At its November 2000 meeting, the Council agreed to collaborate with DEC in the formation of separate commercial and recreational fishery groups to discuss with fishermen the continued poor condition of winter flounder stocks in New York waters. A subcommittee comprised of Mr. Wise and Councilors Sandy Mason and Tony Somma was formed to work with Ms. Alice Weber and Ms. Anne Mooney of DEC to organize and lead these discussions. Mr. Wise informed the Council that the work group had met and evolved a plan for the meetings. The two fishermen groups had been constituted and would hold their first meetings on 16 January 2001 (commercial) and 17 January 2001 (recreational). The project will identify possible causes of the poor condition of flounder stocks and make recommendations on actions that the state might take to address these causes. These would be presented to the Council at its April 2001 or May 2001 meeting.

Ms. Weber reported on catches of winter flounder from DEC’s western Long Island beach seine survey (Jamaica Bay; Flushing Bay; Little Neck Bay). Jamaica Bay and Little Neck Bay had record abundance of young winter flounder in 2000. This is in stark contrast to the catches of young-of-the-year winter flounder in the Department’s 2000 Peconic Bays Trawl Survey, which were the lowest on record. Ms. Weber noted that this year’s trawl survey of Long Island Sound by the State of Connecticut also produced very low catches of this species. Councilor Schwab asked how extensive the surveys had been in New York. Ms. Weber responded that the surveys had been done over the past 15 years in the Peconic Bays system and more recently in the above-noted areas of western Long Island. There is no survey data from areas further east along Long Island’s North Shore from the South Shore bays east of Jamaica Bay.