April 22, 2016 — Three recreational and commercially important species are the subject of a trap survey that is being conducted on the artificial reefs now through November.
The state’s Division of Fish and Wildlife and researchers from Rutgers University have deployed a series of fish traps on two reefs to focus on characterizing the seasonal and spatial changes in reef community composition and relative abundance of structure-associated species.
April 21, 2016 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:
During a meeting last week in Montauk, New York the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council approved a framework action to modify the boundary of one of the region’s two Scup Gear Restricted Areas (GRAs). The proposed change to the Southern Scup GRA boundary is expected to increase the availability of longfin squid to small-mesh fisheries.
The GRAs were implemented in 2000 and are intended to reduce discard mortality of juvenile scup. The current GRA regulations include a Northern GRA, which is effective from November 1 through December 31, and a Southern GRA, which is effective from January 1 through March 15. Trawl vessels which fish for or possess longfin squid, black sea bass, or silver hake (also known as whiting) are required to use mesh 5 inches or larger in the GRAs during those times of the year. The scup stock has expanded substantially since the GRAs were first implemented, and analysis conducted by scientists at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center indicate that the GRAs were partially responsible for this rebuilding.
The GRAs have been modified several times in response to requests from commercial fishermen. In recent years, advisors have recommended further modification of the GRAs to restore access to certain areas for longfin squid fishing, arguing that modifications to the GRA boundaries would not harm the scup stock
In response to an industry request, the Council initiated a framework action in 2014 to address potential changes to the scup GRAs. The framework considered a range of alternatives, including modifications to the GRA boundaries and elimination of one or both GRAs.
After a lengthy discussion of the impacts of the proposed alternatives, the Council voted to modify the boundary of the Southern Scup GRA. The proposed change, shown in Figure 1, is based on a proposal developed by members of the Council’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Advisory Panel.
“By increasing access to important fishing grounds, the Council balanced the concerns of the squid industry with the possible impacts on the scup stock,” said the Council’s Executive Director, Chris Moore. “If the modification is approved by NMFS, the Council will be working closely with NMFS to monitor scup discards to make sure that mortality of juvenile scup does not increase as a result.”
Read the release and see the chart at the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council
April 19, 2016 — The following was released by Monmouth University’s Urban Coast Institute:
Over two dozen maps now available on the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal present a more detailed picture than ever before of the extent and locations of commercial fishing activities throughout the upper East Coast.
With the new “Communities at Sea” and Federal Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) map collections, Portal users can identify the ocean places upon which the Mid-Atlantic’s commercial fishing communities most depend. Specifically, these interactive maps enable users to better understand places that are most important for particular ports, specific fisheries, and gear types.
The public release of these datasets is an important step forward for ocean planning and education in the Mid-Atlantic. The maps can help focus and guide essential engagement and consultation with specific fishing communities for a range of ocean planning, permitting and management decision-making processes.
Over two years in the making, the Portal’s Communities at Sea maps (labeled in the Marine Planner mapping application as “Commercial Fishing – VTR”) were created using methodology developed by Dr. Kevin St. Martin at Rutgers University. Vessel Trip Report (VTR) and permit information were integrated to create a new database that links fishing port communities to the places at sea where they spend the most time. Produced at much higher resolution than previous VTR maps, warm and cool colors are used to represent higher and lower number of days spent fishing. Portal users can click on any point on the map to activate a pop-up window that indicates which specific communities use the area. For example, clicking on an area off the New Jersey Shore may reveal that that gillnetters from Barnegat Bay or trawlers from Ocean City fish in the selected waters.
The maps were reviewed, discussed and improved though meetings with commercial fishermen throughout the Mid-Atlantic. The Communities at Sea collection currently includes eight maps based on 2011-13 data and will be expanded this summer via a new user interface for querying and selecting from the full library of over 100 maps.
