It was standing-room-only at the Galloway Public Library for the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council meeting on 3/7/24. There were another 145 people who attended via webinar. The big item on the agenda was that the fluke regulations were going to be set for both 2024 and 2025. Those who attended in person were given the first opportunity to voice their opinions on the six options, followed by those who attended via webinar. Almost everyone spoke in favor of option 32 with 3 fluke at 18” or greater and a season beginning on 5/4 and ending on 9/25. Jeff Brust, Chief of our Bureau of Marine Fisheries also reported that they had received over 650 email comments with 68.7% of them favoring that same option. Additionally, each council member was given a package containing 165 pages of comments received via email for them to consider. Ultimately, the motion for this option passed though one council member voted against it because he felt that with the long season, we might harvest too many fish which could hurt us in the future. Two other council members “reluctantly” voted yes as they felt that we should be able to “do better”. Kudos to the NJMFC and the BMF though for getting the public more involved and voting in favor of the option that the overwhelming majority of people preferred. Therefore, our fluke regulations for both 2024 and 2025 are as follows:
Regarding sea bass, we will be able to change the regulations in 2025 for better or worse. However, the sea bass regulations for 2024 will remain exactly the same as they were in were in 2023:
The NJMFC also set the Scup (Porgy) regulations for 2024 and 2025. Note that the Scup regulations will not go into effect until our DEP Commissioner signs off on them. That might take up to a few weeks.
