The state enacted the new regulations ahead of ones that will be handed down in 2020 by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which is looking for a nearly one-fifth reduction in the amount of fish taken. The commission cites continued overfishing by recreational and commercial fishermen as the reason.
The Virginia Marine Resources Commission in October cut the number of fish an angler can take each day from two to one. And that fish has to fit in a 20- to 36-inch slot — with the longer fish equating to anywhere from 25 to 35 pounds, depending on how fat they are.
Marinas, bait and tackle shops, gas stations, and restaurants all are reporting lower than usual sales this season.
MJM says
My beef with this rockfish regulation is the putting of so much of it on sport fishermen. Of course it’s also going to hurt the local small shops. The Powers That Be state that we need an 18% reduction in overall catch needed, but sportsmen get a regulated 50% reduction ? Uh, am I the stupid one, or did everyone in the regulatory positions fail 3rd grade arithmetic ?
I don’t know where to find the catch and kept figures that support these lopsided regs. For them to be fair wouldn’t sport fishing have to account for about 75% of the stripers caught in our waters ? Yet I would guess, and it is a guess, that the commercial catch is probably more like 80% of the overall catch. If the commercial reg. was set at a true 80% and sports fishing had stayed at 2 fish, that wouldn’t have gotten the 18% targeted figure ? Does anyone have access to the actual stats ?
Alan Guskind says
No they do not” and you are correct,the sportsfisherman get scrtewed all the time,we spend more money on recreational fishing than all the commercial boasts put together,,they also rite everything off on taxes,e\fuel dockage repairs insurance ,etcetcetc..they do not puty much back into the economy,plus a lot of fish they sell the sales never get repotyed…The recrestional fisherman,buys a lot of fuel which is taxed and we do not write it off ..We also support the entire fishing industry,rod making co. lure makeing ,bait providers,tackle shops and Marinas,not to mention the boating industry>>Commercial fisherman do not even come close”””
Brett bissett says
The commercial boats are only allowed a certain take by the state and are still damaging because of proper management. At the same time the recreational boats are unmeasured and at the same and equally damaging. The point is the striped bass population is down from overfishing from all recreational and commercial. And it is time have another moratorium on top of multiple things to get this bay on track so that we can properly manage and still harvest our favorite creatures from the the bay.
Brett bissett says
The rockfian population is in a troublesome state right now. That is undeniable. This is a strong case of would you wrather. Would you weather hurt a bit for a a couple of years or would you wrather hurt for ten or 15 . The state of Virginia failed to recognize the fall in population years ago. They are so late I feel that it is to late. They failed to recognize this in fear of effecting. businesses.I have personally seen and experienced this first hand.