Stocks remain unchanged, but that’s mixed news for anglers and coastal fisheries.
The news for North Carolina saltwater fishermen and resource watchers this year continues a familiar pattern — it’s a mixed bag with few changes from 2008.The N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries took a “no news is good news” approach when it announced its 2008 stock-status reports last July.
“I’m pleased no stocks were downgraded in this year’s report,” said Louis Daniel, DMF director. “I am hopeful this trend will continue as more stocks recover and become viable.”
The stock-status reports classifies fish species as Viable, Recovering, Concern or Depleted. The state’s saltwater management agency annually surveys 39 saltwater species.
Usually, some fish backslide each year, while others may improve slightly. But 2008’s status reports remain unchanged from 2007.
Daniel clearly thinks the status-quo situation is good news — in most instances. On the other hand, such designations also mean conditions remain terrible for at least one popular saltwater fish sought by commercial and recreational anglers.
Here’s a look at what the DMF management policies are and how they may affect anglers success in the coming year:
Spotted seatrout
“(2008) was the best year on record for speckled trout,” said Beth Burns, a Wanchese-based DMF biologist. “I heard a lot of great things about recreational speckled trout fishing last year.”
She said fishing was tremendous from the Cape Fear/Wilmington region to the Outer Banks — basically anywhere at the North Carolina coast where anglers pursued these fish.
“(Speck fishing) also never slacked off,” Burns said. “It was good all year long. Usually it drops off at some point, but it never did. It’s usually only that good in the summer and fall. There even were reports of great fishing in the surf at the Outer Banks.”
Coastwide catches of 5-, 6-, and 7-pound specks were fairly common during 2008, as “gator” trout sizes have increased for the past four years.
The major 2008 problem Burns heard from anglers pertained to gill nets. However, North Carolina falls under Amendment 1of an Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission trout-management plan that allows a 20-percent Spawning Potential Ratio (80 percent of the stock can be targeted for harvest). The good news is so many specks swam in North Carolina waters last year, a large net haul didn’t drastically affect the population.
“What makes me more nervous is this (recent) cold spell,” Burns said during mid-January.
Speckled trout that live most of the year in shallow creeks connected to major brackish-water rivers or sounds can be stunned by quick drops in water temperature. During January 2009, a cold spell blanketed most of North Carolina with near- and sub-freezing temperatures, capped by a Jan. 20 snow event across most of the state.
During the state’s last extended cold snap in 2001, eastern North Carolina residents scooped up thousands of pounds of lethargic trout off the bottoms of coves and creeks. Burns said the critical, fish-numbing water temperature for speckled trout is 42 degrees.
“It would be a shame for that to happen again, coming off our best speckled trout year,” Burns said.
If the weather warms, the fish should survive, and 2009 promises to be another fantastic year.
Flounder
The two main flounder families in N.C. waters were in trouble last year and will continue to live on the edge during 2009 — or that’s the song federal fisheries managers have been singing.
But flounder management remains controversial. North Carolina is a member of an ASMFC agreement linking seaboard states to a quota plan that produces tweaked allotments based on what other states harvest.
For instance, New Jersey is the big dog in this hunt, where anglers land more summer flounder percentage-wise than any other Atlantic state. When that happens (Garden State anglers annually land 30 to 35 percent of the total ASMFC allotment), other signees of the Flounder FMP have to pay up by having their quotas reduced. North Carolina gets anywhere from 11 to 17 percent of the ASMFC’s annual summer flounder quota, so it’s sometimes saddled with a smaller quota when New Jersey goes over its limit.
But good news may be coming, because ASFMC flounder regs apparently were based on some questionable Magnuson-Stevens Act provisions. Basically, that means flounder are in better shape than anyone thought, especially off the N.J. coast.
New Jersey anglers fought having their quotas cut in 2008 by pointing out that each year the state followed a more restrictive harvest plan, anglers kept catching more doormats. If flounder numbers were down and forced more stringent catch restrictions, how, New Jersey fishermen reasoned, could they catch more fish each year — unless flounder numbers were a lot higher than the feds thought? ASMFC eased its flounder rules this year — which in turn boosts N.C.’s share of the pie.