“We really appreciate the critique and advice we got from fishermen from Montauk to Virginia Beach during our map review sessions,” said Jay Odell, Technical Lead for the Portal and Director of the Mid-Atlantic Marine Program at The Nature Conservancy. “They noted some important strengths and limitations of the data and what we learned is helping to drive the development of an expanded map library that we hope to have ready for the Portal this summer.”
The Portal’s Data Catalog section summarizes some of the caveats raised by commercial fishermen. For example, the maps are based on information from recent years and may not represent fishing areas that were historically important and could be again. Also, fishing patterns are driven by complex ecological, regulatory and economic factors that can change from year to year.
The Portal’s 19 new Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) maps show areas where commercial fishing activities take place, grouped by specific regulated fishery categories (for example, scallops, herring or monkfish). These maps (labeled “Commercial Fishing – VMS”) were created by our ocean planning partners in the Northeast region using VMS data from 2006-2014. VMS data are produced by satellite technology that tracks the movements of vessels participating in several federally managed fisheries. This data is also presented in a heat map format, with cooler colors representing low activity and dark reds showing high activity.
The Communities at Sea and VMS maps can be layered together on the Portal in complementary ways to provide rich detail about the region’s fishing communities and the ocean places they depend on. Both datasets were carefully screened and aggregated by NOAA before maps were made so that the fishing activity of individual fishermen or vessels would not be revealed.
Finally, additional maps were added at the request of commercial fishing advisors to show the boundaries of some of the region’s important fishery management zones, including ocean quahogs, surf clams and scallops. Additional regulatory boundaries may be added in the future based on specific interests and requests.
To access and explore the new maps, please visit the Marine Planner page and click on the Fishing link for a dropdown menu of map layer options. Additional map options currently available in the Fishing theme include party and charter boat fishing activity, artificial reef locations and fathom lines.
Users can register for a free Portal account to start and join online map groups, draw and share their own map shapes, create and save map bookmarks and more. Please use the Portal’s feedback tab to share any comments, concerns or questions.
About the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal
The Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal is an online toolkit and resource center that consolidates available data and enables state, federal and local users to visualize and analyze ocean resources and human use information such as fishing grounds, recreational areas, shipping lanes, habitat areas, and energy sites, among others. The Portal serves as a platform to engage all stakeholders in ocean planning from the five-state Mid-Atlantic region—putting all of the essential data and state-of-the-art mapping and visualization technology into the hands of the agencies, industry, and community leaders engaged in ocean planning. The Portal is maintained by a team consisting of the Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute, Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School and Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis, The Nature Conservancy, MARCO and other partners.
April 18, 2016 – In an April 15 story, the New York Times described in detail the challenges faced at sea by members of the limited access scallop fleet. The story covered the rescue of the Carolina Queen III, which ran aground off the Rockaways Feb. 25, during a storm with waves cresting as high as 14 feet. The following is an excerpt from the story:
Scallop fishing may not conjure up the derring-do of those catching crabs in the icy waters of the Bering Strait or the exploits of long-line tuna fisherman chronicled on shows like “The Deadliest Catch.” But the most dangerous fishing grounds in America remain those off the Northeast Coast — more dangerous than the Bering Sea, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
From 2000 to 2009, the years covered by the agency’s data, 504 people died while fishing at sea and 124 of them were in the Northeast.
The scallop industry had the second-highest rate of fatalities: 425 deaths per 100,000 workers. Among all workers in the United States over the same period, according to the C.D.C., there were four deaths per 100,000 workers. The size of the crew and the time at sea contribute to the dangers.
Drew Minkiewicz, a lawyer who represents the Fisheries Survival Fund, said that since 2010, the number of vessels permitted to fish for scallops has been limited, and with fewer unregistered ships at sea, there have been fewer accidents.
The Atlantic sea scallop — Placopecten magellanicus — has been popular since the 1950s, when Norwegian immigrants first scoured the seas south of New Bedford, Mass. The supply could swing between scarcity and plenty, but in the 1980s huge algae blooms known as brown tides appeared several years in a row and threatened to destroy the scallops’ ecosystem on the East Coast. Even after those tides passed, the industry almost did itself in by overfishing. Only after regulations were passed in the 1990s and the industry banded together with the scientific community to improve fishing techniques did the fisheries rebound.
