Summary of Connecticut Public Comment Hearing I had a Pledge member forward this to me (THANKS!)...it gives a solid summary of last nights meeting: August 26, 2014 Public Hearing on Addendum IV for Striped Bass Harvest Reductions DEEP Marine Headquarters The crowd was comprised of for-hire charter captains, and recreational fishermen both boat and shore. In my estimate evenly split in numbers of about 60 people. There was a general consensus for at least the option of a 25% reduction taken in one year with a 1 fish @ 32 bag/possession limit despite the crowd in attendance being somewhat evenly split between Charter Captains and recreational anglers boat and shore. There was a general consensus of choosing option B in the first section, which redefines the targets to a more current 2013 model. This same option redistributes commercial harvest at a larger commercial harvest number and even with the 25% reduction in total harvest option, increases the commercial take by 13% if the commercial section met their maximum yield quota. Another option that was in the Addendum was an option to redistribute commercial quotas from one state to another, for example if Massachusetts was not going to meet their allowed take for a season, the option would provide Massachusetts to redistribute their commercial take to another state. This option was not selected during the meeting. Some of the expressed public comments in addition to what the options of Addendum IV contained were: the reduction should be higher than the proposed 25%, other comments included suggesting getting rid of Connecticuts bonus fish program which is not likely to happen in my opinion because it is a user-group intended program (urban fishing), several charter captains expressed the continued need to have the 2 fish limit for for-hire vessels, the charter captains also expressed reducing or eliminating commercial catch or at least methods of commercial catch such as moving to a rod and reel commercial fishery. Public comment remains open until September 30th of this year. Each state collects public comment from the meetings and creates a general consensus of options expressed, then it creates another general consensus of options expressed from written submissions, and finally each states representing boards takes those two and weighs them against what each state boards thoughts are. For example from the meeting the general consensus leaned towards a higher reduction than 25% in one year, meaning that a middle of the road decision is most likely the outcome that David Simpson will propose for the State of Connecticut to the ASMFC board meeting. To that end the State of Connecticut board would likely select option B, 25% one year with 1@32 bag/possession limit. I will follow up with David closer to the end of the public comment period to try and get his thoughts on what CT will present to the ASMFC board. However, like a presidential election David will likely know in advance what the public wants before that period of time ends. He actually stated this during the meeting, so letters / emails if you wish to write one should be sent sooner rather than later. The sad thing is that even the most restricted (conservative) of the proposed options still only carries a 50% probability that the fishery will or will not be increasing in numbers in a three year period of time. This has to do with probability modeling of the numbers the fishery has to work with and other factors that are out of our control such as actual spawning success, environmental factors, poaching control, etc. Michael Waine of the ASMFC admitted during the meeting that there were suggestions for a total harvest reduction in the past based on the downward trend of striped bass biomass, and that as George Baldwin described during tonights meeting using the ASMFC graph that the female biomass didnt always show a direct correlation to real recruitment numbers which Mr. Waine also agreed with, but still this Addendum IV by the ASMFC is the best they could offer.
Posted on: Wed, 27 Aug 2014 13:15:18 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015