weekend the Frances Fleet had good cod and black sea bass trips. Capt. Frank Blount said, "Weather sidelined us for a good chunk of the past week. Friday saw a pick of nice green market cod to nearly ten pounds and a decent amount of keeper sea bass with a bunch of sea bass limits. One angler did really well with the cod boxing 8 nice keepers and while his score was not representative of the average, most of the anglers aboard did leave with a cod fish...On Saturday's run the cod fish were a bit more evenly distributed around the boat. Hi hook boxed four keepers and two other anglers recorded three keepers apiece. The sea bass bite was very good as well with many anglers limited out and they were much bigger average size than the day prior. A lot of jumbos in the 2 to 3.5 lb range with a handful of bigger ones to over 4 lbs." Elisa Martin of Sung Harbor Marina, South Kingstown said, "The Island Current party boat started sailing this weekend form our docks, too early to tell how they doing. The only other highlight was our customer appreciation holiday party last week on. The fish chowder continues to be a big hit with customers." Party boats sailing for cod fish at this time include the Frances Fleet at www.francesfleet.com , the Seven B's (with Capt. Andy Dangelo at the helm this week) at www.sevenbs.com, and the Island Current at www.islandcurrent.com .

Captain Dave Monti has been fishing and shell fishing on Narragansett Bay for over 40 years. He holds a captain's master license and a charter fishing license. Contact or forward fishing news and photos to Capt. Dave at dmontifish@verizon.net or visit his website at www.noflukefishing.com.

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here