Article by Larry Jock
MAFMC
Recommends Increases for 2012
The Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council met in Wilmington, DE with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's Summer Flounder, Scup, Black Sea Bass, and Bluefish Boards to adopt fishery management measures for 2012. Based on their recommendations, the harvest limits for summer flounder, scup, and bluefish could increase if approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service.
At their meeting, the Council recommended harvest limits using the process detailed in the recently approved Annual Catch Limit and Accountability Measure Amendment. Based on the Council's recommendation, the summer flounder quota and harvest limit would increase 7% compared to 2011 levels - the commercial quota would be 18.95 million pounds and the recreational harvest limit 12.63 million pounds for the 2012 fishing year.
The Council also recommended a commercial quota of 34.43 million pounds and a recreational harvest limit of 10.85 million pounds for the scup fishery. These limits are 66% and 86% higher for the commercial and recreational fisheries, respectively, compared to 2011.
For black sea bass, the Council recommended the same commercial quota as 2011, 1.76 million pounds. However, they recommended a lower limit of 1.36 million pounds for the recreational fishery to address the management uncertainty associated with that fishery.
Finally, the Council recommended a commercial quota of 10.50 million pounds and a recreational harvest limit of 17.19 million pounds for the bluefish fishery. These levels are about 1% higher compared to the 2011 limits.
Maryland in Good Shape with Wave 3 Flounder Estimate
Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources released their estimated flounder harvest through June 2011. Heading into the year, Maryland anglers were allocated 101,000 flounder based on a minimum size limit of 18-inches and a creel limit of 3 fish per angler. The 2011 season runs from April 22nd to November 20th.
Through June, the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistic Survey (MRFSS) estimated that Maryland anglers have caught 4,961 or 4.9% of the annual allocation.
The MRFSS survey, known for generating unrealistic numbers, is undergoing a multi-year redesign that will change many procedures involved in estimating recreational harvest along the coast, and has been renamed the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP). This is the first year that some new procedures will be used. The changes to the procedures used to calculate the estimates have been approved by peer review, and are expected to be used sometime this year. It was expected that the estimates from Wave 3 would be the first estimates produced using the new MRIP procedure. However, the Wave 3 estimate was not calculated using the new procedure. Therefore, MD DNR expects the flounder estimate to change.