This explanation is behind the DMF’s upgrade of summer flounder to “Concern” from “Depleted” in its 2008 stock status report. It noted that “a benchmark (2007) stock assessment is currently under way which could result in changes to the stock status and reference points. Fishing mortality (for summer flounder) has steadily decreased since the early 1990s. Spawning stock biomass has steadily increased from the early 1990s to 2005 but decreased in 2006.”
That’s a technical way of saying more ocean (summer) flounder are out there than anyone realized, so catch limits are being relaxed.
“The peer-reviewed stock assessment last summer showed summer flounder weren’t overfished, and overfishing wasn’t occurring,” said Chris Batsavage, the DMF’s flounder biologist.
On the other hand, southern flounder (the DMF lists them as “Depleted and overfishing is occurring”) are in trouble. And it’s a simple matter of where they live and too much gear in the water.
Southern flounder (found mostly in rivers and sounds; i.e., brackish water) are targeted by gill and pound netters, incidentally by shrimp trawls, by giggers, by recreational anglers and recreational commercial gear license netters.
They’re penned up, as it were, in skinny water instead of the Atlantic Ocean, so it’s easier to find and catch them. Not only that, but the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission allowed years of overharvest by having smaller minimum-size limits for netted flounder and unlimited harvests by recreationals, commercials and giggers. The MFC continues to allow netters to set nets 11 of 12 months per year (including November, when it’s almost impossible to not catch a flounder in a net at Pamlico Sound).
“We did implement new size and creel limits to help reduce pressure on southern flounder,” Batsavage said.
That included extended a 15½-inch minimum-length recreational creel limit in the western half of Pamlico Sound down to Brown’s Inlet.
But with everyone chasing them in a relatively small space, rebuilding southern flounder numbers looks like a long-range project.
Red drum
At the opposite end of the scale, red drum are in terrific shape, because the MFC and DMF took the netting crosshairs off reds 10 years ago and continue to adjust regulations to protect these valuable fish.
North Carolina is known nationwide as the America’s red drum capital, and the fishery brings millions of angler dollars into the the state each year.
“I think our surveys and stock assessments show we’re right on target, where we need to be,” said Lee Paramore of Manteo, the DMF’s red drum biologist. “Escapement rates are 40 percent and have been that way since 1999, That’s right where we need to be.”
Escapement rate is the number of sexually mature fish in a given year-class that aren’t caught by anglers (recreational or commercial).
“With the 1-fish (daily) limit and slot limit (18 to 27 inches), plus more restrictions on commercial fishermen, we have maintained the desired escapement rate for several years,” he said.
The main problem red drum face is incidental catches by netters who target other species but set nets where reds swim at feeder creeks and coves.
“Steps are being considered to reduce the impact of mortality associated with regulatory discards,” Paramore said. “These include requiring circle hooks in some of the adult red drum recreational fisheries and expanding the current small-mesh gill-net attendance requirements in the commercial fishery.”
“Regulatory discards” refer to under- or over-slot fish that anglers catch but can’t keep. Redfish also can’t be deliberately targeted by N.C. netters, but when they’re incidentally caught in nets, only four may be kept per day, and flounder or striped mullet must make up at least 50 percent of the catch by weight. But if a netter accidentally catches too many drum, they’re often tossed discarded.
“On the rec side, we’re implementing circle-hook requirements (7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily during July, August and September) in Pamlico Sound,” Paramore said. “Circle hooks won’t have to be used with Owen Lupton rigs, but they’ll have to be similar — the hook can be no more than six inches from a fixed weight, which has to be at least two ounces. But it’s only for 4/0 hooks and larger, because we know some people use live bait (and smaller rigs and hooks) to catch flounder and speckled trout.”
Lupton rigs are famous for hooking red drum in the mouth, not in the gullet, which reduces chances of delayed mortality.
Commercial netting rules will be changed as well to require year-round attendance of small-mesh gill nets in larger areas. Untended small-mesh (5-inch) nets (used for flounder, striped mullet, specks and spot) have killed noticeable numbers of red drum for years.
“(The attendance zone) used to be from Minnesott Beach to Cherry Point (Marine Corps Air Station across the river), but now it’s moved to outside the mouth of Bay River, basically to the mouth of the Neuse,” Paramore said. “If you set nets within 200 yards of the shoreline, you’ll have to be within 100 yards of the net at all times. (Netters) won’t be able to set nets in one creek, leave and set (other nets) at a different creek.”
