Top photo: Fishing Machine Charters, Pt. Judith, RI hooked up with cod, pollock and cunner in the Cox Ledge area wind farm this winter. A visual survey conducted at South Fork Wind (SFW), an offshore wind farm located 16.5 nautical miles southeast of Block Island, Rhode Island in the Cox Ledge area, shows that the […]
Top photo: NOAA monkfish assessment The message from Jon Hare, the director of the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) was as distressing as it was clear: I have raised at both [the New England Fishery Management and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management] Council meetings the issue that the NEFSC is not going […]
The black sea bass is the enigma of mid-Atlantic fisheries. Since 2007, when the spawning stock biomass (SSB) was barely above the threshold that denotes overfishing, the stock has staged a remarkable comeback, with SSB reaching a high of 24,680 metric tons (mt), approximately 220 percent of the biomass target, in 2022. The SSB has […]
On Wednesday, August 14, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board voted to ignore the results of the Black Sea Bass 2024 Management Track Stock Assessment Report (Management Track Assessment), and leave the acceptable biological catch (ABC) and annual catch limit (ACL) for 2025 unchanged from […]
At its June 2022 meeting, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) adopted the so-called “Percent Change Approach” (PCA) for managing the recreational summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass fisheries; the PCA will also be used to manage the recreational bluefish fishery, once the bluefish stock is no longer subject to its current rebuilding plan. […]
Top photo: Bluefish, via NOAA On March 9, 2023, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued a final rule approving the so-called “harvest control rule” (Control Rule) adopted by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) at its June 2022 meeting. The Control Rule amends the Council’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass and Bluefish […]
Read Part I of this two-part series. Top Photo: Black Sea Bass caught off Fire Island Each year, before the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC’s) Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board (Management Board) meet in December to set the recreational specification for the next […]
Read Part II of this two-part series. Top Photo: Summer Flounder When the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC’s) Interstate Fishery Management Program Policy Board (Policy Board) met in joint session on June 7, 2022, they approved the so-called “Percent Change Approach” to a “Harvest Control Rule” (Control […]
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