As I have much respect and really appreciate your insight on fishery matters, I was wondering what would or WILL happen when NJ exceeds there 2009 recreational fluke quota? Thanks for your time
Sorry I missed your post, been running my riverboats this past week and have not been online at all.
If and when NJ or any other state exceeds it's 2009 quota will not be known until after the season is over. The season for NJ ends Sept. 3rd, the preliminary landings data for July and August is not usually available until October at best.
So, what the real question should be is "if NJ exceeds it's 2009 quota what will happen next year?"
The answer to that depends on three things.
1) what is the quota for next year (we do not know that yet)
2)What were the landings for NJ for 2009 (we will not know that until the end of the year)
3)What is the difference between those two numbers.
If the quota for 2010 is larger than the amount of fish we caught in 2009 then we can maintain or relax our regs accordingly.
If the quota for 2010 is less than what we caught in 2009 then we will have to make our regs stricter to compensate for the difference.
Fortunately it looks like we may be getting another increase in the quota for 2010, see
this article for some details.