Photo by Angelo Peluso The Council met this week, here’s what you should know By Capt. John McMurray There were really only three agenda items during this meeting that are of importance to anglers. Although before getting to those, we want to point out that during the Law Enforcement Committee report on Tuesday, a NOAA
The northwest Atlantic cod fishery is arguably one of the best-known and most historically important fisheries in the world. That importance made the collapse of the region’s cod stocks all the more noteworthy, and adds a degree of urgency to ongoing efforts to return such stocks to health. Unfortunately, biologists have found cod slow
This legislative session (the two-year 115th Congress, 2017-2018) has been a busy one for federal fisheries policy, with relevant legislation being introduced and moving through the Committee process in both the House and the Senate. But the bills have seemed to have hit a stalling point. When that point breaks and things begin
Fifty fishermen attended the Atlantic herring Amendment 8 public hearing on May 22, 2018 at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography campus. Ninety percent of all comments made (18) at the hearing were were vying for the council to recognize herring as a forage fish when considering catch limits. Those testifying represented
Striped bass were a hot topic at the most recent ASMFC meeting. First, Maryland proposed a one-inch reduction in size by mandating circle hooks for the Chesapeake Bay. Circle hooks will make an impact. Frankly, circle hooks should be mandatory anyway. But, these days you take conservation in any form available. A minimal reduction in
The States of Massachusetts and Rhode Island announced on May 23 that they will be going into contract negotiations for 1200 megawatts (MW) of ocean wind farm power generation. The Block Island Wind Farm pilot project, the first ocean wind farm in the nation, with five turbines is 30 MW. So by comparison these projects
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) great 2018 black sea bass debate was settled on May 3, after the four aggrieved northern states, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, proposed compromise management measures that proved acceptable to all of the affected states. The debate was rooted in a clear change in black sea
There’s been some great science coming out about fish lately. The findings are eye opening because scientific studies have shown us that bigger, older, and fatter female fish are better reproducers. A recent study in the journal Science supports this theory, finding that larger females produce disproportionately more eggs. Scientists have even come up with
ASMFC met April 30th to May 3rd, here’s what went down By Capt. John McMurray The Spring 2018 Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) meeting took place last week, and of course, we were there. While there were a number of topics discussed, and actions taken, in the interest of simplification and providing readers with
As the reduction industry fights to take more fish in the Chesapeake, things get muddied By Capt. John McMurray To those of us who fish, it seems so darn obvious. If you take a HUGE amount of what by all accounts is a critically important forage source for, well, just about everything, out of a