Now, scalloping along the Atlantic Coast from Maine to North Carolina is among the most lucrative fishing in the world. In 2014, the catch was estimated to be worth more than $424 million.
The industry operates under strict guidelines, many aimed at ensuring sustainability of the fisheries. To fish some areas with known scallop beds, a permit is needed, and the haul is capped. Open-sea fishing, on the other hand, is restricted only by the annual 32-days-at-sea limit.
The clock is always ticking.
“We get so few days to go out, we have to find every efficiency to maximize our days at sea,” said Joe Gilbert, who owns Empire Fisheries and, as captain of a boat called the Rigulus, is part of the tight-knit scalloping community.
In preparation for the Carolina Queen’s voyage, the crew would have spent days getting ready, buying $3,000 in groceries, loading more than 20,000 pounds of ice and prepping the equipment on the twin-dredge vessel.
The vessel steamed north from the Chesapeake Bay, traveling 15 hours to reach the coast off New Jersey, where the crew would probably have started fishing. Then the work would begin.
It is pretty standard for a crew to work eight hours on and take four hours off, but in reality it often is more like nine hours on and three off. If you are a good sleeper, you are lucky to get two hours’ shut-eye before heading back on deck.
The huge tows scouring the ocean bed for scallops dredge for about 50 minutes and are then hauled up, their catch dumped on deck before the tows are reset and plunged back into the water, a process that can be done in as little as 10 minutes.
While the dredge did its work, the crew on duty on the Carolina Queen sorted through the muddy mix of rocks and sand and other flotsam on the ship’s deck, looking for the wavy round shells of the scallops.
“The biggest danger is handling the gear on deck,” Mr. Gilbert said. “It is very heavy gear on a pitching deck, and you get a lot of injured feet, injured hands.”
Once the scallops are sorted, according to industry regulations, they must be shucked by hand.
The crew spends hours opening the shells and slicing out the abductor muscle of the mollusks — the fat, tasty morsel that winds up on plates at a restaurants like Oceana in Midtown Manhattan, where a plate of sea scallops à la plancha costs as much as $33.
A single boat can haul 4,000 pounds in a day.
April 14, 2016 — They are the land mines of the sea, killing long after being forgotten.
Abandoned or lost fishing gear, including traps, crab pots and nets, litter the ocean floor in coastal areas around the world. Many continue to attract, entrap and kill fish and other marine life in what’s called “ghost fishing.”
Groups, governments and companies around the world are engaged in efforts to retrieve and recycle as much of the abandoned gear as they can get their hands on. The goal is to protect the environment, prevent marine life from being killed, remove threats to navigation, and in some cases, generate energy.
Pascal van Erp, a Dutch diver who was horrified by the amount of abandoned fishing equipment he encountered, founded the Ghost Fishing Foundation to tackle the issue.
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.
April 12, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — Organizations in five states will receive more than $15 million for marine science research projects funded by the sale of sea scallops.
One of the projects seeks to understand the impacts of sea scallop fishing on loggerhead sea turtles through the use of satellite tagging. Coonamessett Farm Foundation Inc. of Falmouth, Massachusetts, is the lead investigating organization on that effort.
Recipients of the grants are located in Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Virginia. They range from universities and educational organizations to commercial fishing businesses.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Virginian-Pilot
April 8, 2016 — The trade of fresh water species between the fish and wildlife departments of New Jersey and Massachusetts will continue this year.
The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife will ship its surplus northern pike fingerlings for 2,000 eight-inch Massachusetts-raised landlocked salmon.
The swap is usually made around the middle of May when the 2-3 inch pike fingerlings begin to crowd Hackettstown rearing tanks, according to N.J. Fish and Wildlife
The salmon will then be reared and stocked in freshwater lakes in the future as part of the Landlocked Salmon program, now in its 10th year.
