Saving Seafood

NEW YORK: Why Are Less-Likely Species Appearing in Long Island Sound?

July 29, 2016 — What makes any species on Earth seek greener horizons? A disaster. Lack of food or water. An unsuitable change in habitat. With people, it’s sometimes the drive to merely explore. With wildlife, though, it usually boils down to survival.

Every day, there is a change occurring somewhere on this planet. It might be imperceptible to the naked eye or it might be as obvious as an earthquake or a volcano. When a change does takes place, there isn’t just one occurrence, but rather, an accompanying domino effect. The effects might be felt instantly or they may take centuries to get noticed.

We’ve seen Long Island Sound and its tributaries fall from a rich, prolific waterway to the compromised body of water left in the wake of the early industrial era. From that, we’ve learned a valuable lesson and today we see the results of a Herculean restoration effort. Many of our fisheries that had been reduced by cataclysmic proportions have rebounded or are in the process of rebounding. Some, like our river herring, are still struggling.

Very often, some sort of over-fishing is the culprit. In some cases, a die-off can be attributed to reducing a stock. For the most part, what we are seeing along the Atlantic coast and in the Sound is a change in water temperature. As a result, the Sound is attracting more food, such as schools of menhaden, squid, butterfish, spearing, and shrimp. That increase in forage, coupled with higher water temperatures, brings in more southern and mid-Atlantic species of fish, as well as northern migrants that now take a detour into the Big Pond as they perhaps once did in the past.

Read the full story at zip06.com

As Long Island Sound warms, its fish species are changing

June 13, 2016 — During a day of fishing on Long Island Sound earlier this month, Richie Nickerson of Niantic caught 10 legal-sized scup, a black sea bass and a northern kingfish — all species he wasn’t likely to land when he first started angling in these waters 30 years ago.

Tony Murphy of Berlin, who fished from the Black Hawk charter boat with Nickerson, also reeled in a haul of scup, also called porgies, as did most of the other 38 fishermen on board that day.

“It used to be we’d strictly catch bluefish and striped bass,” Murphy said. “But now, there are just so many porgies.”

Scup, black sea bass and northern kingfish are just three of the species once more prevalent in warmer mid-Atlantic waters that are now becoming abundant in Long Island Sound.

As the warmer-water species move in, they compete for food and habitat with cold-water species, such as winter flounder and cod, that are now becoming scarce.

“Everything’s changing,” said Greg Dubrule, owner and captain of the Black Hawk, which takes daily boatloads of anglers into the Sound from its docks on the Niantic River.

“There’s no question that, because of the warmer water, we’re seeing more scup and black sea bass, which had always been a New Jersey and southern Long Island fish,” he said.

“Our mainstay used to be winter flounder and cod, but now it’s sea bass, scup and fluke,” he added, “and we’re catching a lot of trigger fish, which we never used to see.”

Read the full story at The Day

Regulations call for fewer, bigger black bass on hook

April 12, 2016 — While the Massachusetts regulations for recreational fluke and scup remain unchanged for the upcoming 2016 fishing season, recreational anglers will have to adhere to smaller bag limits and minimum possession guidelines for black sea bass.

Massachusetts, which is part of a multi-state management plan for black sea bass administered by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, must join Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey in the northern region in reducing its black sea bass harvest by 23 percent to adhere to the new management plan restrictions.

In Massachusetts, the 2016 black sea bass season will run May 21 to Aug. 31 and recreational fishermen will be limited to keeping five fish per day, with the minimum catch size set at 15 inches.

Those parameters are different from 2015, when the season ran May 23 to Aug. 27 and anglers were allowed to keep eight black sea bass per day as long as they met or exceeded the minimum possession size of 14 inches.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Will Sea Bass Quota Go Up or Down?

April 7, 2016 — Last year, sea bass literally put some commercial fishermen in the black.

The black fish with the delicious pure white meat abundantly filled local waters and made up some financial losses for fishermen curtailed by otherwise stringent regulations on striped bass, cod, flounder and other lucrative species.

But that might change soon.

In a memo dated March 18 from the Division of Marine Fisheries in Boston, while regulations for striped bass, bluefish, fluke and scup will likely remain unchanged this year in Massachusetts, “Regulations for black sea bass have been amended to achieve a mandatory 23 percent harvest reduction.”

The Massachusetts regulatory agency says these revisions are being implemented along the entire Atlantic seaboard via “emergency rulemaking” to take effect prior to the onset of the 2016 season. Public hearings will be held to discuss proposals before changes are finalized.

Read the full story at Newport This Week

NEW JERSEY: Council to set fluke & sea bass regulations at Thursday meeting

March 2, 2016 — Paul Haertel of the JCAA reports the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council will be meeting at 4PM on Thursday, March 3rd at the Galloway Township Public Library, 306 E Jimmie Leeds Rd, Galloway, NJ 08205. The regulations for fluke and sea bass are expected to be set at this meeting. Though public comment will be accepted, it appears that there will only be one regulatory option offered for each species. The NJ Bureau of Marine Fisheries worked hard to develop various options. They were tweaked a little at the Advisers meeting and the end result was that a clear majority of advisers supported the following options.

Read the full story at NJ.com

23% harvest reduction approved for recreational black sea bass fishery

February 10, 2016 — Last week a board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission approved Addendum XXVII to the Summer Flounder and Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan, which continues the use of regional management for the two species in the 2016 recreational season.

Summer flounder (fluke) regulations will likely be the same in Rhode Island (eight fish per person, per day), however, the board approved a 23-percent harvest reduction for the recreational black sea bass fishery. This will result in more conservative regulations for Rhode Islanders.