Overall, Paramore said he was pleased with the results of current regulations.
“We’re seeing a lot of bigger fish, and I’m also encouraged by seeing a lot of yearling-size fish,” he said.
Paramore said redfish regs probably won’t change for at least five years.
“At the hearings, most of the public sentiment now seems to be to stick with what’s working,” he said, “although some people don’t understand a 40-percent escapement rate isn’t a clear picture of the adult stock, but just a snapshot of fish moving through an age class. So I’d be worried if, because we have a lot of fish now, we increased the (rec) bag limit to two fish or relaxed netting rules. It might work on paper, but you’d have the potential to take a lot of fish (out of the water).”
However, after “10 or 15 years” of a constant 40-percent escapement rate, Paramore said regulations could change.
“The 1998 stock assessment said we’d have to maintain the (40-percent) escapement rate for 10 to 15 years (to rebuild the population),” he said, “so we should be able to reconsider (increasing creels and quotas) in five years.”
Striped bass
Striped bass have been a success-and-failure story in North Carolina; the explanation is pretty simple — habitat.
In the northeastern portion of the state, stripers (aka “rockfish” or simply “rocks” are abundant because of decades of cooperation between the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to produce beneficial spring spawning-period water flows in the Roanoke River, which runs unimpeded about 120 miles from Weldon to Albemarle Sound.
When water flows are consistent through Roanoke Rapids Dam (after normal rainfall), stripers make successful spawning runs — and anglers catch their share.
“We’re still seeing good numbers of all age classes, up to 15- or 16-year-old fish, in the Roanoke River,” said Charlton Godwin, DMF’s striper expert.
Illegal poaching of stripers in the Roanoke system once common in the 1ate-1970s through the mid-1980s, is rare nowadays because of vigorous enforcement.
For the ocean fishery, the DMF permits a limited, short-duration netting season, but it’s so tame that netters landed only 171,682 pounds of fish during 2007. Most ocean-caught stripers also aren’t North Carolina natives, coming south in December from Chesapeake Bay, the Delaware or Hudson rivers.
“Ocean fish are in good shape,” Godwin said. “It’s a short (netting) season, and there’s really stiff penalties (for illegal catches).”
Recreational catches also are limited to two stripers per day and a 28-inch size minimum.
Rockfish are thick in Albemarle Sound as well, but the farther south one goes, the less likely are encounters with stripers.
The DMF and commission closed the Cape Fear system to all striper harvests this year because there’s virtually no reproduction in that river system, and most of the fish sampled are juveniles.
“There’s just no access to spawning grounds down there,” Godwin said.
But he expects that some Cape Fear dams will be removed or fish ladders built at the river’s locks and dams to give stripers needed spawning-ground access — the main reason their numbers have been down so much in southeastern N.C. waters.
“We’re also stocking Phase II stripers (seven to eight inches long) in that system,” Godwin said. “We get them from the Edenton hatchery, and 150,000 to 200,000 stripers are being released (in the Cape Fear system).”
Sea bass
The black sea bass story is nearly the same as that of stripers — except the good-vs.-bad-fishing division is in the Atlantic Ocean.
Sea bass north of Hatteras now are classified as “Concern,” while those south of Hatteras are deemed “Overfished.”
Burns said the reason for the split decision is a survey that indicated old black sea bass tallies were inaccurate.
“The last black sea bass (stock) assessment was rejected,” she said.
The latest survey (a 3-year index of black bass north of Hatteras done by the Northeast Science Center in 2006) brought old assessments into question after high biomass indices and biomass threshholds indicated they weren’t being overfished. So the listing was upgraded. Anecdotal evidence also showed sea bass in the north are doing okay.
“The (commercial) trip limit is 5,000 pounds,” she said. “(In mid-January), in two days, one boat caught 17,000 pounds. Everyone is catching trip limits.”
Burns said she wasn’t exactly sure what was going on with black bass south of Hatteras, but the ASMFC considers it a separate stock from north-of-Hatteras fish. They’re also found closer to shore and are more often targeted by recreational anglers.
