The state’s marine fisheries division today rescinded a regulation requiring seafood dealers to hold a special permit to buy flounder from pound net fishermen and to report those landings daily.
Instead, the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries will require fishermen who hold pound net permits and are participating in the flounder pound net fishery to report their daily landings of flounder to the division. The daily reporting requirement will begin Sept. 1.
The division will mail information about this new permit condition to pound net permit holders who have reported flounder landings in the past five years. The information will be sent by Aug. 5.
Additionally, the division will schedule meetings to explain the new permit and reporting requirements to pound net fishermen. Dates, times and locations of these meetings will be announced once they are set.
Meanwhile, the division has rescinded Proclamation M-14-2016, which implemented the Flounder Pound Net Dealer Permit.
The need for daily reporting of flounder landings stems from Supplement A to Amendment 1 of the Southern Flounder Fishery Management Plan, adopted by the Marine Fisheries Commission in November 2015. The supplement requires a commercial pound net quota that reduces pound net flounder landings by 38 percent from the average 2011 to 2015 landings.
The flounder pound net quota will be allocated to six designated Pound Net Quota Monitoring groups. Once the quota allotted to a group is met, the commercial flounder season will close in those waterbodies. Pound net fishermen will still be allowed to fish for and land other species from the nets.
The commercial flounder gig season will close when the quota is met for all six management groups.
For more information, contact Kathy Rawls with the Division of Marine Fisheries at 252-808-8074 or Kathy.Rawls@ncdenr.gov.