Anglers: Reporting law puts burden on them, unenforceable

From Trista Talton at CoatsalReview.org

Coastal recreational anglers are questioning the fairness and motive of a new law that will require them and commercial fishermen to report certain harvests to the state beginning late this year.

Temporary rules for the law, which was tucked into a controversial bill the North Carolina General Assembly passed last year, were discussed Wednesday night during a jointly held virtual public hearing of the state regulatory agencies tasked with enforcing it.

Beginning Dec. 1, recreational fishermen will be required to report harvests of red drum, flounder, spotted seatrout (speckled trout), striped bass and weakfish (gray trout), to the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, or DMF.

Commercial fishers will for the first time have to include catch they do not sell to a dealer on trip-ticket forms. Dealers submit these forms each month to the division, which uses the information reported on the tickets as a means to help manage fisheries resources.

The law will apply to those who fish in coastal waters, joint fishing waters and inland fishing waters adjacent to coastal and joint fishing waters.

“It seems like it’s affecting the individual angler and it’s not affecting commercial fishermen because it’s not any extra added work for them, but it is extra added work to the recreational fishermen,” said Ivan Colesnic, a Raleigh resident and recreational fishermen.

Colesnic, who said during the hearing he primarily travels to the Morehead City-Atlantic Beach area to fish, continued that the new reporting requirement won’t likely discourage people from illegally harvesting fish listed under the new law.

Colesnic was among several people, the overwhelming majority of which were recreational fishermen, to speak during the public hearing hosted by DMF and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, voicing their opinions about whether the new reporting requirement is the most effective way to gather fisheries data and questioning how it will be enforced.

“I don’t know what you’re going to do about private docks and private ramps and that’s a significant percentage of the people that are fishing,” Bill Mandulak said. “You’re not going to go walk around people’s private docks and say ‘Hey did you send this in or not.’ I mean, enforcement is a mess. I hope they’ve given you about half a million dollars or, no, half a billion dollars to hire enough Marine Patrol officers to enforce this thing. I don’t understand how the division or Wildlife Resources are going to have the manpower to make any reasonable way of enforcing it.”

When a state official clarified that the agencies have been given a one-time, $5 million allocation for the new reporting system, Mandulak chimed, “I can’t imagine that’s enough.”

That funding may not be used to pay for additional enforcement staff for the division’s Marine Patrol or Wildlife Resources Commission’s law enforcement division.

Combined, the agencies have a little more than 100 enforcement personnel, forces already stretched thin by the sheer size of the area they’re charged with overseeing, which includes more than 300 miles of ocean shoreline, nearly two dozen inlets and thousands of estuarine coastlines.

State officials explained Wednesday that recreational anglers will be given the option to report their harvests by scanning a QR code or by going directly to the division’s website.

Printed report cards will be placed in bait and tackle shops and other areas for anglers who do not have smartphones or are in areas that do not have cell phone service. An angler may show his or her card to law enforcement if approached by an officer.

Anglers must provide their fishing license number or first and last name, ZIP code, the types and number of species harvested, length of each fish, the area in which they were harvested and the gear used to harvest them.

Recreational fishermen must report their harvests when they have finished fishing for the day. Those who use printed report cards to record their catch must submit the information electronically by midnight the following day.

New Bern resident Stephen Stroud suggested recreational fishermen be given more time to report their harvest.

“If I’ve gone out and fished all day and I’ve got fish all over my hands, that’s not the first thing that I’m going to do want to do,” he said. “But if you want me to record it and then report it the following day, I could certainly maybe understand that after I’ve cleaned the fish, frozen the fish or fried the fish, showered and changed and so forth. I think that this is all a lot of imposition on the recreational fishermen with not knowing exactly how and why this data’s going to be used and how accurate it’s going to be.”

Commercial fishermen must report their entire harvest within 48 hours of landing.

Catherine Blum, DMF rulemaking coordinator, said Wednesday that the division is looking at creating a separate reporting tool for commercial fishermen to report the catch they do not sell to a dealer, but that the rollout of a new reporting method will take some time.

The new law will be phased in over the next three years. Verbal warnings will be issued the first year. Officers will start issuing warning tickets to violators Dec. 1, 2025. One year after that, violators will be fined $35 per offense and face suspension of their fishing licenses and permits.

“I just don’t understand how it’s fair that you’re cracking down on the recreational fishermen instead of going straight after the commercial fishermen,” said Christopher Barnett.

“They’re not checking their nets for stuff before they drop them and get the chance to drown the fish and you’re wanting to pick on the people that, like myself, that maybe get to fish twice a year, if they’re lucky, at the coast,” Barnett continued. “I just think it’s getting stricter and stricter for people to actually go down there and have a good time and enjoy their self fishing off the pier so y’all can install more fines for something for really that’s not hurting the population or resources as much as the commercial end could.”

Hunter Owen, who said he was representing the North Carolina chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, a nonprofit sportsmen’s organization based in Montana, said the group supports mandatory recreational and commercial harvests.

“Since science-based wildlife management is critical and conservation is a pillar of BHA,” he said.

“We do have one suggestion, however, in order to make reporting more successful and useful,” he added. “We will once again step up to the plate supporting this reporting system so that regulatory agencies have the best data available. We do wonder when the effects of commercial inshore shrimp trawling will receive similar scrutiny so that all of us participate in this effort for healthy inshore fish stocks.”

Public comments on the temporary rules will be accepted through 5 p.m. May 20. Comments on the Marine Fisheries Commission rules may be submitted through an online form, or by mail to: N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission, Rules Comments, P.O. Box 769, Morehead City, NC 28557. Comments on the Wildlife Resources

Commission rule may be submitted through an online form, emailing regulations@ncwildlife.org, include name, county and state or residence, or by mailing: Rulemaking Coordinator, N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, 1701 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1700.