Fishery Management Plans

Comprehensive plans detailing the strategies and regulations for managing specific fishery resources, aimed at ensuring their sustainability and productivity.

  • Addendum II established the Traffic Light Approach (TLA) as a precautionary management framework to evaluate fishery trends and develop management actions. The TLA was originally developed as a management tool for data-poor fisheries, and its application to spot is described in further detail in Section 2.2.2. Starting in the late 2000s, there were inconsistent signals in the data used to examine the resource. In addition, the 2017 stock assessment was not recommended for management use. The lack of clear information from the TLA and the assessment made it difficult to provide management advice. Addendum III addresses these issues by modifying…

  • This addendum allows quota to be transferred between all regions and states to enable full utilization of the coastwide commercial quota and avoid quota overages. Additionally, this addendum extends the timeframe for when quota transfers can occur up to 45 days after the end of the fishing year to allow for late reporting of landings data.

  • The Board approved Addendum VI in October 2019. The Addendum implements measures to reduce total striped bass removals by 18% relative to 2017 levels in order to achieve the fishing mortality target in 2020. The Addendum applies the needed reductions equally (proportionally) to both commercial and recreational sectors. Specifically, the Addendum reduces all commercial quotas by 18% and changes recreational bag and size limit requirements to achieve an 18% reduction in recreational removals relative to 2017 levels. Additionally, since recreational release mortality contributes significantly to overall mortality, Addendum VI implements the mandatory use of circle hooks when fishing with bait…

  • The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (Commission) South Atlantic State/Federal Fisheries Management Board (Board) initiated Amendment 1 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Atlantic Migratory Group Cobia (Atlantic cobia) to reflect the transition from complementary to sole management of Atlantic cobia by the Commission and establish processes for efficiently managing this stock in the absence of a federal management plan.

  • This Addendum strengthens the protections provided to spawning herring in Area 1A by: 1) lowering the threshold that triggers initial spawning closure; 2) increasing the length of the initial spawning closure; and 3) lowering the threshold that triggers a re-closure due to spawning activity, in order to provide greater protection to the stock.