April 7, 2016 — The following was released by NOAA:
NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center and the New England Fishery Management Council are pleased to announce that 15 research projects have been selected for support from the 2016 Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside (RSA) program. The projects address the council’s research priorities for the nation’s highest-valued single species commercial fishery.
Twenty-five researchers from nine different organizations will be awarded 2016-2017 research grants valued at $15.6 million. These projects are funded by proceeds from selling a portion of the annual sea scallop quota “set aside” for this purpose. Award recipients are located in Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia and include universities, non-profit research and education organizations, and commercial fishing vessels and businesses.
Research set-aside programs are unique to federal fisheries in the northeast region. Under RSA programs, no federal funds are provided to support the research. Selected projects receive allocations “set-aside” within established quotas for this purpose under the particular fishery management plan. Successful applicants partner with the fishing industry to harvest their set aside award to generate funds for the research. There are active research set-aside programs for Atlantic sea scallops, Atlantic herring, and monkfish.
The New England Fishery Management Council established the sea scallop RSA program to address research that will support management of the scallop resource. The Council sets the research priorities and researchers compete for funding through a federal grant competition managed by NOAA Fisheries. All of the funds derived from quota sales are used to support research and compensate industry partners. NOAA Fisheries does not retain or use any of these funds.
This year, more than 30 proposals were received for consideration. Six of these are two-year projects. Proposals were evaluated and ranked for technical merit and responsiveness to Council research priorities.
Ten projects will address the Council’s highest research priorities, including intensive and broad-scale resource surveys, bycatch reduction, scallop meat quality, and scallop area management. Five projects focus on other Council priorities, such as sea scallop biology and productivity, habitat impact research, and reducing the risk of sea turtle interactions with the scallop fishery.
Proposals underwent a two-stage review – one for technical merit and one for responsiveness to management priorities.
Proposals for sea scallop surveys were evaluated and ranked by a technical panel that looked at merit as well as how the work met recommendations from a recent peer review of all sea scallop survey methods used in the region. All other proposals were each evaluated for technical merit by three subject matter experts. Each technical reviewer submitted scores and comments on each proposal. A management panel made recommendations on priority projects, based on current management priorities.
The technical review scores, in conjunction with recommendations from the management panelists, are the basis for RSA survey funding decisions.
These surveys, combined with the annual NOAA Fisheries sea scallop survey, will provide a comprehensive picture of the scallop resource by the end of this summer. The data collected are expected to support the Council’s area management decisions for 2017 and beyond.
Arnie’s Fisheries Inc. will conduct an optical survey of the Elephant Trunk Access Area using the HabCam V3 instrument system, looking at scallop numbers, sizes, and density in order to generate harvestable biomass estimates.
The Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) will conduct a fine-scale dredge survey of the Mid-Atlantic sea scallop resource from the Virginia/North Carolina border to Block Island, Rhode Island. VIMS will also conduct high-resolution abundance and distribution surveys in and around the Nantucket Lightship Closed Area, and in Georges Bank Closed Area II and the surrounding area to the south, where secondary objectives include finfish bycatch species composition and catch rates; scallop product quality and disease research; and commercial and survey scallop dredge performance.
The Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution, as part of their habitat research on the northern part of Georges Bank, will conduct a high resolution HabCam survey to support near-term scallop area management decisions of this area that is undergoing considerable management changes. Lund’s Fisheries are co-principal investigators.
As requested by the New England Fishery Management Council, the survey technical review panel not only considered technical merit, but also the results of a recent peer review when evaluating proposals for sea scallop surveys. That review, conducted in 2015 by the Center for Independent Experts, examined all of the primary survey methods for assessing sea scallop abundance in the region, several of which are supported through the scallop RSA program. The technical panel ensured that proposals were responsive to the peer review findings.
