Fluke

Mr. Colvin reminded the Council that the 2004 recreational fluke season started with a 17” minimum size limit, a 3-fish possession limit, and an open season of 15 May – Labor Day (06 September 2004).  With these measures in place, New York was found out of compliance with the Summer Flounder Fishery Management Plan by the Department of Commerce.  To come into compliance, New York raised the recreational minimum size limit to 18” near the end of July 2004 (30 July 2004).  The estimated 2004 recreational harvest of fluke in New York exceeded the target 2004 harvest by 15%.  In light of the larger coast-wide recreational fluke quota for 2005, it was projected that the above management measures (18” minimum size limit, 3-fish possession limit; open season of 15 May – 06 September), if they were retained, would result is a level of harvest that exceeded New York’s anticipated 2005 recreational fluke target catch by about 6.2%. 

Thus, under the state-by-state conservation equivalency approach adopted for fluke by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) and the MAFMC, New York needed to come up with a way to slice 6.2% off its project recreational harvest of fluke.  Reliably projecting the impact of different measures was made more difficult by the fact that New York’s minimum size limit changed in the middle of the season last year.  Mr. Colvin complimented his staff on working through these difficulties and arriving at a way of achieving the required catch reduction that met the standards of ASMFC’s Fluke Technical Committee.  ASMFC’s Fluke Management Board next meets in the first week of February 2005, where New York’s proposed approach will, hopefully, be given final approval.  The Technical Committee has approved two options:

1)  17” minimum size limit; 3-fish possession limit; 10 June – 12 September open season  
2)  17.5” minimum size limit; 7-fish possession limit; year-round open season

To estimate the impact of seasonal closures on the projected total catch, data on the distribution of fluke catches by month from the 1990’s has traditionally been used.  DEC submitted its proposal using more recent (last three years) catch by month data, as it believes the catch has shifted in time since the 1990’s, with a higher portion of the annual recreational catch of fluke now coming earlier in the year.  Proposals based on 1990’s catch distribution over time data would be slightly more restrictive than the two above and these will also be presented to the ASMFC Fluke Management Board.

Mr. Colvin directed the Council’s attention to the large impact of raising the minimum size limit by ½ -inch; it changes a short open season to a year-round open season and allows the possession limit to be increased by 4 fish.  He stated that the Department staff is somewhat skeptical about whether such a large effect is fully believable.  Mr. Colvin also cautioned the Council that achieving the 10 June start date would require an emergency rule-making.

The Council discussed and debated the merits of a variety of measures intermediate between Options 1 and 2, above.   Several Councilors expressed reservations about implementing Option 2, on the basis that it risked allowing a quota overage in 2005 that would have to be paid back in 2006 with substantially stricter harvest limits.

Councilor Melton moved that the Council recommend that DEC implement the following trio of measures in the recreational fluke fishery in 2005:  17.5” minimum size; 5-fish possession limit; 29 April – 31 October open season.  Councilor Melissa Dearborn expressed a concern that this size limit would be hurtful, especially to those fishing along the South Shore (retaining the 17” size limit would be better); although she agreed that, with a decent possession limit and open season, she could support the higher size limit.  She also wondered whether these higher size limits would ever be reduced, even if New York’s recreational fluke target were to substantially increase, because there would be little data on catches at smaller size limits. 

Councilor Freierman raised a question about the greater discards that a higher minimum size limit might produce and the wisdom of setting a size limit that targeted the largest, strongest, best spawning fish; perhaps a slot size would be a better approach.  Mr. Colvin responded that he did not believe there was adequate data on the fluke population size distribution to evaluate this issue. 

The Council adopted Mr. Melton’s motion by a vote of 10 in favor; 0 opposed; 1 abstention.

Ms. Dearborn then moved that the Council recommend to DEC that, if the ASMFC Fluke Management Board approves the above 2005 fluke recreational measures, the Department implement them through emergency rule-making.  The Council adopted this motion; the vote was 11 in favor; 0 opposed; 0 abstentions.  

Scup

Mr. Colvin told the Council that ASMFC’s Scup Management Board asked for a technical evaluation of a regional (New York to Massachusetts) approach in lieu of a state-by-state approach to scup recreational fishery management.  The coast-wide measures that were developed are a 10” minimum size limit (9” for shore-based fishermen); 25-fish possession limit (a 60-fish limit in “for hire” fisheries for a 60-day period); and an open season to be determined.   This proposal arose from a meeting involving state fishery management staff and recreational fishing industry leaders from New York to Massachusetts.  The ASMFC Scup Technical Committee has not yet produced a proposed open season as a companion to the proposed minimum size and possession limits. 

Mr. Melton questioned why, for recreational scup fisheries, it was possible to consider managing shore-based fishing differently than other fishing modes, but consideration of the same type of flexibility, in terms of fishing modes and/or fishing areas, has never been possible in the recreational fluke fishery?  Mr. Colvin responded that the proposed regional approach for scup management might not get very far, in which case the fall-back approach would be the state-by-state approach that has been used in the recent past.

Mr. McBride moved that further discussion on this agenda item be tabled.  His motion was adopted by a vote of 11 in favor; 0 opposed; 0 abstentions.

Winter Flounder

Amendment 1 to ASMFC’s Winter Flounder Fishery Management Plan was the subject of public hearings in 2004, as were the fishery management measures needed to implement the plan.  The Commission’s Winter Flounder Management Board has come up with final action on recreational and commercial measures for winter flounder in 2006.  The coast-wide recreational measures include a 12” minimum size limit; 10-fish possession limit; 60-day open season; at least 20 days in Wave 2 must be closed; and no more than two open periods/year.  Mr. Colvin stated that his staff was looking at appropriate open season options.  Based on public comment received to date, two popular open seasons would be 21 March – 19 May or 01 April – 30 May.   Ms. Dearborn suggested that, rather than start on 01 April, starting the season on the 1st Saturday in April might allow the season to be extended a bit into June, which in her view would be beneficial.   No action is required on New York’s recreational winter flounder measures for 2005.

Mr. John Mihale said that the measures proposed for enactment in 2006 are insufficient to deal with the severity of the winter flounder population problem.  He advocated establishing areas within New York’s waters where fishing for/retaining winter flounder would be prohibited and then monitoring flounder abundance in these and adjacent areas.  He also stated that it is unlikely that current fishing mortality levels are the real problem with winter flounder; the species is suffering from ecosystem impacts as well.   Mr. Colvin responded by saying that recreational fishing constitutes only a small fraction of the current winter flounder fishing mortality, the bulk of which is due to offshore commercial fisheries in the ocean.  It is hoped that Amendment 13 to the New England Groundfish Fishery Management Plan will reduce exploitation rates on offshore winter flounder stocks by a substantial amount.  But, there is much uncertainty associated with this expectation.  The above-proposed measures for winter flounder were framed under the assumption that the projections on the impact of Amendment 13 to the Groundfish Plan on winter flounder stocks are correct.  This needs to be looked at again once the impact of Amendment 13 is known.  DEC staff person Alice Weber confirmed that young-of-the-year and juvenile winter flounder remain scarce in New York’s surveys and those of Connecticut; recruitment in this species for the past several years appears to have been poor to non-existent.

 

Page last modified Thursday, March 17, 2005 by George E. Carroll