(from Jersey Coast Anglers
Association November 2005 Newsletter)
TOMS RIVER They're tired, and they're
not going to take it anymore.
That was the message from anglers from
Atlantic Highlands to Long Beach Island to the Atlantic States Marine
Fisheries Commission on Thursday night at a public hearing on a proposal
to tighten restrictions on weakfish.
The proposal, an addendum
to the commission's plan for managing weak-fish stocks, says the weak-fish
population is at or near record lows. To fix the situation, it calls for,
among other options, reducing the number of fish a recreational angler can
keep per day as well as cuts to the commercial harvest of weakfish.
The commission is proposing
these cutbacks even though it admits the reason for the decline in the
number of weakfish is not due to over fishing, but to natural mortality.
The current recreational
limit on weakfish is eight fish per day, with a 13-inch minimum length.
The proposal suggests several things, including cutting the recreational
limit to one fish per day to achieve a 50 percent reduction in fishing
mortality.
It is the latest in a
string of proposals and cutbacks by the ASMFC that have upset the fishing
community at large, and recreational anglers in particular.
"How much more can we
take?" asked Arthur Hilliard, captain of the Eagle out of Atlantic
Highlands, one of more than 50 people attending the meeting. "We've been
getting whacked on every species for 15 years."
On this night, at the
meeting in the Ocean County Administration Building, the commercial and
recreational fishermen were united.
"What you're hearing here
is the cumulative effects of all these management plans," said Kevin Wark,
a commercial net fisherman from Barnegat Light. "I think you should take
back to the commission that we're pretty beat up and we're tired of this
conservative approach."
Many were upset that
restrictions on fishing were being proposed though overfishing was not the
problem.
"Have they looked at other
issues," asked Tom Buban of the Atlantic Star out of Atlantic Highlands,
"instead of us being the easiest target all the time?"
"We've dealt with fluke;
we've reached that goal, and we still can't have them," Buban said,
referring to the number of fish the ASMFC set as the minimum needed to
sustain the fluke population. In recent weeks, reports have said that an
expected increase in the fluke quota will actually be a severe cut,
because the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency that
oversees fisheries management, said the number of fluke in its first
estimate was wrong, despite the fact that anglers up and down the coast
were seeing record numbers of fish.
The validity of the
weakfish data, too, was overwhelmingly questioned.
"We're seeing the most
weakfish we've seen in 10 years," said Marty Haines, captain of the Sea
Pigeon out of Atlantic Highlands.
"I'll be glad to give you my trip logs," said Joe Occhipinti, captain
of the Little Hawk out of Atlantic Highlands.
"I've lived through too
many ups and downs of weakfish," said Dick Vesper, Long Beach Township, a
retired vice president of technology of a company related to Lockheed
Martin. "I'm a mathematician, I'm a physicist, and this information just
doesn't justify what you're proposing."
The stock assessment an
estimate of the size of a fish population was also criticized because its
most current information was from 2003. It was created from several
sources, including samples provided by the states; independent trawl
surveys, which net a variety of species and then each is counted;
commercial fishing logs, and information provided by the Marine
Recreational Fishery Statistics Survey, which has been criticized by the
recreational community as being inaccurate.
Brad Spear of the ASMFC,
who was presenting the proposal and others, acknowledged the natural
mortality was a problem.
Much of the weakfish diet
is bay anchovies and other small fish that no one monitors, said Bruce
Freeman, a fisheries biologist with the state Division of Fish and
Wildlife.
So they have no idea if
those populations have declined, contributing to the weakfish decline, he
said.
"We just don't have the
necessary time and people to look at them," he said. "It's not a fair
game, but it's the game we're in."
"We didn't change our
behavior, something else changed," said Tom Fote of Toms River, a longtime
advocate of fishing in the state. "It's not us causing the problem, and
we're tired of paying the price."
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