Good & bad

Marine Commission gets a hit, then fouls one off

The good news is the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission decided at its September meeting to consider in 2012 proposals for 2013’s netting seasons that may reduce waste in the striped-bass ocean trawling season.

But we’re disappointed that with the chance to lessen pressure immediately on 2012 stocks of spotted seatrout and striped bass, the Commission, which is dominated by commercial interests, sang the same tired tune of “Let’s allow netters to catch as many fish as they can, and to hell with the future” — and, by default, recreational anglers.

If Commissioner Anna Beckwith’s ideas would be great for 2013, why not implement them in 2012? Why allow these fish to be hammered for another year.

But, as most of you know, that’s not the way the Commission works.

We know Dr. Louis Daniel, director of the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries, is hoping speckled trout rebound this fall and next spring — but that all depends on not having another winter cold-stun event that may force a second precedent-setting closure of the recreational trout season, as occurred last winter.

The striper trawling plan for 2012, adopted by the Commission after being put forth by Mikey Daniels of Wanchese, who owns a trawl fleet, continues to permit trawling for striped bass, although now trawl captains may transfer excess catches of fish to beach seiners, gill-netters or other trawlers. This idea, ostensibly, would end wasted fish being tossed overboard. The limit remains 100 fish per vessel.

Beckwith’s proposals include limited entry to the striper-netting fishery to individuals with a history of catching ocean striped bass, transfer of excess fish, allowing hook-and-line commercial fishing, and opening the entire 480,000-pound quota to be caught by all gear types. Her ideas sound like a plan we hope will be adopted, even two years in the future. But the Commission continues its delaying act for spotted sea trout, saying the NCDMF can wait until this month to submit another trout management plan that may not be implemented until November 2013.

There’s a fly in that ointment. By legislative rule, the agency has two years to stop overfishing of any species when it’s discovered, and Daniel suspended recreational fishing for trout on Feb. 17, 2011, while allowing a 50-fish per trip commercial limit for specks because of winter cold-stun kills. So the clock started ticking in early 2011. Logically, the two years expire in February 2013, not November 2013.

The Commission hassn’t addressed that; you can bet it won’t.

Also during the Commission’s Raleigh meetings, it didn’t address Albemarle Sound stripers. That’s another problem. A “fake” striper fishery exists in the Albemarle Sound in which netters are allowed to take 10 striped bass per trip as by-catch. We’ve learned that they often set nets and land catfish or shad, plus stripers, dump the targeted fish and sell the stripers. So it’s a directed fishery disguised as non-directed.

Moreover, the N.C. Wildlife Commission is being used as a patsy, spending sportsmen’s funds to stock shad in the Albemarle system, which gives netters a legal means to net and sell striped bass.

The state legislature could end Commission circumventions of the intent to conserve saltwater stocks. We hope it does exactly that when the legislative study commission meets in May 2012.