{"id":10546,"date":"2017-03-06T02:51:50","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T07:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=10546"},"modified":"2017-03-06T02:51:50","modified_gmt":"2017-03-06T07:51:50","slug":"anglers-hoping-to-stave-off-heavy-2017-fluke-regulations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2017\/03\/anglers-hoping-to-stave-off-heavy-2017-fluke-regulations\/","title":{"rendered":"Anglers Hoping to Stave Off Heavy 2017 Fluke Regulations"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"v-ph2oQdA7-1\" class=\"video-player\"><iframe title='VideoPress Video Player' aria-label='VideoPress Video Player' width='1000' height='562' src='https:\/\/videopress.com\/embed\/ph2oQdA7?hd=1&cover=1&loop=0&autoPlay=0&permalink=1&muted=0&controls=1&playsinline=0&useAverageColor=0&preloadContent=metadata' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen data-resize-to-parent=\"true\" allow='clipboard-write'><\/iframe><script src='https:\/\/s0.wp.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/video\/assets\/js\/next\/videopress-iframe.js'><\/script><\/div>\n<p>New Jersey fishing, boating and tourism interests are hoping Wilbur Ross, the nation\u2019s newly-minted Commerce Secretary, will roll back a decision to slash the state\u2019s summer flounder quota by 36 percent, a move which is likely to lead to heftier regulations on the size and number of fish that can be kept by anglers.<\/p>\n<p>The state\u2019s most important recreational fish species, summer flounder fishing produces millions of dollars worth of income for party and charter boat operators, bait shop owners and boat dealers whose customers use their vessels for fishing the area\u2019s numerous artificial reefs and back bays.<\/p>\n<p>Much of the hope in staving off the cuts has been placed in Ross, who said in a statement released March 1 that he favored fisheries policies that would allow \u201cmaximum sustainable yield\u201d for fisheries, meaning species considered to have healthy stocks would see fewer regulations. Environmentalists have argued that even at near-record numbers, regulations should remain tight if anglers are overfishing their quotas. Fishing advocates have argued that anglers are overfishing because the stocks are, in effect, \u201ctoo healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>State Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin wrote a letter to Ross last week, stating that the restrictions will \u201cput our recreational summer flounder industry in serious jeopardy.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis action imposes a de facto moratorium on recreational summer flounder fishing in my state,\u201d Martin wrote. \u201cThis action also is disproportionately damaging to New Jersey compared with other states.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Not unexpectedly, Martin\u2019s letter drew criticism from the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, whose director, Jeff Tittel, said it is \u201cin line with Trump as part of their anti-regulatory rollbacks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInstead of protecting the fisheries off our coasts, they are trying to rollback limits put in place by the Marine Fisheries Commission,\u201d said Tittel. \u201cIf we go back to the old limits, we\u2019ll continue to see the depletion of flounder stocks. Some point, there won\u2019t be any left to fish.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>James Donofrio, director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance, said he is hopeful the proposed regulations will be rolled back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re probably going to be at five fish at 18 [inches] with the help of the secretary,\u201d said Donofrio.<\/p>\n<p>If the proposed limits were to be upheld anglers would likely be facing regulations of three fish at 19-inches. Catching a fish at\u00a0that size limit would be difficult to achieve for many anglers, advocates say, since there are so few fish that grow that large. Also, they say, all fish over 18 inches are females, meaning anglers would be legally allowed to target just one gender, a move they consider unhealthy.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fb-share-button fcbkbttn_large_button \" data-href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2017\/03\/anglers-hoping-to-stave-off-heavy-2017-fluke-regulations\/\" data-type=\"button_count\" data-size=\"large\"><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Jersey fishing, boating and tourism interests are hoping Wilbur Ross, the nation\u2019s newly-minted Commerce Secretary, will roll back a decision to slash the state\u2019s summer flounder quota by 36 percent, a move which is likely to lead to heftier regulations on the size and number of fish that can be kept by anglers. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boating-fishing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/denny_ryan.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-2K6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}