MFC meeting brings new regulations for commercial and recreational fisheries

At its business meeting this week, the commission closed commercial mullet fishing on the weekends and the recreational flounder season for 2024.

At its May business meeting, which it held on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, in Beaufort, the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission voted on new regulations for striped mullet harvest, updated the public about proposed regulations for the spotted sea trout fishery, and closed recreational flounder fishing for the year.

The decisions will impact commercial and recreational fishermen on Hatteras Island.

STRIPED MULLET

The MFC voted unanimously to close the commercial harvest of mullet on weekends from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30 and on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31.

Commercial fishermen must have mullet landed, meaning the fishermen must have the mullet at a fish house, before 11:59 p.m. on Fridays. Commercial harvest will reopen at 12:01 a.m. on Mondays before Sept. 30 and 12:01 a.m. on Tuesdays after Sept. 30.

Recreational fishermen may possess up to 100 mullet, and recreational and for-hire vessels may possess up to 400 mullet.

The MFC also voted to adopt adaptive management for mullet, which allows the DMF to alter mullet regulations if the day-of-the-week closures are not producing the targeted reductions.

“The most important thing the commission has adopted in this plan is the adaptive management, which gives us flexibility to work with this plan,” said Kathy Rawls, the director of the DMF.

The new mullet regulations will go into effect this month.

The day-of-the-week closures will bring around a 35 percent reduction in commercial mullet harvest from the 2019 commercial landings and is projected to achieve sustainable harvest for mullet, said Willow Patten, a biologist for the Department of Marine Fisheries.

Commercial fishermen landed more than 1.3 million pounds of mullet in 2019, according to DMF data. A 35 percent reduction would reduce that number to around 900,000 pounds of mullet each year.

SPOTTED SEATROUT (SPECKLED TROUT)

A thirteen person advisory committee met in April to discuss increased regulation to the speckled trout fishery, after a 2019 stock assessment found that speckled trout are not overfished but overfishing is occurring, said Melinda Lambert, a biologist supervisor at the DMF.

The spawning stock biomass of speckled trout has risen since 2006, when speckled trout were overfished. However, fishermen are catching speckled trout at a rate that is unsustainable, according to DMF data.

Committee members preferred size limit increases or a slot limit instead of season closures, no change to the bag limit, and different management measures for commercial and recreational fishermen, with a possible season closure in the winter for commercial fishermen, said Lucas Pensinger, a biologist with the DMF.

Committee members supported a recreational slot limit of 16 to 20 inches with one fish above 24 inches and a commercial closure from January to March or February to April, Pensinger said.

The advisory committee did not make any decisions about the speckled trout fishery.

“This workshop was really about getting input from experienced stakeholders in the spotted seatrout fishery both on the management options in Amendment 1 and also input to hear other ideas and options that committee members might have,” Pensinger said.

Currently, commercial fishermen can harvest 75 trout a day with a minimum length of 14 inches, while recreational fishermen can possess four trout a day with the same minimum length, according to DMF proclamations from 2018.

Since 1991, recreational fishermen have landed an average of more than 1.6 million pounds of trout per year, while commercial fishermen have landed an average of 331,000 pounds of trout per year, according to DMF’s Fishery Management Plan Review, published in August 2023. Commercial trout landing has increased in recent years, with 654,000 pounds landed in 2021 and 520,000 pounds landed in 2022.

Consistently, recreational anglers account for 85 percent of the trout harvest, Pensinger said.

The DMF will present a draft of the new speckled trout regulations to the MFC at its August business meeting. If the MFC approves the draft, the advisory committee will review it and the public will have the opportunity for comment before the November MFC meeting.

SOUTHERN FLOUNDER

The recreational southern flounder season will not open in 2024, because fishermen harvested too many flounder last year, according to a DMF press release.

Recreational fishermen are allowed 170,655 pounds of flounder each year. However, if fishermen harvest more than the Total Allowable Catch, the excess harvest is subtracted from the following year.

In 2023, recreational fishermen harvested more than 200,000 pounds of flounder when their Total Allowable Catch was only 114,315 pounds, according to DMF data. That left only 43,000 pounds for the 2024 season.

“After subtracting the recreational overage from 2023, the recreational quota remaining for 2024 is not large enough to allow for a season opening,” the DMF wrote. “The leftover quota will be used to account for the anticipated dead discards that will occur due to incidental catch and release.”

The DMF anticipates opening the recreational flounder season in 2025, according to the press release.

The MFC will hold a special online meeting on June 6 at 11 a.m. to vote on mandatory harvest reporting, which would require recreational fishermen to report harvests of red drum, flounder, speckled and gray trout, and striped bass to the DMF. Commercial fishermen may have to report all harvested fish to the DMF, regardless of if they sell the fish.