February 12, 2021 — Regional fishery management bodies approved new commercial allocations in the black sea bass fishery based on the distribution of sea bass biomass found in the 2019 stock assessment.
As a result of the new allocations and a northern shift of the fish, New Jersey will see a slight increase to its percentage of the coastwide quota, from 20% to 20.10%. That’s enough to give the Garden State the largest share of the coastwide quota.
Virginia took the biggest hit as its commercial quota was trimmed down from 20% of the coastwide harvest to 16%.