New recreational, commercial fishing regulations aimed at meeting Spotted Seatrout Management Plan mandates, agency says.
The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission voted 4-3 Friday (Nov. 4) to set in place more stringent recreational fishing regulations governing the harvest of spotted seatrout – effective Nov. 14.
The agency said in a news release the regulation change, which drops the daily creel from six to four fish (at least 14 inches in length), was “a short-term measure” to address overfishing.
It is an apparent step toward implementation of a Spotted Seatrout Management Plan set by the N.C. Legislature.
The management plan dictates any strategy to rejuvenate an overfished species must end that overfishing after two years and re-establishes the species to full health after 10 years.
The latest regulations proclamation also eliminated a current recreational law that no more than two of the fish may be greater than 24 inches.
Chip Collier, the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries’ biologist in charge of seatrout, said his staff offered several plans from which to choose but the agency “took more or less a hybrid approach,” combining elements of the choices.
The DMF is the professional arm of the MFC, and conducts studies and makes reports regarding saltwater species. Final decisions about plans are made by the politically-appointed MFC.
The MFC had eight trout-management proposals —six from advisory committees and two from DMF biologists — to peruse. They ranged from allowing two 14-inch-or-longer fish per day with no yearly closures to seven fish per angler per day with a Tuesday-Thursday closure each week — and several ideas in between those extremes.
“The (MFC) had to do something immediately or wait until 2014 to do something,” Collier said. “And (seatrout) is a species that gets plenty of public attention so they decided to do something.”
On the commercial-fishing side, the MFC approved a 75-fish commercial trip limit (previously unlimited catches were allowed) and raised the commercial size limit from 12 to 14 inches.
The MFC also stopped the use of commercial and recreational commercial gear license gill nets in joint coastal fishing waters on weekends (excluding Albemarle Sound), while also ending a commercial weekend closure on possession of spotted seatrout outside joint fishing waters.
“(The overall plan) is aimed at reaching 75 percent of the FMP’s goal (of a 57-percent overall reduction in speck mortality),” Collier said.
The joint waters gill-net closure on weekends was intended to reduce competition between recreational and commercial netters during weekends, when a majority of recreational fishing occurs, Collier said.
This proposal becomes effective Nov. 15, and was passed by a 4-3 commission vote, with Anna Beckwith abstaining.
Commissioners Joe Shute, Chris Elkins, Allyn Powell and Darrell Taylor voted for the measure, while Mikey Daniels, Bradley Styron and Joe Smith voted against it.
Beckwith explained her abstention by saying she hadn’t had enough time to think about the problem.
MFC chairman Rob Bizzell didn’t vote. The chair usually doesn’t vote unless it’s to break a tie.
The MFC also proposed even more restrictive measures in the future if current measures don’t work.
“The (MFC) also selected recreational and commercial measures that would meet the (goals of) State Bill 2013-10, which mandates the 57.1 percent reduction (in two years) by having a three-fish recreational bag limit and a Dec. 15-Jan. 31 closure that would go into effect during February 2014,” Collier said. “The commercial limit also would drop to 25 trout per net set in 2014.”
Collier said the MFC also gave DMF Director Louis Daniel more power to choose “adaptive measures” that might become necessary as more Marine Recreational Fishing Statistical Survey (MRFSS) data becomes available in the future.
These changes hopefully will carry management of spotted sea trout through the next five years, when the next stock assessment occurs, he said.
“It takes a lot of manpower and hours to do a big stock assessment such as this, and we do it for most (saltwater) species,” Collier said.
Collier emphasized DMF analyses of speck-discard mortality that seem to point fingers at recreational anglers as causing the most unwanted trout deaths, instead of net entrapments.
However, he also admitted problems with netting discards.
“We studied several papers that estimated speck-discard mortality in recreational fishing to be from 3 to 55 percent, but we also had a North Carolina study that covered a broad spatial area and showed 10-percent discard mortality,” Collier said. “Most is caused by deep, live-bait hookups, usually with shrimp.
“The 10-percent is consistent with what’s found in other states.”
Collier also said a big increase in the numbers of recreational anglers during 2003, 2007 and 2008 meant about 100,000 fish deaths attributed to recreational discards.
However, he admitted the recreational discard total was, basically, a theoretical discard-death estimate based on paper studies and Marine Recreational Fishing Statistical Surveys, which are viewed with skepticism in many quarters.
When asked if the new law would set up a situation in which, for instance, a strike netter could corral large schools of specks in a net, then discard dead fish until he had the 75 largest spotted seatrout, Collier analyzed the potential problem by gear use.
“Luckily, with (large-mesh) gill nets, they are pretty size-selective,” he said. “(Strike) netters rarely get into a school of 500 fish. And (the gear) mostly lets them catch 15-inch fish. But if they did (get into a big school), there’d probably be some discard issues. But usually they have to ‘work up’ (gradually toward a limit of specks). Strike netters typically set gear and catch more and more fish as they work up. It’s also not a big problem for gill netters.
“However, in the beach-seine long-haul (gear fishery) it definitely could happen. (DMF) is hoping it doesn’t happen.”
During February 2011, with a 50-striper per boat quota, ocean trawlers killed and culled thousands of striped bass off Oregon Inlet, an infamous commercial-kill incident.
However, Collier said it is believed the new regulations will be sufficient to meet management goals.
“These fish (spotted seatrout) seem to be pretty resilient overall, and we’re thinking (current) management actions could rebuild the stock quickly,” Collier said.
In other actions, MFC postponed discussion about establishing a limited-entry system for the commercial ocean striped-bass fishery until its August meeting.
MFC also:
• asked DMF Director Louis Daniel to pursue statutory changes to give the agency more flexibility in the state law authorizing it to establish a limited-entry system for fisheries subject to a federal fishery-management plan that imposes quotas.
The MFC would like to change the current requirement that participation in a limited-entry fishery be restricted to those who landed a minimum number of pounds of fish in two of three license years;
• wants to select preferred management options for an amendment to the Estuarine Striped Bass Fishery Management Plan. The plan will go to the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resource secretary and Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations, and;
• approved releasing a draft amendment to the Blue Crab Fishery Management Plan for public comment.
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