January 15, 2015 — It's shaping up to be another interesting season on the summer flounder management front.
At a public comment hearing held last Monday night in Toms Rivers, attendees received a presentation from the ASMFC on Draft Addendum XXVI to the summer flounder managment plan for 2015 and the available options for fluke management.
Attendees then provided feedback on those they felt best served the state's recreational fishing community.
Unfortunately, not a lot of the community was there. The meeting was rather poorly attended with maybe just a dozen or so recreational fishermen and captains from party boats and for-hire vessels showing up.
Capt. Adam Nowalsky, the chairman of the New Jersey Chapter of the Recreational Fishing Alliance and one of New Jersey's three representatives to the Commission, thought the poor turnout was indicative of several factors.
One being the continued destruction of the for-hire and recreational fishing fleets as a result of fisheries management policies; and second, the public's growing disenchantment with management over its inability to provide reasonable access to resources that are claimed to be rebuilt and healthy.
"There is a sense," said Nowalsky, "of why bother."
Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press