Also, according to the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s stock assessment, the spawning stock biomass of black sea bass is 22 percent, the southern stock is heavily exploited with a decline over time, and a 62-percent reduction in harvest is needed.
Bluefish
Bluefish stocks, happily, are increasing, even to the point of the reoccurrence of fall “blitzes” at some beaches.
“It happened a few times this past fall,” Burns said, “as far north as the Outer Banks.
“Generally, bluefish are doing well, and the population is increasing, even with a large ocean gill-net fishery (most of those blues go straight to New York’s Fulton Fish Market).”
Burns said she was pleased and surprised to find many sizes of bluefish in the North Carolina sounds this past year.
“Usually we (sample) only tailor blues,” she said, “but when we had gill-net surveys, we caught all classes of bluefish in Pamlico Sound.”
Dolphin
Dolphin remain listed as “Viable” because until recently, there hasn’t been a concerted commercial effort to target them.
“The status of dolphin is based on trends in landings data,” said biologist Randy Gregory of DMF. “Although dolphin are fast-growing and mature early, there is concern about the potential for new fisheries (primarily longlines) to compromise historical allocations in the fishery.”
Fast-growing and fast-moving, dolphin can be caught in good numbers and big sizes from the middle of spring through summer. But charter boats usually burn a lot of fuel trolling weed lines for mahi-mahi, and rarely are the total catches sufficient to pay for an all-day trip. Nonetheless, dolphin are being hammered by everyone.
Average commercial landings from 1998-2007 nearly doubled, jumping from 199,659 pounds (1998) to 369,659 pounds (2007). The ex-vessel price of those mahi also rolled over, doubling from $342,760 to $726,111. Meanwhile recreational landings of dolphin have increased from 4,890,195 pounds to 5,520,400 pounds during that 10-year span.
King/Spanish mackerel
King mackerel are perhaps the most popular species sought by nearshore recreational anglers.
Because of N.C.’s many wrecks and reefs, these fish are relative easy to find after short trips from the dock. King mackerel also so much fun to catch they’ve become the center of a tournament industry that bolsters many coastal economies. Several lucrative tournament trails are dedicated to these torpedo-shaped fish — which also provide good table fare.
“In North Carolina, king mackerel are currently included in the Interjurisdictional FMP, which defers to the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council compliance requirements,” said Gregory. “They’re currently managed under Amendment 15 to the SAFMC Coastal Pelagic FMP.
“Management includes commercial and recreational quotas, minimum-size limits, commercial trip limits (3,500 pounds/trip), recreational bag limits, gear restrictions and a commercial permit moratorium.”
Nearshore king fishing cranks up during April off the Cape Fear coast and moves north to Morehead City, where it peaks during October. But the fish remain offshore all year near warm Gulf Stream waters.
Spanish mackerel, like kings, are in the “Viable” category.
Spanish have saved many a captain’s fishing trip. They school in the summer and will hit trolled Clark Spoons or, when in casting range, will smack Got-Cha plugs.
Average sizes are 12 to 15 inches in length and 1½ to 2 pounds, although certain inshore structure holds 4- to 5-pounders each April and May.
The minimum-size limit for Spanish mackerel is 12 inches fork length and the daily creel is 15 fish per recreational angler.
Bottomfish
Many anglers lured to the N.C. coast have eschewed competitive ocean fishing and turned to sedate and more-satisfying-from-a-gourmet’s-point-of-view reef fishing.
It’s also more fun for the kids.
Grouper especially present a challenge as they generally are found at mid-depth nearshore structures. Once discovered, they provide plenty of action and great fillets for the grill.
However, as party boats and sportsfishing boats have hammered red porgies, black bass, vermillion snapper, black, gag and snowy grouper and other bottom dwellers, active and viable reefs have been depleted of fish over the years.
The feds (South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, ASMFC) have reduced catch limits for several bottomfishes and recently announced a popular spot off the southeastern coast, the Snowy Grouper Wreck, as one of its Marine Protected Areas (no bottomfishing).
Snowies and golden tilefish daily creels were dropped from two to one fish per angler per day last year, while recreational size limits for black bass and vermilion snapper have increased. Possible season closures for some bottomfish species may be coming.
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