The Board considered a range of options including a 50% reduction that would have led to a 1 fish bag limit for anglers from Massachusetts to Florida and even a complete moratorium which would have led to anglers not being able to take home any weakfish at all.

“Recreational fishermen and the recreational fishing industry have demonstrated a solid weakfish conservation ethic over the years by abiding by larger minimum size limits and significantly smaller bag limits,” testified Herb Moore, Jr., RFA Counsel at yesterday’s meeting. “A 50% reduction in fishing mortality is not asking us to do our part to conserve weakfish, its completely shutting us out of the fishery.”

The RFA position is that no additional restrictions should be placed on the recreational weakfish sector at this time because there are too many questions surrounding this fishery. The science that is available demonstrates that the social and economic costs of another cutback far outweigh the conservation benefits.

The ASMFC’s document, draft Addendum I to the Fishery Management Plan for Weakfish, states that recreational and commercial weakfish landings have dropped consistently since 1998 while natural mortality from predators has risen significantly.

The RFA has also highlighted that there are several important research needs and significant data gaps regarding the status of the weakfish stock. Several states have not met their biological sampling requirements and the recreational fishing effort and catch data used by managers is widely considered unreliable.

Fortunately, New York Commissioner Gordon Colvin made a motion, seconded by New Jersey’s Bruce Freeman and passed by a majority of the Board, to delay implementation of any additional recreational or commercial management measures pending a peer review of the stock assessment.