1. Summer Flounder, Scup, Black Sea Bass and Bluefish Update
MRAC September 13, 2016

2. Summer Flounder Assessment update July 2016 (data through 2015):
Biomass declining
Overfishing
Poor recruitment for
multiple years
Approaching threshold
2017 Catch limit will
decrease by 30%
-17%

3. Summer Flounder Catch Limits
What does a 30% reduction mean?
Commercial: Adjustments to open season and/or trip limits will have to be made – to be discussed at Dec./Jan. quota management meeting
Recreational: Depends on recreational harvest and if/how much the coast is over
-17%

4. Scup Slight decline in biomass ABCs decline w/ biomass
Very large 2015 year class seen consistently in all northern surveys
-17%

5. Scup Catch Limits Perspective from 2015 coastal scup fisheries:
Commercial harvested m lbs
Recreational harvested m lbs
By 2018, the 2015 year class will be 3 yrs old,
mature, and 10.0” total length

6. Black Sea Bass Catch Limits
Catch limits above not based upon an accepted assessment and are probably overly-conservative
Assessment scheduled to be complete late 2016, may result in management changes for 2017
Similar to the year class, s will probably be very strong

7. 2016 Commercial Black Sea Bass
To be determined….

8. Bluefish 2016
Coastwide, commercial quotas depends upon recreational harvest from the previous year
Initial estimates of 2015 rec. harvest were very high, these were adjusted and catch limits updated in final Federal Rule dated August 4th, 2016, including state comm. allocations
NY comm. allocation ~507,000 lb.
Transfers are being secured to increase that to ~757,000 lb.
NY is currently open at a 500 lb. trip limit
In previous years, NY’s commercial bluefish landings have been around ~1 million pounds.

9. Bluefish Catch Limits Catch limits increase over next few years
Comm. quota remains dependent upon rec harvest
NY comm. allocation is ~10.4% of coast-wide quota

10. Bluefish SSB from 2015 Assessment