Outdoors Notebook: Expect further reductions in flounder catch

By Lee Tolliver
The Virginian-Pilot

Here we go again.

Federal fisheries managers have ordered East Coast states to reduce their annual harvest of summer flounder.

Such reductions force individual states to alter restrictions on catches.

Last year, Virginia had to increase its size limit to 18-1/2 inches, decrease the bag limit to five fish, and impose additional closed seasons.

NOAA Fisheries Service this week said it was decreasing the entire East Coast catch from 17.11 million pounds to 15.77 million for next year. Scientists from the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council had suggested that the catch be reduced even more, to between 11.64 and 12.9 million pounds, to help reduce overfishing.

But even at 15.77 million pounds, Virginia will again have to adjust its regulations.

"Even a slight adjustment to, say, 19 inches would be huge for anglers," said Jack Travelstead, chief of fisheries management for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.

Travelstead said Virginia and Massachusetts are the only states that haven't already gone over their 2007 quotas. He added, however, that harvest data for September and October - typically good months to catch flatfish - have not been tabulated.

"We could still be on quota or we could go over, we just don't know," Travelstead said.

Any over-quota harvest will result in further restrictions on catches.

Travelstead added that the Federal Monitoring Committee is pushing for a 1 percent buffer zone to be added to quotas to guard against mistakes.

Travelstead said it is too early to start talking about what the changes for next year might be.

More reductions

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission will hold a public hearing Nov. 27 and will then decide how to meet a federally forced tautog harvest reduction of nearly 26 percent.

Travelstead said recreational anglers appear to favor closing the season during the tog spawning months of April and May. A closure during a part of December also could be needed.

The meeting will be held at about 12:30 p.m. in the commission's fourth-floor conference room at 2600 Washington Ave., in Newport News.

State record

The Virginia Salt Water Fishing Tournament has approved a 53-pound, 8-ounce golden tilefish as the state record.

The fish was caught Sept. 22 by Charles Maresh of Norfolk. The fish measured 46 inches long, had a 33-inch girth, and was caught from the Norfolk Canyon while Maresh was fishing with Capt. Joe DelCampo.

Fox trading

Virginia Conservation Police officers recently inspected 41 foxhound training facilities across the state and shut down 36 of them for permit violations.

The investigation was part of a multi-state effort involving illegal buying, selling, possession and transportation of foxes and coyotes used at the training facilities.

Foxes and coyotes were being captured in western states and illegally sold to training facilities in Virginia, as well as in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina and South Carolina.

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