For the fifth year, UMASS Dartmouth’s School of Marine Science and Technology will use their award to support a yellowtail flounder bycatch avoidance system.To address low allocations of yellowtail flounder in the scallop fishery, these researchers will work with the limited-access and general category scallop fleets to deploy the bycatch avoidance system in fishing grounds on Georges Bank and in southern New England.
Reducing bycatch through scallop dredge gear modifications is the focus of two projects proposed by the Coonamessett Farm Foundation, Inc. The Foundation plans to design and test gear designed to reduce flatfish bycatch through modification to the dredge bag, and the use of a modified flounder sweep attached to the dredge bail, filming interactions to monitor the effectiveness of the gear modifications.
The Coonamessett Farm Foundation will also continue its seasonal bycatch survey on Georges Bank, collecting information on yellowtail flounder bycatch rates and other bycatch species relative to scallop meat yield. Data will also be used to evaluate sea scallop health and meat quality, provide maturity data for several flounder species, estimate the prevalence of a potentially significant parasite in yellowtail flounder, and examine lobsters for shell disease while also collecting biological data.
For the eighth Coonamessett Farm will tag up to 30 loggerhead sea turtles with water activated tags. They will also observe sea turtle behavior using a remotely operated vehicle, take biological samples, and collect length and weight measurements. This work provides information on sea turtle distribution and behavior in the Mid-Atlantic and southern New England, where there is overlap between sea scallop fishing activity and turtle distribution. Co-principle investigators include Virginia Institute of Marine Science, the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association, and Roger Williams University.
The Virginia Institute of Marine Science will study sea scallop age structure and growth rates over time. Under a separate grant, VIMS will develop a framework for mark-recapture studies to estimate natural mortality, growth and movement of scallops and the effects of scallop density on those factors.
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth campus investigating scallop meat quality will focus on how the infection that causes “gray meat” in sea scallops is transmitted.
Researchers at Virginia Institute of Marine Science, with colleagues at Rutgers University, will study how a nematode parasite affects scallop meat quality and provide insight into how industry and management can assess and predict impacts to the scallop stock and meat quality.
Coonamessett Farm Foundation will demonstrate the feasibility of a seeding program to enhance and stabilize scallop recruitment while documenting the factors that affect seed survival.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will investigate the impact of scallop fishing in habitat management areas using the REMUS autonomous underwater vehicle.
For more information about these recommended awards and the Scallop RSA Program, please contact Ryan Silva (ryan.silva@noaa.gov, 978-281-9326), or Cheryl Corbett (cheryl.corbett@noaa.gov, 508-495-2070).
To learn more about work funded through the Sea Scallop RSA program, or through the NEFSC Northeast Cooperative Research Program, use our searchable project list.
| Project | Organization | Principal Investigators | * Set-Aside Award based on $12 per pound R=research C=compensation fishing T=total budget |
| Optimizing the Georges Bank Scallop Fishery by Maximizing Meat Yield and Minimizing Bycatch | Coonamessett Farm Foundation, Inc. | Carl Huntsberger, Jasper Leavitt, Rachel Simpson, Liese Siemann (CFF) David Rudders (VIMS) Heidi Henninger (AOLA) Roxanna Smolowitz (RWU) |
R-$498,573 C-$1,495,719 T-$1,994,292 166,191 lb of scallops |
| Development of Ecosystem Friendly Scallop Dredge Bags: Tools for Long-Term Sustainability | Coonamessett Farm Foundation, Inc. | Farrell Davis Christopher Parkins Melissa Campbell |
R-$394,050 C-$1,182,150 T-$1,576,200146,350 lb of scallops |
