President's Report

I know we said we were going to cancel the December but we decided to meet. Members in attendance at the general meeting on December 26th will vote for officers for 2007.

Mark Taylor needs volunteers to help man the JCAA booth at the following events:

We expect to have 2007 Fluke Tournament Shirts and a new generic shirt on hand for these venues. If you can help, contact Mark at 732-929-2591

JCAA ran two buses with 90 members and other interested stakeholders from the Forked River and Asbury Rest Areas on the GSP to NYC on Monday, December 11th to demonstrate to the ASMFC how important the fluke fishery is to New Jersey’s anglers and to the recreational fishing community. John Toth was transportation coordinator. Thanks, John, for a job well done. Members from clubs north of the Raritan River used public transportation.

Our thanks to Congressmen Saxton, Pallone and LoBiondo and Senators Lautenberg and Menendez for their efforts resulting in saving our Summer Flounder Fishery and for the benefits that will be provided to the recreational and commercial fishing communities and, indeed, to the entire state. Thanks, Congressman Pallone, for attending the meeting in NYC to advocate so effectively for us. Read the inserted newspaper articles for details. Stay Informed. Between JCAA Newspaper Issues, read your newspapers and fishing magazines.

Yes, Anglers, There is a Fluke Tournament. Happy Holidays: Clear Skies, Calm Seas, Tight Lines

Fluke Management begets – Blackfish Management. Watch out! The same folks that brought us the wonderful Summer Flounder Management Plan are trying to cook up a Blackfish Plan. Using the same scientific tool, the MRFS Survey and their innate knowledge of the historic fish population as a bedrock for assumptions and projections and in disregard of the empirical data and anecdotal evidence, the impacts of the illegal live market effort, predation by dogfish, habitat decrease, forage stock decline, competition from recovering stocks and other factors, the ASMFC is seeking approval of recovery targets for a Blackfish Management Plan. The unanimous opinion of 20 stakeholders representing both commercial and recreational interests in attendance was STATUS QUO until the illegal live practice is shut down and until the survey deficiencies are corrected resulting in increased confidence level. Stay alert, don’t get hurt.

The Garden State Preservation Trust, (GSPT) the funding mechanism that pays for the preservation of parks, farms and natural and historic sites, will run out of money in 2007. The Outdoor Recreation Alliance (ORA) campaign to renew and strengthen this program is underway. For information or to join this effort, visit www.outdoorrecreationalliance.org

Perception is Reality

If perceived by the public as unreasoned, illogical, unfair or punitive, NMFS’s dogmatic and inflexible policies, dependent on dubious survey data and in blatant disregard of the empirical data and anecdotal evidence, will threaten to undermine the compliance cornerstone of fisheries management. The result will be diminished acceptance of overly stringent regulations and will encourage disregard, defiance or disobedience of unreasonable, indefensible federal and /or state regulations.

Are the national regulators so out of touch with reality that they are unaware or in denial that the public has lost respect for them and are becoming less compliant with each illogical move they make? Maybe it is time to take a survey on something measurable like “public confidence in fisheries management” and if the confidence is less than 50% they should disband the regional councils and save the taxpayers’ money.

• Who do the fish belong to when they are in state waters, in federal waters, in international waters?
• What is the legal justification for different legal lengths for commercial and recreational regulations?
• What makes it legal to harvest a 14-inch fluke by net (60% of TAL) and not legal to harvest the same fish by angling? (40% of TAL 16 to 18 inches min.)
• How is it less damaging to the biomass to take 14-inch fish by net rather than by hook and line?
• Has the legality of the length disparity ever been tested? Has the 60 / 40 split ever been tested?
  

Now there is a new wrinkle that the NMFS is relying on to restrict the harvest of summer flounder, the apparent severe decline in the Spawning Stock Biomass (SSB). Another example of the “Best available science” at work.

We are faced with the prospect of having NMFS impose a TAL of 5.2 million pounds (60% Commercial, 40% Recreational) summer flounder for 2007. And if we accept that, there will be dire consequences imposed upon both recreational and commercial fishing communities.

Well, things got a little better with the NMFS proposing a TAL of 12.98 million pounds for 2007. That is still not enough. Anything less than 19.9 million pounds will impose great hardship on the recreational and commercial fishing communities in the areas in which summer flounder are important as a food and recreational resource.

New NMFS Number: 17.11 million pounds (More or Less) with State Quotas and Regulations to follow. Big Deal. In my opinion, ASMFC should have adopted a TAL of 19.9 million pounds. If the recreational size, bag, and season regulations for 2007 are perceived as too restrictive due to a punitive TAL, you can expect the practice of high-grading to increase and, due to catch and release of “sub-legal” (as defined by recreational, not commercial, standards), greater mortality. In my opinion, that is not good conservation. In recent years, in New Jersey, even at a 16-1/2” size, 8 fish limit, and without high-grading, the ratio of caught and released fish to retained fish is so great that with average mortality more fish are being destroyed than are being harvested by angling. What kind of conservation is this? Is it good conservation to target larger summer flounder, normally females? The self-fulfilling prophecy of increased size resulting in over-fishing, greater mortality and a subsequent increase of size, decreased bag limits, etc. is perceived by most anglers as dumb, repressive, punitive and bad conservation. I think that anglers should be permitted to harvest smaller fish, not forced to harvest larger fish. I believe the resultant reduction in discard mortality would foster better resource utilization and better conservation. It seems that we are on course to the one fish, 20 inch, one day recreational fluke season that I predicted in my December 2005 article NMFS (Not a Merry Fluke Story) The ASMFC should have stepped up and joined the MAFMC to adopt a minimum of 19.9 million pound summer flounder TAL for 2007 in defiance to the NMFS dogma of 12.98 million pounds. If they roll over for the NMFS they might as well disband the council and save taxpayer resources.

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