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by Tom Fote
(from Jersey Coast Anglers Association February 1994 Newsletter)
BLACKFISH :
I will attend four days of meetings on striped bass in the next two weeks. Included in those meetings will be a Striped Bass Technical Committee meeting and Striped Bass Board meetings. There is a lot of pressure to open up the fishery for both the commercial and recreational sectors under Amendment 5. The N.J. Division of Fish & Game will conduct a meeting to receive your input on Amendment 5 shortly, so please make your comments in writing and get them to me quickly. Please let me know your thoughts and ideas.
The bill to bring New Jersey into compliance with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commissions (ASMFC) mandates on striped bass was introduced on February 10 and will be discussed at a meeting on February 24. This bill would allow the Division of Fish & Game to change the size and bag limit by regulation instead of legislation, as has been required in the past. I am not positive what the size limit will be in Delaware Bay at the time of the report, but we should know by the February 24 committee meeting.
The New England Coastal Conservation Assn. and the Maine Coastal Conservation Assn. are making a strong effort to insure passage of H.R. 393 (the Striped Bass Gamefish Bill). The Maryland Sportfishing Assn. and the United Gamefish Assn. of New York are both working on state bills besides the federal bill, to make striped bass a gamefish in their state waters. JCAA has been up and running on this important legislation for quite some time and already have all New Jersey Congressional Representatives signed on H.R. 393 as co-sponsors. JCAA will help the other states and associations in their efforts, as best we can.
The Division of Fish & Game posted a proposed rule change to the Striped Bass Trophy Tag Program. This proposed change would allow for fines and loss of tags for anyone not answering the year end questionnaire that comes included with the tag sent to fishermen. This proposed rule change is just another attempt by the Division to over regulate recreational anglers. Nowhere in the law that established the Trophy Tag Program is there mention of a questionnaire. It states that the program must be able to monitor the fishery so recreational fishermen do not exceed their quota. This is already being accomplished by the tags and recording stations and not by the questionnaire. The information that the questionnaire obtains is a valuable tool in better understanding the striped bass fishery and the Division should be out there explaining this to the public so they will send them in voluntarily. If the Division did this, most concerned striper fishermen would comply and the Division would get responses contain valid information from willing participants. If they require it by regulation, then some people will just fill out the forms without regard to providing accurate information, thereby loosing the validity of the information and skewing the data. In addition, this is just another unfair burden being placed on recreational striped bass fishermen and no one else. It's about time the Division stops over-stepping its bounds by trying to add on regulations to a clearly written law that had no provisions for such regulations when passed.
BLACKFISH:
I attended the hearing on the proposed size limits for blackfish and heard from fishermen that want to see this species managed in the same way fluke are, ie., to insure the historical ratio of 90% recreational catch to 10% commercial catch, is maintained. This means that if it is determined that the recreational catch must be reduced by increasing the size limit, then the commercial catch must also be reduced by an equal amount to maintain the historic catch ratio. This is how all management plans should be established. I am disgusted with management regimes that reward the sector that destroys a fishery. The weakfish plan was not written in this manner and allowed the commercial sector to keep over harvesting the resource until the recreational catch had dropped to 10% of the fishery instead of the 50% historical catch. Then we were told to reduce our remaining 10% by 25% more. What should have been done was the catch should have been allocated at 50% for each sector and then each side would have been required to reduce their 50% by 25% additional. That would have been fair, but who ever said fisheries management plans had to be fair. In the bluefin tuna fishery, managing bodies totally ignored the 100 + year history of recreational fishing for these fish and rewarded the 20 year old commercial purse seine fishery, the very group that is responsible for decimating the bluefin population in the short period of time its been in operation. If we are not vigilant, the same thing will happen in the yellowfin tuna fishery. We can not allow management plans to get away with ignoring the recreational sector and their historic participation in these fisheries any longer.
SUNDAY CLAMMING BILL S. 550
Senator Lou Bassano has reintroduced the Sunday Clamming Bill under its new number, S. 550. Now is the time to start writing letters to your legislator, letting them know you want this bill passed before summer! I still can't believe that we are allowing 174 commercial clammers to harvest 24 million clams and another 1800 part time commercial clammers harvest 20 million clams, while 11,000 licensed, recreational clammers are only harvesting 17 million clams between them.