At a public workshop Tuesday night, the Marine Fisheries Division of the Department of Environmental Management shared six black sea bass regulation options. All six can be found by clicking “Workshop Presentation” in the Marine Fisheries Division’s Feb. 16 public hearing meeting notice at www.dem.ri.gov.

One option in particular has drawn the attention of both private anglers and the charter/party boat industry. This would allow private anglers to take three fish from July 20 through Dec. 31, while party and charter boats who apply for and receive a “Letter of Authorization” would be allowed seven fish from Sept. 1 through Dec. 31.

Comments from recreational anglers on the various options for black sea bass and other species will be vetted at a public hearing at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Coastal Institute Building, on the URI Bay campus.

Read the full story at the Providence Journal

Jersey Shore Fishing: ASMFC approves NJ Delaware Bay 17-inch fluke

February 4, 2016 — This week’s Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) meeting of the Summer Flounder, Scup & Black Sea Bass Management Board in Alexandria, Virginia produced unanimous approval of New Jersey as its own region with the option to utilize a 17-inch fluke minimum in Delaware Bay and for shore fishing at Island Beach State Park while the rest of the state maintains the same regulations as New York and Connecticut.

New Jersey was forced last year into a region with those states after New York objected to having higher minimum sizes for fluke while often fishing in the same waters as New Jersey boaters. Yet, the same disparity applied to Jersey boaters at the southern end of the state in Delaware Bay as Delaware’s region had a 16-inch minimum. Since party and charter boats on the Jersey side of Delaware Bay draw most of their customers from Pennsylvania, anglers from that state usually opted to drive over the Delaware Memorial Bridge in order to bag 16-inch fluke rather than be restricted to an 18-inch minimum which is hard to come by in that bay.

The new one year agreement allows the DEP to set up separate Delaware Bay regulations with a 17-inch minimum for four fluke during a 128-day season. That’s still an inch over Delaware, but may be close enough to keep some Pennsylvania fishermen coming to New Jersey Delaware Bay ports. Meanwhile, the two fluke at 17 inches for shore-based anglers in Island Beach State Park can continue – and the DEP also has the opportunity to set up similar shore opportunities if they can be properly monitored.

The rest of the state will maintain the same fluke regulations as last year – an 18-inch minimum with five fluke during a 128-day season. The Marine Fisheries Council will set the opening and closing dates. Those regulations last year resulted in the entire region coming in well under the recreational quota. According to the 2015 assessment, summer flounder are not overfished, but overfishing is occurring. There were substantial illegal commercial catches, especially before the Research Set-Aside Program was discontinued, and the fishing mortality rate in 2014 was 16 percent above the reference point. Four year classes from 2010 to 2013 turned out to be overestimated – and the biomass has actually been trending downwards since 2010. As a result, the Acceptable Biological Catch limit of 16.26 million pounds for 2016 is reduced 29 percent from 2015 – and only 40 percent of that goes to the public.

Read the full story at NewJersey.com

 

MASSACHUSETTS: State meets fluke fishermen halfway after barring offload of entire catch

January 15, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — All but one of the seven fishing boats that were barred from offloading their catch of fluke, or summer flounder, earlier this week are back fishing, according to Dr. David Pierce, head of Massachusetts fisheries.

After fishing on North Carolina permits for the fluke, four boats from North Carolina and three from New Bedford (two owned by Carlos Rafael and one by Mark Bergeron) sought shelter in New Bedford during strong storms of the past week.

But Massachusetts’ fluke season doesn’t start until Feb. 1, and the regulations do not allow transfer of fluke quota from another port unless there is a crew injury or illness, or the boat has mechanical problems. The latter applied in the case of the one boat that had to double back to New Bedford with mechanical trouble.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times

New Bedford Standard Times: One more fault with fishing rules

January 15, 2016 — Fishing vessels tied up in New Bedford but not allowed to unload part of their catch this week suggest one more weakness in our fishing regulations that is ripe for remedy.

State environmental regulations allow a boat carrying fish to an out-of-state port to land fish in Massachusetts when injured crew or severe mechanical issues force the decision. Foul weather, apparently, is not part of the equation.

Unfortunately for seven vessels — three home-ported here and four from North Carolina — foul weather this week chased them to New Bedford, though they were all fishing on North Carolina permits. The state regulators have allowed the boats to land the portion of the catch classified as “incidental,” but the main target, fluke, as of Thursday afternoon, were still aboard at least two of the vessels because the fluke season doesn’t open in the local fishery until February.

The decision to allow the landing of the incidental catch is somewhat encouraging, as it suggests the Environmental Police tackling this interstate fish story can be flexible.

The fact that the fluke was still aboard yesterday, however, means there’s room for improvement among the rules concerned with quotas, sectors and neighboring regional Fishery Management Councils.

Read the full editorial at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Regulations bar three boats from unloading catch in New Bedford

January 13, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Three New Bedford-based fishing boats were barred from unloading their catch in the city Wednesday because the fish were caught on North Carolina quota that cannot be transferred to New Bedford.

Two boats owned by Carlos Rafael and one owned by Mark Bergeron of Bergie’s Seafood Inc. of New Bedford idled at the dock while they tried to budge state environmental police, who are following the regulations that say only a vessel breakdown or crew injury qualify a boat to go to an alternative harbor and unload.

At press time, Major Patrick Moran of the Environmental Police said the “incidental catch” (all the fish except fluke) for the local boats can be unloaded. Fluke by regulation cannot be landed in Massachusetts until February.

“We are trying to work together on this for a solution that is satisfactory to everyone,” Moran said. “This is a good start.”

Rafael and Bergeron had feared that they would have had to allow an entire catch to rot and be thrown overboard because of the strictness of the rules.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times