Mr. Colvin informed the Council that the trip limit on black sea bass was recently bumped back up to 500 lbs.  The trip limit for scup (porgy) is 60 lbs and the commercial fluke fishery will be closed from July 1st to September 1st.

Councilor John Davi, Jr. stated that he would like to see the sea bass trip limit stay at 500 lbs because they haven’t even reached their quota.  Councilor Jordan agreed that the higher trip limit should remain but catches should be monitored very closely in order to save some fish for October’s quota.  If sea bass landings continue at their current pace, he would be in favor of raising the trip limit slightly during the next quota period (August - September) as long as this doesn’t hurt fishing in October, which could happen if they’re not careful.  Several audience members agreed, saying that they want the black sea bass fishery to remain open in October and the Department should take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that.

Mr. Colvin stated that the plan is that the quota overage from quota period 1 in 2006 (January - March), less the allocation for quota period 4 (October - December), will be deducted from the allocation set for quota period 1 in 2007.  Any projected exceedance of the quota beyond that (228,000 lbs) would cause a closure in 2006.  Councilor Sima Freierman questioned whether, if there is a lot of quota left in period 4 (even enough to cover the overage in quota period 1) would the fishery remain open in November, December or January?  Mr. Colvin replied that this was something to think about; he will wait for the next set of black sea bass catch figures numbers to come out.

Councilor Jordan noted the fine balance between being conservative and taking advantage of the fishery.  He cited the example of scup.  Catch data reveal landings totaling 90,000 lbs in one week, out of total for the quota period of 250,000 lb limit.  This shows the potential of fish showing up, being targeted hard and the resulting high catches doing major damage to a period allocation.

 

Page last modified Sunday, September 24, 2006 by George E. Carroll