| A Modified Flounder Sweep for Flatfish Bycatch Reduction in the LAGC Scallop Fishery | Coonamessett Farm Foundation, Inc. | Christopher Parkins Farrell Davis |
R-$92,380 C-$277,140 T-$369,52030,793 lb of scallops |
| Understanding Impacts of the Sea Scallop Fishery on Loggerhead Sea Turtles Through Satellite Tagging | Coonamessett Farm Foundation, Inc. | Samir Patel Shea Miller |
R-$223,014.50 C-$669,044 T-$892,058.5074,338 lb of scallops |
| Drivers of Dispersal and Retention in Recently Seeded Sea Scallops | Coonamessett Farm Foundation, Inc. | Shea Miller Liese Siemann Jasper Leavitt |
R-$270,032 C-$810,096 T-$1,080,12890,011 lb of scallops |
| Optical Survey of the Scallop Resource in the Elephant Trunk Scallop Access Area – Year 2 | Arnie’s Fisheries, Inc. | Richard Taylor | R-$146,635 C-$439,905 T-$586,54048,878 lb of scallops |
| Transmission of Apicomplexan Infection and Development of Gray Meat in Atlantic Sea Scallops Placopecten magellanicus (2 Years) | University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth | Jennifer Koop Susan Inglis |
R-$179,140 C-$460,646 T-$639,78653,315 lb of scallops |
| Scallop Fishery Bycatch Avoidance System 2016 | University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth | Steve Cadrin | R-$87,500 C-$225,000 T-$312,50026,041 lb of scallops |
| A Cooperative High Precision Dredge Survey to Assess the Mid-Atlantic Sea Scallop Resource Area (2 Years) | Virginia Institute of Marine Science | David Rudders Sally Roman Robert Fisher |
R-$395,870 C-$1,583,478 T-$1,979,346164,946 lb of scallops |
| An Assessment of Sea Scallop Abundance and Distribution in the Nantucket Lightship Closed Area and Surrounds (2 Years) | Virginia Institute of Marine Science | David Rudders Sally Roman |
R-$178,389 C-$713,556 T-$891,94574,329 lb of scallops |
| An Investigation into the Scallop Parasite Outbreak on the Mid-Atlantic Shelf: Transmission Pathways, Spatio-Temporal Variation of Infection, and Consequences to Marketability (2 Years) | Virginia Institute of Marine Science | David Rudders (VIMS) David Bushek Daphne Munroe, Robert Fisher, Eleanor Bochenek (Rutgers University) |
R-$231,628 C-$713,794 T-$945,42278,785 lb of scallops |
| An Assessment of Sea Scallop Abundance and Distribution in Georges Bank Closed Area II and Surrounds | Virginia Institute of Marine Science | David Rudders | R-$89,643 C-$358,572 T-$448,21537,351 lb of scallops |
| Scallop Mark-Recapture to Estimate Density Dependent Natural Mortality and Growth | Virginia Institute of Marine Science | David Rudders John Hoenig |
R-$148,571 C-$445,713 T-$ 594,28449,524 lbs. of scallops |
| Age Structure and Growth Rate in the Sea Scallop Placopecten magellanicus (2 Years) | Virginia Institute of Marine Science | Roger Mann David Rudders |
R-$202,512 C-$411,161 T-$613,67351,139 lb of scallops |
| Impact of Disturbance on Habitat Recovery in Habitat Management Areas on George’s Bank (2 Years) | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | Scott Gallager Mike Purcell (WHOI) Wayne Reichle Jeff Kaelin (Lund’s Fisheries) |
R-$666,486 C-$1,999,458 T-$2,665,944222,162 lb of scallops |
Total $ 15,589,853
1 CFF – Coonamessett Farm Foundation
VIMS – Virginia Institute of Marine Science
AOLA – Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association
RWU – Roger Williams University
WHOI – Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
New Jersey (March 25, 2016) — Fisheries management has been so tough on South Jersey anglers that they’re grateful when they get a little consideration.
That happened earlier this month when the N.J. Marine Fisheries Council decided to allow summer flounder caught in Delaware Bay to be kept if they’re 17 inches, a one-inch reduction in the minimum size. Size matters in this case, with less than an inch often the difference between being able to keep (and eat) a fish and having to release it.
The council acted because Delaware has been allowing people fishing in the same bay to keep flounder just 16 inches. What’s more, Delaware lets people fish any day of the year, while those in New Jersey can only fish from May 21 to Sept. 25.