The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries commission has said North Carolina’s commercial fleet is doing a much better job of complying with ASMF regulations concerning weakfish (gray trout), a species heavily overfished along the Atlantic Coast and long in decline in NC.
After NC fisheries regulators implemented strict new AMFC conservation measures, an August 2010 report to the commission said that about 17% of commercial fishing trips were out of compliance with the new laws. The regulations called for a 10 percent by-catch allowance meaning a 100 lb commercial weakfish limit instead of the previous 1,000.
The ASMF was informed at their Aug 1-4 meeting by the Technical Committee that from January 2011 through April 2011 NC had only 5% noncompliant trips (roughly 1,150 lbs of weakfish) versus the previous 17% number.
The term "by-catch" means that weakfish are caught unintentionally while fishing for other species but commercial vessels are allowed to keep so many of the restricted fish anyway.
The Weakfish Management Board of the AMFC asked for another report on NC’s compliance in November 2011.
Weakfish are often called gray trout by fishermen and are less numerous in NC than their high profile cousins the speckled trout. Both species are threatened and under constant management review from the state, but the weakfish is a far more important commercial species far to the north of the Carolinas (where speckled trout begin not to appear at all, being a warmer water fish) and the AMFC has historically been very active in attempts to revive them.
Weakfish have been overfished by states from NC upwards, but AMFC regulators have especially begun targeting NC commercial fishermen for scrutiny in the last five years.
Source: AMFC minutes, Aug 1-4 session, public record via NC DMF
For more Carolinas fisheries politics and management articles see my Fisheries Politics Page on Surf and Salt
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