Securing Your Boat as Storms Approach:
When summer storms approach, boaters need to take extra precautions to safeguard their boats, as well as other boats in their area that could present a danger should they come loose during foul weather. If any of the following suggestions for boaters sound like a foreign language, you may want to consider taking a Boating Skills and Seamanship course offered by your local Coast Guard Auxiliary unit. Click here to read the full article....
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Top photo credit: Wrightsville Beach, Bill Russ, NC Division of
Tourism
Fisheries Agenda Set to Cover J-Hooks and Commercial Caps
The NC Marine Fisheries Commission has a full slate of topics involving fishery management plans scheduled for its meetings in Raleigh, June 26-27.
The commission will consider proposals involving several fishery management plans, including tentative approval to a draft amendment to the Red Drum Fishery Management Plan that will start the process of adopting rules to implement recommendations in it. The draft red drum amendments proposes prohibiting the use of J-hooks larger than the manufacturer’s size 4/0, except for non-offset circle hooks, from July through September each year, while fishing with natural bait in Pamlico Sound and its tributaries.
It also recommends splitting the existing 250,000-pound annual commercial cap into two seasons and expanding commercial gill net attendance requirements.
Other fishery management plans slated for final approval and adoption of rules to implement them are a Kingfish Fishery Management Plan, amendments to the Oyster and Clam Fishery Management Plans and amendments to the Inter-jurisdictional Fishery Management Plans.
The N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries also plans to release its 2008 stock status report.
NC Waters Close to Commercial Red Drum Harvests
MOREHEAD CITY – All North Carolina waters will close to
commercial red drum harvests at noon Thursday. The closure is
necessary because the NC Division of Marine Fisheries estimates the
yearly harvest is approaching the 250,000-pound commercial cap
implemented by the NC Red Drum Fishery Management Plan.
Preliminary trip
ticket totals indicate that commercial fishermen had harvested
221,343 pounds of red drum by mid-February. Late February and March
figures are not yet complete. Under the closure, it will be illegal
to keep or sell a red drum caught incidentally to any commercial
fishing operation, except one legal-sized red drum that may be kept
for personal consumption.
Commercial dealers
will have until April 15 to sell and transport unfrozen red drum
that were harvested prior to this closure. The red drum commercial
fishing cap will reset Sept. 1. The closure does not affect
recreational catches of red drum. The recreational harvest limits
remain at a one-fish per person per day of a size between 18 inches
and 27 inches. For more information, contact Lee Paramore, biologist
with the Division of Marine Fisheries, at 252.473.5734 or
Lee.Paramore@ncmail.net.
Marine Fisheries
Seeks Commercial
Fisherman for Finfish Advisory Committee
The N.C. Marine
Fisheries Commission is looking for a commercial fisherman to serve
as an advisor on its Finfish Advisory Committee. The Finfish
Committee is one of four standing advisory committees to the
commission that discusses topics related to its specific genre.
The committee reviews matters referred to them by the commission,
such as draft fishery management plans and makes recommendations on
those matters. The committee may also raise issues pertaining to
finfish.
The Marine
Fisheries Commission chairman appoints members for three-year terms.
Qualified candidates for this seat must either hold or be an
immediate family member of someone who holds a standard commercial
fishing license or retired standard commercial fishing license.
Advisor applications are available online at
http://www.ncdmf.net/download/ADVISOR_AP.pdf, at Division of
Marine Fisheries’ offices or by calling 252.808.8022 or
800.682.2632. Applications should be returned by May 1 to the
Division of Marine Fisheries, P.O. Box 769, Morehead City, NC 28557,
Attention: Kelly Mullen.
For more information, contact Lee Paramore, biologist with the
Division of Marine Fisheries, at 252.946.6481 or 1.800.338.7804 or
email
Lee.Paramore@ncmail.net.
Google to Offer
Storm Surge Forecast Americans may soon be able to plug their
addresses into Google to determine whether storm
surges caused by hurricanes threaten their homes,
the director of the
National Hurricane Center said last week. Bill
Read, the head of the Miami-based forecasting
center, said the program will combine a Google
application with meteorological data that determines
the flooding threat from any category of storm. He
said he hoped the program would be ready in time for
the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season from June 1
to Nov. 30.
Hurricane forecasters will also offer this year a
color-coded graphic on the NHC Web site that will
indicate storm surge probabilities for threatened
areas, similar to forecasts now available for wind-
speed probabilities.
Flounder Size Limit Upped
The size limit for
recreationally caught flounder will increase to 15.5
inches in many coastal waters of the state beginning
March 1. The new size limit applies to flounder
caught in the ocean and eastern sounds, from the
Virginia state line to Browns Inlet. Specific lines
are detailed in the attached proclamation.
The current size
limit for flounder caught in these areas is 14.5
inches. The size limit increase is necessary to
account for overages in the 2007 recreational
harvest of summer flounder, so that the state may
remain in compliance with an Atlantic States Marine
Fisheries Commission coast-wide quota. North
Carolina had been allocated 137,000 fish for
recreational catches in 2007. Fishermen caught
174,000 fish.
The creel limit will remain at
8-fish-per-day-per-person in all North Carolina
coastal waters. The flounder size limit will remain
at 14 inches in the western rivers and sounds, and
south of Browns Inlet. The increased size limit does
not apply to commercial flounder catches. Commercial
flounder harvests are managed under a separate quota
system. The commercial quota for 2008 was reduced
Jan. 1. For more information, contact DMF flounder
biologist Chris Batsavage at (252) 808-8088, (800)
682-2632 or
chris.batsavage@ncmail.net.
