New Jersey anglers attending Monday night’s meeting on proposed regional management measures for summer flounder unanimously rejected the plan.
Yet, depending on how states vote on the issue, the measures may still be put in place.
The meeting was held to collect public comment on Draft Addendum XXV, which proposes three options for the management of summer flounder.
Option 1 is to keep the status quo, which is conservation equivalency and allows states to set their own size, season and bag limits. Option 2, which is designed to be used in conjunction with Option 1, allows for the sharing of under-utilized quota.
Option 3, Adaptive Regional Management, proposes managing the stock on a regional basis. The two regions proposed are (1) Massachusetts; Rhode Island to New Jersey; Delaware to Virginia; and North Carolina or (2) Massachusetts and Rhode Island; Connecticut to New Jersey; Delaware to Virginia and North Carolina.
The ASMFC’s rational behind the plan is to provide a more equitable access to a shared fishery. However, the regional push is widely recognized as New York’s effort to get more fish to catch.
“If this is about equity, consider the fact that the regions that have been chosen make no sense whatsoever,” Ray Bogan, a local attorney long-involved with fishery issues in New Jersey said at the meeting. If anything, he said, New Jersey should be in a more traditional region with the southern states.
Regional measures, he said, “would result in a massive shift of fish and the addendum would build up one state at the expense of another,” namely, New Jersey. Bogan favored Options 1 and 2.
Chris Zeman, one of the state’s representatives to the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, said the message from New Jersey’s anglers was loud and clear.
“New Jersey fishermen are pretty smart. They know a political fish grab when they see it. It’s an effort by one state using political pressure and threats of litigation to get what it wants and, for that reason alone, I’d oppose it,” he said.
If regional measures are approved, one scenario has New Jersey going from a five fish limit at 17½ inches to four fish at 18 inches.
Sportmen’s groups, charter captains and individual anglers all voiced their opposition to regional fluke management. Among those endorsing Options 1 and 2 were the Jersey Coast Anglers Association, New Jersey Outdoor Alliance, the New Jersey Federation of Sportmens Clubs, RFA-New Jersey Chapter, the Hi Mar Fishing Club, United Boatmen and the Save the Summer Flounder Fishery Fund.
“The SSFFF wants to get as many fish for the people of New Jersey, not only this year, but in years to come,” said Greg Hueth, one of the fund’s founders. “We feel Option 1 and 2 are the best way to continue to have a fishery that is equally divided along the Atlantic Coast States,” he said.
The whole problem, he said, comes down to science and as far as summer flounder are concerned, it is still broken. “Until we fix the science, nothing is going to change.”
Hueth was not alone in his assessment of the current state of fishery science. Nearly all those commenting on the fluke options had an opinion to offer on the poor state of fishery data. Ray Bogan called the difference between the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) and MRFSS, the program it replaced, as the difference between “ugly and very ugly.”
Capt. Adam Nowalsky, chairman of the N.J. Chapter of the RFA, who helped lead the meeting, listened to the litany of complaints about the lack of reliable data and took the opportunity to remind anglers there is a way to improve the current information.
It’s called the Volunteer Angler Survey and it provides a mechanism for fishermen to submit catch data at www.nj.gov/dep/fgw/marinesurvey.htm.
“Anglers have to recognize that the state has put something in place that they need to take advantage of,” he said.
A final decision on regional measures will be in made in February when ASMFC member states vote on the Draft Addendum. The vote is expected to be close.
Public comment is being accepted until 5 p.m., Jan. 24, and can be emailed to: krootes-murdy@asmfc.com.
