Mid Atlantic Fishery Management Council Meeting Results (Update)

[ped579]

These seem to be just the recommendations for Summer Flounder.  Waiting for clarification on this.

Like Rod mentioned the following was just voted on by the Mid Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) and is as follows:

non-preferred coastwide measures of a 19.5 inch TL minimum size, 2 fish possession limit and coastwide season from May 1 to September 30, 2010 and a precautionary default measure of 21.5 inch TL minimum size, 2 fish possession limit and coastwide season from May 1 to September 30, 2010.  

It is further moved that technical proposals submitted by the states under the ASMFC process should provide an explanation of past management history as identified by
the summer flounder Monitoring Committee meeting summary dated November 18, 2009.Council:  Munden/Himchak (14/3/1)Board: Munden/Fote (7/1/1/0)Motion carries

This meeting started at 8:30 with testimony by the board and public input as well.  It seemed to this listener that the minds of the council was made up before hand as heard by off mike statements early on.  The meeting is being held in Wilmington, Delaware.  The issues will be felt by all as a result of this vote and should not be taken lightly.  We as recreational fishermen need to get involved and make our points be heard over special interests such as PEW.

There will be another session going on now that will deal with scup and the spiny dogfish.  At 3 PM the same committee will discuss and take recommendations on the management of Black Sea Bass.

We will have to wait till the whole text comes out as there were a number of feed loses and a lot of information was lost but the above text was sent via a chat room on the ustream site.

It has been passed on that these are only recommendations so we will have to wait and see what happens.  We all are trying to see and get information while using technology that we have no control over so keep tight and things will be cleared up.

Please take the time to log on and help us out with the information.

If you are interested the following is the route to take:

www.ustream.tv

In the search box type:

"mafmc"

There will be a box on your left click on it and it should bring you to the meeting.

You can chat as well and I urge all to get into the discussion on line.

It looks like the season will be a dismal one next year.  Get on board and get involved as much as you can.

Happy Catching (Gulp)

Paul

[SurfJockey]

Gotta add an "r" to the above link.

[Hotrod]

May have been a little premature on this..  This is what I got from what I heard and what they posted in the chat.  Hang tight.. more to come

[Hotrod]

But from their Web Site their Scedule for this reads as follows.

8:30 - 11:00 Summer Flounder: 2010 Recreational Management Measures (Tab 1)
• Review and discuss Monitoring Committee's recommendations on summer
flounder management measures
• Review and discuss Advisory Panel's recommendations on summer flounder
management measures
• Develop and approve management measures for 2010 summer flounder
recreational fishery

That doesn't sound like a recommendation 

[Reckless]

Should I bend over now or wait a little longer? 

[ped579]

That's true...

I am just out of it today.  Sorry for all the confusion.

[IrishAyes]

Way too much confusion here. The info below falls in line with what I thought I heard... conservation equivalency, which is statewide.

This is cut and paste from the site. I believe jdidden it the tech guy from the site (I could be wrong on that though)

10:47 jdidden: The vote has taken place (see the vote tallies above)
11:27 fishnewyork: thanks you  i had hit send as you posted the info about the vote,  thank you for your help 
11:59 FranVerdi: sorry just got back.  Did they vote to go to a coastwide summer flounder?
12:03 jdidden: See above..."Move that conservation equivalency be used..."


Let's be more careful with what we put out until we know for sure.

At this juncture, I would say, let's wait to hear the official vote.

[Hotrod]

I was speaking with Paul and asked him to post this.  we took that right from their meeting.

We'll see..  I know what I heard and it didn't sound like a recommendation to me

But this is why I stay out of these things..  to confusing