It has already been noted that opening recreational clamming on Sundays would only increase the recreational catch by 2% and the recreational sector would still be harvesting less than a third of the total annual harvest for all sectors combine, while paying the majority of the license fees used to operate commercial clamming programs. What a give-away. The real reason commercial clammers are trying to stop the recreational sector from harvesting clams on Sunday, one of the clammers told me at a recent meeting, was they want to prevent more people from harvesting this public resource so those people will have to buy clams from them. This is another case of rewarding the sector doing the most damage to the resource and not distributing said public resource equally and fairly. Enclosed, you will find a current 1994 listing of N.J. Legislators, their addresses and phone numbers. Check your district number and start writing, because getting this law passed is up to us. We must overcome opposition from a few key legislators if we are to make Sunday clamming a reality.
FLUKE:
The Fluke Board should be meeting at the March 8 through 10 meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Marine Fisheries Council being held in Montauk, New York. We should finely be told what the recreational bag limit will be for 1994. If the commercial quota on fluke is to be increased by 28%, then I feel that the recreational bag limit should be increased by at least that much. That would be rounded out to two more fish per angler, per day, or an eight fish bag limit.
WEAKFISH:
I will be attending the Weakfish Board Meeting and will
have a better grasp on what the ASMFC is proposing then, to bring states into compliance with current regulations and what direction the new amendment will take.
BLUEFISH:
The Bluefish Board will meet to decide when states have to be in compliance with current regulations in both the recreational and commercial sectors. It is my opinion that it has to be done for both sides. States will have to be able to monitor their commercial bluefish quotas to accomplish this feat.
FISHERMEN'S ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION:
This will take place on March 4 at the Quality Inn in Toms River. The Round Table will consist of presentations by speakers on where they think the fisheries are and where they are headed. If you have questions, call Dr. Eleanor Bochenek at 908-349-1152. New Jersey Sea Grant is putting the Round Table together.
Tom Fote is the Jersey Coast Anglers Legislative Chairman and the appointee from New Jersey to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. Contact Tom at 908-270-9102 or FAX at 908-506-6409 or at : 22 Cruiser Court, Toms River, NJ 08753
IMPORTANT MEETING DATES:
February 1994
15 (Tuesday)
ASMFC 703-548-6300
Old Colony Inn, Alexandria, VA
8:30 am Striped Bass Stocking Committee
1:00 pm Striped Bass Research Workshop
16 (Wednesday)
ASMFC 703-548-6300
Old Colony Inn, Alexandria, VA
8:30 am Striped Bass Research Workshop
17 (Thursday)
ASMFC 703-548-6300
Old Colony Inn, Alexandria, VA
8:30 am Striped Bass Tech. Committee
NJ DIVISION FISH & GAME
Ocean Cty. Admisitrative Bldg.
Hooper Ave, Toms River
7:00 pm Striped Bass Amendment 5
Scoping Hearing
18 (Friday)
ASMFC 703-548-6300
Old Colony Inn, Alexandria, VA
8:30 am Atlantic Sturgeon
1:00 pm American Shad & River
Herring Tech. Committee
22 (Tuesday)
ASMFC 703-548-6300
Old Colony Inn, Alexandria, VA
1:00 pm Weakfish Board Meeting
JERSEY COAST ANGLERS ASSN
7:30 pm JCAA Monthly General Mtg
Bricktown Municipal Bldg,
Chambersbridge Rd, Brick
23 (Wednesday)
ASMFC 703-548-6300
Old Colony Inn, Alexandria, VA
9:00 am Weakfish Board Meeting
1:00 pm Bluefish Board Meeting
3:00 pm Winter Flounder Meeting
24 (Thursday)
ASMFC 703-548-6300
Old Colony Inn, Alexandria, VA
8:30 am Striped Bass Board Meeting
MARCH
2 thru 6 (Tues thru Sun)
WORLD FISHING & OUTDOOR EXPO
Rockland Community College
4 (Friday)
SEA GRANT
9:00 am Fishermen's Round Tackle
8 thru 10 (Tues thru Thurs)
MID-ATLANTIC COUNCIL MEETINGS
Gurney's Inn, Montauk, NY
11 thru 13 (Fri thru Sun)
SOUTH JERSEY FISHING & OUTDOOR
EXPO
21 thru 25 (Mon thru Fri)
ASMFC
Meeting Week - Schedule to be announced
29 (Tueday)
JERSEY COAST ANGLERS ASSN
Monthly General Meeting
Brick Municipal Bldg,
Chambersbridge Rd, Brick, NJ