Seabass Update 2026 and 2027
 

I patched into to the Seabass meeting today and some very positive news that we're headed the right direction..

Short version is, right now the committee has approved a 30% increase in harvest for the recreational sector for 2026 and 2027. However we don't know yet how that will impact our measures until Nov after the 3rd quarter wave of reporting comes in. That could mean anywhere from status quo to a 40 % increase in our measures. Certainly a move in the right direction and then depending on what we finally get, we and our state decides how to carve it up.

Long version and some meeting notes.
- All public comments were read and reviewed and accounted for. 99% of were from us here in NJ and a large percentage of that came from the copy and paste form letter we put up here. Great Job!
- In the future be sure to not just copy and paste what I put up because I get the feeling they weigh the same copy and paste comments less then they do personalized ones ;)
- Total fish landed including mortality for discards was 35% commercial and 65% recreational.
- The commercial guys have not met their quota for several years now, this is due in large part to the overabundance of fish being brought to market which leads to declining prices in the market. Those falling prices makes it less economical to fish for them.
- Discard mortality on the recreational side is a huge issue for us and there was a lot of discussion on that topic. We're wasting a lot of fish and being held accountable for them so would a decrease in size limit be considered? If we lower the size limit so we can fill our bag limits with smaller fish and not have to throw them back.
- There was also a lot of discussion about the doom and gloom the Science Center report as far as future lower Biomass. The councils pushed them hard and they were asked to dig into to predictions given their past reliability and they changed that to our favor.

To be continued in November when the 3Q data comes in and in the late winter when the NJ Council gets to decide our regulations based on what we're given.

Stay tuned here for updates and thanks to all of those who got up off their asses and did something rather then sit on the sidelines and watch!

Re: Seabass Update 2026 and 2027
 

What should be done is the ridiculous 1 fish summertime bag limit should be increased substantially, I dunno maybe 4-5 fish or so... That would help summertime fishermen that can't always get a few fluke to take home.. I know a lot of guys would like to see the offshore winter season extended, but that would exclude a lot of fishermen....

Re: Seabass Update 2026 and 2027
 

If we get a 40% increase we could easily do both and these decisions will be made by the state council ounce we figure out what we’ve been given to divide up.

Re: Seabass Update 2026 and 2027
 

Jerry:

Thank you for taking the lead on this and making it easy for those concerned to submit comments. They did have an impact. My comments were one of the 9 that included additional information. I agree with you that we are hopefully headed in the right direction with these Black Seabass Regulations. This hearing may be one of the first times that the usual "Gloom and Doom" Science report was not used in the decision making process for determining Black Sea Bass regulations. Unfortunately. we taxpayers are forced to fund this self-serving nonsense created by those with an agenda that is other than serving the recreational angling community.

Steve Machalaba,
Member, Hi-Mar Striper Club

Re: Seabass Update 2026 and 2027
 

Thanks for submitting your comments Steve. And yes, so frustrating! If you and I were paid to manage fisheries and got the same results they have, we would have been fired a long time ago..

Re: Seabass Update 2026 and 2027
 

It would be great if we could get some added to the summertime 1 fish limit. 5 keepers instead of one would be a game changer for everyone especially the party/charter boats. I was out yesterday and we caught plenty of large humpback sea bass and had to toss them back. A friend of mine fishes R.I and said the area is overrun with huge sea bass. Let's keep out fingers crossed that we finally get a break.

Re: Seabass Update 2026 and 2027
 

My sentiments exactly... I have seen PB captains saying things like "we got 28 keepers today" right on these pages.. Sounds ok, until you realize there might have been 25 guys on the boat, and 5 or 6 of those guys caught a limit, leaving a lot of guys fishless or with their lone 1 sea bass to take home.. Imagine if the PB captains were able to fluke fish, and then spend the last hour or two sitting on a mound of sea bass.. It would really help their fares justify spending the money to go out on a boat knowing that if their fluke fishing wasn't so hot, sea bass were readily available .. I personally thing it would help the for hire captains a great deal.... bob

Re: Seabass Update 2026 and 2027
 

Agreed but lets also remember the winter season got cut short last year and the fore hires that fish the winter took the brunt of that blow.

Having more fish will allow us to scratch everyone's itches so let's hope we get a meaningful increase. That will give us the opportunity to argue these seasonal preferences when the time comes time to decide on our NJ regs and that would be a nice problem to have...