![]() Their notoriety isn’t just among fishermen, but among all the other fish in the surf as well. Armed with a very sharp set of teeth, they use their keen hearing and eyesight not to grab ahold of bait, but to chomp it. Recreational anglers and the public that owns these resources deserve better than this.One of the most well-equipped predators in the Atlantic surf is by far the notorious bluefish. That negligence, and an entirely unstandardized, haphazard practice of reallocating fish from the recreational sector to the commercial sector, combines to make painful management actions necessary today. ![]() It is alarming that the bluefish fishery was allowed to wallow unnoticed in an overfished state for more than three decades. An abundant bluefish stock should be one of the primary goals of managers for this species. While they may not be actively sought after as the primary species, they have saved many a trip for anglers. Coast-wide, the for-hire industry contributes only a small percentage to the overall bluefish harvest, but the varying limits within a sector should not become common practice.īluefish are a cosmopolitan species that attack a bait with gusto. Given the nature of the bluefish fishery, however, it is unlikely that the different limits will have a negative resource impact. Different limits for different portions of the recreational sector is a controversial management approach that makes a difficult situation even more contentious and divisive. The three-fish limit for private recreational anglers was a surprise, especially when the for-hire industry was allowed to maintain a five-fish limit. If that is indeed the case, then management action is certainly warranted and CCA NC was prepared to support a five-fish limit in order to recover the stock. A recently completed recalibration of historic recreational catch indicates that the bluefish stock may have been overfished since 1985. It is unfortunate that managers did not have the information necessary to correctly assess the population. This is a rather damning reflection of the inadequacies of the management system that the declining state of the fishery didn’t trigger action before now. Managers say that the steep reduction in the bag limit is necessary because, so few anglers were actually catching 15 bluefish per trip that the limit had to be reduced all the way down to three in order to produce the necessary reductions in mortality. If those fish had been allowed to remain extant in the system rather than shifted to the commercial sector and removed, it is likely the fishery would not be in need of dire restrictions today. In the case of bluefish, the reduction from 15 to three is a shock to most anglers and it is particularly frustrating given that managers for years have regularly shifted un-caught recreational bluefish quota to the commercial sector because commercial harvesters had caught all of its allocation. Many anglers in North Carolina are rightfully frustrated with the state of our fisheries, largely the result of bias – real or perceived – by fisheries managers in favor of unsustainable commercial fisheries until drastic conservation action is necessary. The reductions recommended by the MAFMC and approved by the ASMFC, on top of other recent major changes to limits in North Carolina, such as estuarine striped bass and Southern flounder closures, pose a significant challenge for recreational anglers. Managers have stated that the data on bluefish, both scientific and anecdotal, indicates that a reduction in harvest is necessary to increase the spawning stock biomass and end the overfished state. These measures, which include a three-fish bag limit for private anglers and a five-fish bag limit for for-hire fishermen, represent a substantial reduction compared to the federal 15-fish bag limit that has been in place since 2000. In mid-December 2019, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) recommended and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) approved, new recreational fishing regulations for the 2020 Atlantic bluefish fishery from Florida to Maine. A Chamber of Commerce bluefish saves the day for anglers otherwise shut out
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