Chairman Wise reminded the Council and audience members of statements made to the Council, either through letters received by mail, or given vocally at past Council meetings, from representatives of the commercial hook and line industry, who feel that the present regulation governing the taking of weakfish for commercial purposes puts them at a unfair disadvantage in this fishery. They have maintained that they are shut out of the weakfish fishery at certain times of the year and they want to be able to participate. Mr. John Mihale of the New York State Hook and Line Association spoke on their behalf.

Mr. Mihale said the first time he and his colleagues in the commercial hook & line industry heard there was a problem with the weakfish industry was a post card he received in June, 1995 which imposed emergency regulations on weakfish, establishing a split commercial open season from 01 April to 24 June and again from 28 August to 15 November. There is a 64-day closure in between. Mr. Mihale stated that this split open season was originally developed in 1994 by a Weakfish Advisory Committee, a group that did not include a representative of commercial hook and line fishermen. Moreover, decisions were based on presented documentation but because records were not consistently kept at that time, an accurate accounting would have been impossible. Prior to 1994, commercial hook & line fishermen were not required to fill out catch reports, so there were no records of their catches. Mr. Mihale stated that he would like a single, continuous open season for weakfish, not two separate ones. Two separate seasons may favor one commercial interest over another. Commercial hook and line fishermen want to be allowed to fish for weakfish in the summer when the prices are higher and in more abundance. Mr. Mihale asked DEC to assemble another weakfish advisory group with members from all the different fisheries to reach an agreement on a revised approach to the weakfish open season that would benefit all the fisheries.

Mr. Colvin explained that, at the time when the emergency regulations were implemented, weakfish landings were low coastwide, especially so in the northern end of the species’ range. When the landings were examined for the baseline period, handline landings from the NMFS records were essentially non-existent, constituting only 0.1 % of the New York’s total weakfish landings at the time. This produced two results: since the handline fishery was not part of the landings record, that fishery was not considered in the decision on setting open seasons and when Mr. Mihale brought his case to the Council a few years ago, there were still no records to go on making it virtually impossible to present his case to ASMFC. Mr. Colvin agreed with Mr. Mihale that a new weakfish working group should be formed and he offered his assistance in doing so. Councilor Freierman questioned whether there was a difference in the weakfish stock between 1995, when the regulations went into effect, and today. Mr. Colvin stated that the stock was over-fished then but is not now.

Councilor McBride moved that the Council create a subcommittee be put into place to spearhead the examination of alternatives for the weakfish commercial open season. In order for the sub-committee to make a recommendation to the Council in time to affect the 2004 fishing season, the group would have to be ready to make its recommendations to the Council/DEC at the September 2003 Council meeting. It was suggested that Council ors Thomas Jordan and John Mason should be involved as well as other commercial fishermen who are not members of the Council (gill netters, pound netters, etc.) The motion was adopted by a vote of 8 in favor; 0 opposed; 1 abstention.