2026 Regulations Recap

[Gerry Zagorski]

Originally Posted by Duffman

Well said. And I’ll admit guilty as charged. Felt that way for a long time.

Any idea what the 20% means for us? Longer season, larger bag limit or smaller size limit? Or are all 3 on the table?

You're not alone Duff. I know people who's livelihood depends on these fisheries and based on what's happened in the past, they threw in the towel and gave up trying to fight. Many were also focused at the wrong pressure points writing letters to NJ politicians who are powerless in these affairs because its the feds and their various fishing committees driving the bus.

All the above options you mentioned could be on the table but just so you know, 20% is not going to be enough to scratch everyone's itches. Some want the winter expanded, others want a better bag limit in the summer months. 20% won't cover both so there will need to be some compromises and not everyone is going to get what they want.

The way it works now is our NJ Marine Council and our NJDEP Marine Biologists will be discussing and submitting a bunch of different options back to the Feds to be sure they meet and not exceed our 20% increase. Once that's done they will put the approved options out for public comment, we get to provide input to the council and they have the final vote.

I'll be sure to keep everyone posted here when the time comes.

As far as I'm concerned, we should try and keep the season open as long as we can and pay special attention to try fill current gaps between other species open and closed dates so we always have something to fish for. That and make the bag limits when the season is open meaningful enough so people have a chance to bring more then one fish home.