Arlington, VA – The Commission’s Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Management Board will meet via conference call on Thursday, March 30 at 12:30 p.m. to consider approval of 2017 summer flounder recreational fishery proposals from Massachusetts and Rhode Island. These proposals require Board approval since they offer alternative management measures from those specified in Addendum XXVIII to the Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan.
Addendum XXVIII, approved by the Board in February 2017, requires a one‐inch increase in size limit and a reduction in possession limits to no more than four fish to constrain coastwide harvest to the 2017 recreational harvest limit (RHL). These measures are broadly applied across all states to reduce harvest and provide for more coastwide consistency in regulations. The summer flounder regions, which are continued from 2016, are: Massachusetts; Rhode Island; Connecticut through New York; New Jersey; Delaware through Virginia; and North Carolina. The measures approved in the Addendum seek to achieve the 2017 recreational harvest limit based on 2016 preliminary harvest estimates.
The public is welcome to listen to the discussion by phone (888.394.8197; passcode 815277) and view the webinar using the following link https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/113424341. The meeting agenda and materials are available here. Time permitting, there will be a limited opportunity to provide comments at the end of the agenda. The Board Chair will outline the procedures for accepting public comment at the beginning of the conference call. We ask the public and other nonparticipating attendees to please mute their phones in order to minimize distractions to the Board’s deliberations.
The Board may also schedule a conference call for late April to review and consider a response to final 2016 black sea bass harvest estimates. If scheduled, a press release will announce the details of the conference call.
For more information, please contact Kirby Rootes‐Murdy, Senior FMP Coordinator, at krootes‐murdy@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.