Councilor Sullivan moved that the Council recommend to DEC that it open the 2002 recreational fishing season for striped bass on 22 April 2002 instead of 08 May 2002. He stated that New York charter and party boats could benefit from an earlier season opening. Mr. Colvin responded that such an action does not seem to be contrary to the striped bass fishery management plan but there may be procedural issues that need to be accounted for.

Councilor Jordan spoke against the motion. He felt that the recreational striped bass fishery has been the major beneficiary of the resurgence in stocks of striped bass, while the commercial fishery continues to limp along under a restrictive annual harvest quota. He felt there should be no relaxation of recreational striped bass measures until comparable measures were taking place on the commercial fishery.

Pat Augustine suggested that the motion might be profitably reworded to recommend that the DEC explore an earlier starting data for the recreational striped bass season than 08 May, rather than targeting a specific earlier date. This might alleviate the procedural issues that Mr. Colvin felt might need to be accommodated.

John Mihale reminded the Council that west end commercial fishermen had asked the Council to recommend moving the opening date for the commercial striped bass season up and he hoped that, if it was possible to do so for the recreational fishery, it would prove possible to do so for the commercial fishery.

Mr. Wise spoke against the motion. He basically agreed with the viewpoints expressed on the motion by Councilor Jordan. Additionally, he stated that such a motion should not be made at the end of a long Council meeting when the issue had not been on the Council’s agenda for that meeting and nobody on or outside the Council was aware that the issue was going to be discussed and, potentially, acted upon by the Council.

Councilor Melton suggested to Councilor Jordan that his suggested policy of not doing anything to support a recreational fishery unless something was done to aid a commercial fishery was too simplistic for the Council to really follow or adopt. Mr. Jordan stated that the situation with regard to the reallocation of striped bass from commercial to recreational harvesters over the past 5 years or so was clear and he stood by his views.

Councilor Freierman urged the Council members to move beyond the commercial/recreational fishery contention paradigm as the core of all marine fishery discussions. Both groups needed to work more effectively together to assure that the regional fishery management process is as favorable as possible to the needs of both fisheries in New York.

Councilor Sullivan’s motion was adopted by the Council by a vote of 7 in favor; 5 opposed; 0 abstentions.