Mr. Wise reminded the Council that, two years ago, New York began a handline gear category in the commercial fluke fishery that was allotted 5% of the state’s commercial quota for this species. This was done on the recommendation of a work group established by the Council and DEC that involved representatives from all commercial gear types used to catch fluke (trawls, pound & trap nets, handline). Mr. Wise referred the Council to a written proposal from Councilor Jordan that a similar approach be considered in the state’s commercial fishery for scup.

Mr. Jordan asserted to the Council that inshore commercial fishermen cannot complete with larger offshore vessels in a multi-gear quota allocation; the mobility and catching power of bigger vessels overwhelms them. He distributed historic data on NYS commercial scup landings by gear that showed a decline in the fraction of commercial scup landings represented by handlines over the past several years. In selected previous years, handlines account for a much higher percentage of the state’s scup landings. From 1983-92 (base years in the scup fishery management plan), handline catches averaged 13% of the total state commercial landings of scup. This period includes two years (1989 & 1990) when the inshore fishery for scup collapsed completely; if these two years are removed, the importance of this gear to the total scup catch is 17-18%.

The state commercial quota for scup should increase in 2002 and Mr. Jordan suggested that it was an appropriate moment to institute a handline set-aside for this species. He urged that the set-aside use trip limits set low enough so that there is no reason to close the scup fishery at any time. This, in his view, would help secure the market for scup and the price paid to the inshore fisherman. Councilor Freierman stated that large vessels operate on the same low trip limits that smaller vessel do and this results in massive discards. Why should the operating economics of small-scale commercial fishermen be more important or compelling than the economics of larger operators? She expressed reservations about the concept of carving up state commercial fishery quotas into smaller and smaller gear-based units. Councilor Mason suggested that trip limits are now set too high and the market is flooded with product, which drops the price. He also stated, and Ms. Freierman agreed, that most trawlers in this state carry federal permits and the scup fishery for these license-holders was shut down during the summer, so trawl-caught scup were not shouldering handlined scup out of the market.

Mr. Jordan said handline fishermen need to fish every day. Mobile gear (trawl) and fixed gear (pound net) fishermen can fill their quotas quickly and move on to other species. Handliners do not have that option. Mr. Mihale stated that he thought that the federal scup fishery management plan should be revised to set the seasonal allocations and trip limits such that the scup season stayed open all year-round. Several individuals responded that this would almost certainly produce very low trip limits at some points in the year; low trip limits, for some gears, lead to very high discards and discard mortalities.

Mr. Colvin explained the details of the scup annual harvest quota. There is a Winter I period (01 January – 30 April, when there is a single commercial quota for the entire East Coast, 49% of the total coastwide quota), a Summer period (01 May – 31 October, with a state-by-state quota, 35% of coastwide quota), and a Winter II period (01 November – 31 December, with a single coastwide quota, 16% of coastwide quota). During the two winter periods, no one state can affect the management. New York can only make adjustments during summer. During the past two years, the summer period the federal scup quota has been smaller than the total of the state quotas. When the federal quota is caught, federal permit-holders can no longer harvest scup. But, scup can still be caught by non-federally licensed fishermen in state waters, resulting in a higher than anticipated catch, with the amount taken above the federal quota removed from the following year’s quota. New York sued NMFS over this two quota problem and lost. There has been some movement recently towards getting the state and federal quotas for scup made the same.

Chairman Wise offered to organize a discussion group to discuss Mr. Jordan’s proposal with representatives of all commercial gears that catch scup. There is little chance that this group could come up with an agreeable approach and have that implemented by DEC in time for the 2002 fishing season. This group will require information on catch by gear type for the summertime period. To allot handline fishermen 20% of the annual quota would require allotting them approximately 50% of the Summer period quota. Mr. McBride motioned that the Council sponsor a work group on this topics that should come back to the Council with a specific proposal. The motion was adopted by a vote of 9 in favor; 0 opposed; 1 abstention. Mr. Jordan asked that, if the work group cannot proceed in time to affect the 2002 summer scup season, DEC keep the same low trip limits in place for that season.