Marc Hoffman and Councilor Mike McCarron revisited their report describing how New York could revise its approach to restrictions on the use of commercial fishing gears to harvest certain species. Basically, they recommend that current regulations be revised to state explicitly the allowable gears for each species. Someone proposing to use a gear other than those listed would have to seek DEC permission to use that gear. Messrs. Hoffman and McCarron felt there were many advantages to taking a positive approach with a species specific gear list. It was clarified that this proposal was directed only at gear restrictions in regulations, not those contained in state law. Mr. Colvin commented that DEC could do this as long as it had regulatory authority over "manner of taking" for a particular species. He observed that this approach was similar to what the federal government had done by publishing in the Federal Registry what gears were permitted in federal waters. Mr. Colvin and Mr. Wise cautioned that apart from the work load, defining gear might miss some variations and configurations in rigging; it could become quite complex. For example you could define otter trawl, but that would not address specialized riggings to trawls which might raise questions as to whether these riggings were acceptable or not.

DEC regulations have a table listing each species, size limit, season, and trip limit. Mr. Colvin suggested adding another column, "allowable gear." The regulations could be amended, "No person may take fish for commercial purposes except by means of the gear listed in Table B." This would head off use of entirely new gear types, but it would not head off modifying approved gear in an unacceptable form. Mr. Hoffman hoped that such regulations would give the DEC more control over future developments and thus avoid the long delays experienced with roller gear and pots. The Council adopted a motion that requested Mr. Hoffman and Mr. McCarron to develop a more detailed example of how this approach would be used, targeting a single species, e.g., tautog/blackfish. Mr. Colvin will send the subcommittee the federal rules and the existing table from the regulations so they could construct a fourth column of allowable gear, referring to the federal regulations.