The state’s marine fisheries division will hold two meetings this month to explain new flounder reporting requirements for pound net fishermen.
The meetings will be held as follows:
Beginning Sept. 1, the Division of Marine Fisheries will require fishermen who hold pound net permits and are participating in the pound net flounder fishery to report their flounder landings to the division daily.
The division needs daily reporting of flounder landings to manage the quota adopted by the Marine Fisheries Commission through Supplement A to Amendment 1 of the Southern Flounder Fishery Management Plan. The supplement, approved in November 2015, requires a commercial pound net quota that reduces pound net flounder landings by 38 percent from the average 2011 to 2015 landings.
Shares of the pound net flounder 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 for that group. 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.
At the meetings, state marine fisheries staff will explain the details of how this system will work. Staff will also provide the quotas for different monitoring groups and answer questions from fishermen.
The daily reporting requirement does not affect the requirement for monthly reporting by seafood dealers. The daily landings reports will be used to manage the flounder pound net quota. They will be periodically crossed-checked with trip tickets, as with other quota managed species.
For more information, contact Kathy Rawls with the Division of Marine Fisheries at 252-808-8074 or Kathy.Rawls@ncdenr.gov.