January 4, 2019 — One of the last actions taken by Pres. Donald Trump in 2018 was to sign the Modern Fish Act into law.
The act amended some of the recreational fishing management rules in the Magnuson-Stevens Act, or MSA, the principal body of fisheries’ laws. The MSA however, didn’t receive a full reauthorization, which is something the fishing industry will try to accomplish this year with the new Congress.
As its full name the “Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act,” may imply, the act was geared for the recreational fishing industry.
Except for where commercial fisheries relate to recreational access in mixed-used fisheries in the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, such as red snapper, commercial fishing was basically left out.