September 11, 2026 — Fisheries regulators say commercial blue crab landings in North Carolina declined again in 2025 and surveys continued to find low juvenile abundance, while the latest monitoring produced less definitive signals for southern flounder, speckled trout and striped mullet.
The findings are contained in the 677-page North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries 2025 Fishery Management Plan Review that was released Friday.
The annual report covers 12 species or groups managed under state plans, 21 managed by federal councils or the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and two managed through state Marine Fisheries Commission rules.
The document is not a single new stock assessment.
Rather, it compiles commercial and recreational fishing information, standardized field surveys, biological samples and previously completed stock assessments.
Most of the monitoring data were collected during 2025, but some of the stock-status determinations are based on assessments with data ending several years earlier.