The N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries manages saltwater resources for North Carolina. But that often means DMF must create rules (and change them) based upon the mandates of agencies (National Marine Fisheries Service and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission) higher on the management pecking order.
For instance, the NMFS sets summer flounder quotas for each east-coast state based on data from the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.
And that brings us to the latest change in flounder regulations.
Southern (inshore) and summer (offshore) flounder are the two types of flatfish mainly found in N.C. salt water. Both are in trouble, if you believe the data supplied by the MAFMC.
Dr. Louis Daniel, director of the DMF, dropped a late February proclamation on recreational anglers that went into effect March 1, 2008. It increased the minimum-size limit for ocean-caught flounder from 14 1/2 inches to 15 1/2 inches from Virginia to Browns Inlet. For the first time, Daniel’s decree for a 15 1/2-inch ocean size limit extended into N.C.’s eastern sounds. But the minimum size for legally-caught recreational flounder will be 14 inches in western Albemarle and Pamlico sounds, plus the 15 1/2-inch rule stops at Browns Inlet and waters to the south (see Newsbreaker).
If you think that’s confusing, read the proclamation. DMF flounder specialist Chris Batsavage sent us a map with the new flounder-size regions marked to help readers (and us) understand the zones.
Potential problems with this new size-limit rule are too numerous to list, but here are a few:
• Enforcement likely will be a nightmare. What if an angler catches a 14 1/2-inch flounder in the 14-inch zone, then leaves the water at a boat ramp in the 15 1/2-inch zone? Will a Marine Patrol officer believe the angler caught the fish at the 14-inch zone?
• Commercial anglers (who landed 6.3 million pounds of flounder in 2006 to 600,000 pounds by hook-and-line anglers) aren’t affected. So netters, who land 10 times more flounder than hook-and-line anglers, aren’t regulated more stringently.
• Are flounder numbers actually depressed? How is it that N.C. recreational anglers landed 37,000 more flounder in 2007 than they were allocated if flounder numbers are low?
• The answer to the previous questions may be the Marine Recreational Fishing Statistical Survey, which is basically an educated guess at how many and what types of fish anglers catch (it combines dock and telephone interviews, so it’s inaccurate).
• Flounder anglers consistently have been saddled with tighter size and creel limits to reduce their catches. Yet they continue to land more fish. However, federal fish managers don’t see increasing harvests as good news, but instead force more regulations on the states because management goals set by the decades-old Magnuson-Steven’s Fisheries Management Act may be too rigid.
CongressmenWalter Jones (R-N.C.) and Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) have introduced bills to amend the Magnuson-Stevens Act, allowing flexibility in setting catch limits when fish stocks are healthy.
Otherwise, in the future, North Carolina could have flounder choices Virginia faces now (18 1/2- or 19-inch minimum sizes).
And that’d mean keeping a flounder would be rare indeed.
Be the first to comment