Fluke Stock Theory

[Broad Bill]

Originally Posted by hammer4reel

I have been saying it for years . It’s not only a NC issue .
It’s those long range boats that are fishing everything from NC up through Massachusetts.
Those 7 day boats hit Massachusetts waters early when fish are moving in .
Their limits were lowered , but 2 years ago they would catch 80 thousand pounds of squid . And 30 thousand pounds of fluke per boat for a 5-6 week period .

NJ boars could fish outside 3 mile line right next to them .
NJ boats were catching 3000 a week , while NC boats were catching 30000.

.they destroyed their fisheries , and have moved onto everyone else’s .

The rest of the states need to grow a set of balls and push for federal changes to protect their states interest .

.

Add insult to injury, the commercial allocations between states has been a bone of contention for years and to my knowledge is still based on commercial landings from the 1980's while the demographics of the stock has completely changed. Precisely why North Carolina and Virginia still have ~50% of the annual commercial quota which is a travesty. In 2019, New York sued NMFS, NOAA and the Secretary of Commerce for that exact reason for the unfair and outdated allocation of quotas between states. Link attached:

https://www.savingseafood.org/news/l...lounder-quota/

Ruling was made in 2023 against New York based on the grounds that regardless of where the stock is currently located, southern states who built their fisheries on this stock shouldn't be penalized by having their allocation percentages from 50 years ago reduced simply because the stock migrated north because of climate change. How's that for sound logic! Destroy their local fishery because of greed, keep their same allocation percentage of the quota based on landings from five decades ago and now destroy what's left of the last remaining northern stock. Political corruption within states, politics within the governing agencies, politics between states regarding quotas, politics between the commercial and recreational sectors and politics at the federal level and in the federal judicial system. How exactly does a fishery survive when the focus of all the agencies tasked with managing these public resources is on everything but managing the stock. It's all about politics, economics, power, control, corruption and greed. At the end of the day, when it comes down to fundamental fisheries management for the preservation and betterment of stocks, who exactly is keeping that scorecard?