{"id":9833,"date":"2016-11-29T15:08:33","date_gmt":"2016-11-29T20:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=9833"},"modified":"2016-11-29T15:10:04","modified_gmt":"2016-11-29T20:10:04","slug":"anglers-face-significant-regulation-increases-in-fluke-in-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2016\/11\/anglers-face-significant-regulation-increases-in-fluke-in-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Anglers Face ‘Significant’ Fluke Regulation Increases in 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"An<\/a>

An angler shows off his fluke caught in Barnegat Bay. (Photo: Jersey Shore Fishing Magazine)<\/p><\/div>\n

Recreation and fishing and boating advocacy groups are urging members to submit public comments by Wednesday to stop a potential reduction in summer flounder quota that could lead to significant restrictions on catching the popular species in 2017 and 2018.<\/p>\n

In a\u00a0federal register notice<\/a>,\u00a0NOAA Fisheries is proposing an 11.30 and 13.23 million pound ABC for 2017 and 2018 respectively. \u00a0If approved, the 2017 ABC of 11.23 million pounds would represent a 29% reduction relative to 2016 and the lowest quota\u00a0in the history of summer flounder management. \u00a0On top of that, NOAA Fisheries is reporting that the recreational sector exceeded its 2016 recreational harvest limit and that the overage would need to be paid back in 2017. \u00a0The result would produce a reduction going into 2017 close to 40\u00a0percent\u00a0for recreational anglers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If the regulations pass, anglers will face a short season and significantly higher size limits on the fish, which could have devastating economic effects on the Shore fishing and boating industries.<\/p>\n

Though summer flounder stocks were\u00a0at some of the highest levels in the species\u2019 history by 2007, the stock has displayed average to below average recruitment and the spawing stock biomass has dipped in the years since, prompting the reduction despite that fact that mortality attributed to fishing activity has decreased. The Recreational Fishing Alliance has lobbied for new studies to create benchmarks for management purposes, which could reveal no need to increase regulations.\u00a0Fishing advocates have also argued anglers are catching more fish because the stocks are healthier than ever, and have raised concerns that if the recreational size limit rises beyond an 18-inch minimum, only female fish would be considered \u201ckeepers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFisherman and coastal communities know that summer flounder is one of the most important fisheries in the mid-Atlantic,\u201d the RFA said in a statement. \u201cThis fishery is also intrinsically linked to many states tourism industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recreation and fishing and boating advocacy groups are urging members to submit public comments by Wednesday to stop a potential reduction in summer flounder quota that could lead to significant restrictions on catching the popular species in 2017 and 2018. In a\u00a0federal register notice,\u00a0NOAA Fisheries is proposing an 11.30 and 13.23 million pound ABC for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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":[20],"tags":[2609,364,273,2608,274],"class_list":["post-9833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shore-environment","tag-2017-fishing-regulations","tag-fishing-regulations","tag-fluke","tag-fluke-regulations","tag-summer-flounder"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/fluke.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-2yB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9833","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=9833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}