Immediate Action Needed By 7/30 For Seabass

[Lido-Gambler]

I commeneted a few days ago as one who works aboard a party boat. I also shared this to my lists and socials and to my dismay the response was very minimal. I will be working when the call takes place and sincerely hope others can get on the call and share how these regulations are striving to put us out of business. Why would they plan a call for mid week/mid day like that?? Its a tremendous fishery right now and we need it to ensure repeat business.

Capt. Chris Lido
FV Gambler
Point Pleasant Beach.

[hammer4reel]

Seems to be some misinformation here .
Talked to the person who heads this fishery here in Nj .
He said we are getting an increase in bag limit , not a reduction .

He said the reduction talked about was the daily going from ten to eight fish .
To keep an 8 fish bag limit open when sea bass are in season during all its phases .
Instead of a 1 fish bag limit now in this segment .
If it’s 8 fish when ever open that allows a better harvest right now when they are still abundant .

Curios to see what actually shakes out .

.

[Gerry Zagorski]

Originally Posted by hammer4reel

Seems to be some misinformation here .
Talked to the person who heads this fishery here in Nj .
He said we are getting an increase in bag limit , not a reduction .

He said the reduction talked about was the daily going from ten to eight fish .
To keep an 8 fish bag limit open when sea bass are in season during all its phases .
Instead of a 1 fish bag limit now in this segment .
If it’s 8 fish when ever open that allows a better harvest right now when they are still abundant .

Curios to see what actually shakes out .

.

Not miss information but a timing issue here Dan...

When we starting getting prepared for taking action, there was a study from the Science Center floating around, which if taken into account was predicting unfavorable recruitment because of the precited unfavorable spawning conditions in the future and a decline in the SSB. Projections from the science center in the past were consistently under projecting future SSB so that report was recently revised to be more favorable.

We need to see what actually happens at this next meeting as far as getting an increase in harvest and there are indications are that it will happen. We also need to remember that, an increase in harvest does not directly translate to less restrictive rec measures.

The other wild card here is the next wave of reporting for the 3rd quarter will need to be taken into consideration as well so we won't have a definitive on them and how they might influence measures until November. As we all know reporting is all over the place and very unpredictable and unreliable, you might as well be spinning a prize wheel. There's the possibility of increased landings because with an over abundance fish, you likely catch more fish and if you catch more fish and there are more discards as well, this can work against you.

Bottom line is although things are looking favorable right now, this is far from over and still lots of moving parts until the state people get to the point of deciding our state regulations.

Lets keep fighting and make comments on the meeting on Wednesday 8/13 and the details of that meeting are here

Thanks All!

[Broad Bill]

Gerry to Dan's point and a question I wanted to ask from the beginning of this thread, isn't MAFMC proposing and expecting a 28% increase in quota to BSB for the 2026 and 2027 seasons? I think that might be the point Dan is making or question he's asking. If there is an increase in quota, there's still the issue of how that increase manifests itself with changes to the regulations. Size, season length, closed vs open seasons, bag limit etc. but it does appear a quota increase is on the table. Is that correct or no?

[Gerry Zagorski]

Originally Posted by Broad Bill

Gerry to Dan's point and a question I wanted to ask from the beginning of this thread, isn't MAFMC proposing and expecting a 28% increase in quota to BSB for the 2026 and 2027 seasons? I think that might be the point Dan is making or question he's asking. If there is an increase in quota, there's still the issue of how that increase manifests itself with changes to the regulations. Size, season length, closed vs open seasons, bag limit etc. but it does appear a quota increase is on the table. Is that correct or no?

Yes Tom they are proposing a 28% increase as of right now but prior to this, the science center report was floating around and that could have brought that down considerably.

As far as regulations are concerned, the increase in quota is certainly great news however as you mentioned, that does not necessarily translate to more favorable regulations and the 3Q data reports due in November will no doubt have to be factored in as well..

Yes things are looking more promising but you know how these things go and it's still way too early to celebrate.

[Broad Bill]

Total agree Gerry. Just like what happened when MRIP was rewritten. We got a fairly significant increase in quota but because NEW MRIP restated prior year recreational catches we ended up getting no increase at all. The commercial sector on the other hand I believe got a 40% actual increase that year. That arguably is the biggest "smoke and mirror" move the powers to be ever pulled off. Quotas and how they're set are only a part of the problems plauging the recreational sector.

[Gerry Zagorski]

Originally Posted by Broad Bill

Total agree Gerry. Just like what happened when MRIP was rewritten. We got a fairly significant increase in quota but because NEW MRIP restated prior year recreational catches we ended up getting no increase at all. The commercial sector on the other hand I believe got a 40% actual increase that year. That arguably is the biggest "smoke and mirror" move the powers to be ever pulled off. Quotas and how they're set are only a part of the problems plauging the recreational sector.

For sure Tom. The system and the science is broken, they know and we know it.

A lot of people seem to think it can't be fixed so why bother. I certainly have my moments of doubt and get tired or fighting with hardly any results but if we do nothing, that's exactly what we're going to get.