Mr. Wise stated that, since the subcommittee had not been able to hold a public meeting to vet its preliminary findings and proposed recommendations, he had asked subcommittee chairwoman Freierman to present an updated statement of the group’s progress. The final subcommittee report will be submitted to the Council once the public information meeting is held.

Ms. Freierman distributed to the Council a written summary of the group’s discussions and preliminary recommendations. This summary is attached. Ms. Freierman’s verbal recounting of this summary is omitted here and only a summary of the subsequent questions and Council discussion is included.

Striped Bass Permits

Mr. Wise asked whether, once the 2003 control date for striped bass permits is set and the qualifier that will be used to determine which of the permits existing at will remain valid is decided, does a holder of a valid permit thereafter have to use his/her bass permit to retain it or does lack of documented commercial landings in any subsequent year invalidate the permit? Ms. Freierman answered that the subcommittee had not discussed the "use it or lose it" issue, which needs to be discussed by the group.

Councilor Yaxa observed that some legitimate commercial fishermen had been prevented from getting a foodfish license because of state-imposed moratoria on these licenses. It was pointed out that commercial foodfish licenses have always been sequentially numbered; someone who had a license but lost it during a moratorium period and had it reissued again would keep the original license number, so his/her relative seniority among all license holders would not change over time.

Mr. John Mihale of the NYS Commercial Hook & Line Association noted that some fishermen from areas near waters that had been or remain closed to commercial striped bass fishing because of PCB contamination did not bother to get a foodfish license because they were primarily interested in striped bass. He felt the subcommittee should take account of this possibility in its recommendations.

Fluke Permits

Mr. Wise asked the subcommittee what arguments had been presented in its discussions to support the establishment of numerical caps on the total allowable special fluke permit in each gear category, as opposed to arguments for a single numerical cap on all special fluke permits issued. Mr. Jordan stated that he felt a numerical cap on the hook & line gear category wasn’t a good idea. There may be reasons to seek an increase in the numbers licensed in this category, while most holders of an all-gear category permit wanted to see the number of permit holders reduced. He felt differential approaches could be applied to different gear categories. Ms. Freierman stated that, in total, the hook & line category accounted for 8% of the commercial fluke landings in 2000, more than the 5% allotted to the special hook & line category (some fishermen holding all-gear permits fished hook & line). She suggested that there were flaws in the hook & line category because it does not include all of the people fishing for fluke commercially with hook & line gear. She also noted that those commercial fishermen who had historically depended heavily on fluke (catching 10,000’s of lbs annually) had seen a dramatic reduction in their share of the commercial harvest. A cap was needed for no other reason than to stop this trend until the quota increased sufficiently to allow new people in. Ms. Freierman’s concerns were echoed by two commercial trawl fishermen, Charlie Wertz and Dave Aripotch.

Mr. Colvin summarized two issues that have been raised regarding allocating the state’s annual commercial fluke allocation: 1) allowing fishermen to move at will into and out of the designated handline gear category often results in the total handline catch exceeding 5% of the total commercial fluke landings; and 2) the 5% set-aside was set without much discussion about what would happen when the state’s annual commercial fluke quota increased. Does the subcommittee and/or Council want to make recommendations on either of these two points. He suggested asking the subcommittee to explore these two issues as an addition to its original objectives. Chairman Wise agreed, as these two other issues do affect the subcommittee’s handling of its original charge.

It was agreed to schedule a public information meeting organized by the subcommittee at the 2002 Long Island Commercial Fishermens Forum, which is scheduled for 26 April 2002 in Riverhead. At that meeting, the Council’s preliminary recommendations with respect to special striped bass and fluke permit eligibility will be aired before a larger group. Also to be discussed are the issues raised above with respect to the hook & line allocation for fluke. Based on feedback at this meeting, the subcommittee will prepare its final recommendations and present them at the Council’s May 2002 meeting.