The summer flounder stock is keeping on its strong growth trajectory, and managers this week voted for a 7 percent boost in potential 2012 landings – to a new high of 31.6 million pounds.
It could herald a return to the boom fishery of the 1980s, and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission are playing this hand very cautiously.
At a joint meeting Wednesday in Wilmington, De., members from both boards challenged recommendations to hold down the catch limits to account for estimated bycatch and discard of smaller fish – 600,000 pounds on the commercial side, and an estimated 2 million to 3 million pounds among recreational anglers.
But this is the first time the council and commission are applying strict new accountability measures required by Congress, and in the end they went with the conservative recommendations for 2012 landing limits: 18.95 million pounds on the commercial side and 12.63 million pounds recreational, after accounting for discards and catches used for research projects.
“We’re really happy to hear this,” said Greg Hueth of the Save the Summer Flounder Fishery Fund, which helped fund science that figured into a reassessment of the fluke stock. Assessment scientist John Maunder recently published a paper on flounder mortality that came out of research supported by the fund, “and we’ll have more information coming down the line to keep this going,” Hueth promised.
But Hueth cautioned there should not be a rush to liberalize conservation rules, like minimum sizes that have frustrated anglers for years.
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