This is the time of year when weakfish stack up on nearshore reefs and deep inshore estuaries. Anyway , I just ran across this on the DNR site and wondered if everone here was up on this new regulation.
If posted before; I’m sorry I missed it. I thought the limit had just recently been revised to 10 / person / day.
H.4444 Weakfish Creel Limit Reduction Effective Date 7/01/2010 Act No.169
It is unlawful for a person to take or have in possession more than one weakfish, Cynoscion regalis, in any one day.</font id=“red”>
… and the fact that the feds didn’t give us de minimis status for a combined commercial/rec landing of like 7% of east coast total, despite that 7% being a year of abnormally high weakfish bycatch reporting.
the limit used to be 10. minimum size still 12"… but you might want to wait for that one 18-20" if you get into them now!
as with phin’s observation on the dehooking tool, good call reiterating it for the lurking masses.
WTF ?? Am I to understand that I can keep 1 trout? This is hard to believe, but I won’t get caught with more than one. We are talking about our speckled trout, right, not some sub-species related to them?
For the record CCA had nothing to do with this. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission held public hearings coast wide in fall 2009 and the alternatives were 0 fish or 1 fish. As usual few people showed up to voice their concerns and the dreaded Magnuson Stevens act trumped any pleas on the citizens part to allow us to continue to harvest weakfish even though we were such a small part of the landings in the region.
WTF ?? Am I to understand that I can keep 1 trout? This is hard to believe, but I won’t get caught with more than one. We are talking about our speckled trout, right, not some sub-species related to them?
WTF ?? Am I to understand that I can keep 1 trout? This is hard to believe, but I won’t get caught with more than one. We are talking about our speckled trout, right, not some sub-species related to them?
Say it ain’t so…
oyster cracker
It ain't so.
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EXCELLENT PICS…
I’m tired of being told that I have to “spread the wealth” to people who don’t have my work ethic. I’m tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.
to stanotti. The nearshore reef is not in federal waters but the South Carolina Legislature passed a law years ago that makes all federal laws applicable in state waters. Thus limit in state waters also one/day.
to stanotti. The nearshore reef is not in federal waters but the South Carolina Legislature passed a law years ago that makes all federal laws applicable in state waters. Thus limit in state waters also one/day.
Nothing personal, but I have given CCA the benefit of the doubt to do the right thing for our resources and recreational fishermen and businesses that depend on those two things OVER AND OVER AND OVER again- with the same result. I have been repeatedly made to feel betrayed, lied to, stolen from, etc.
I take it that you were not aware of how the SC CCA E.D. was in attendance at all subcommittee meetings in Columbia when the weakfish bill was going through. I take it you were not aware that the bill’s sponsor was the CCA’s legislator of the year perhaps.
I also take it that you were not aware of how the CCA continually sweeps up credit for things that it supposedly had nothing to do with UP AND UNTIL those things are unpopular, at which time it reverses positions, unofficially as it were.
What Happened to Weakfish?
By Richen Brame
CCA Atlantic States Fisheries Director
Weakfish (or gray trout) were thought to be on track for a great recovery from their severely overfished condition in the early 1990s. Back then, the catch was primarily 1- to 2-year-old fish, with a few 3s, which is a prime indication of overfishing. Large commercial trawlers were landing millions of pounds of small weakfish for bait and scrap, and weakfish were one of the top bycatch species in the shrimp trawl fishery.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commissions (ASMFC) Weakfish Fishery Management Plan (FMP) instituted measures that significa
Fighting hard to restore historic age structure must be what Dick Brame did during all the SAFMC and SSC meetings when they took red snapper away from us due to “age structure.”
I wish I could have a job where playing solitaire on my laptop was what I could tell my organization was me “fighting hard” for them.
CCA used to be a good org, and they have done a lot of good things. I hope the org returns to it’s grass roots somehow amidst all the grass tops horse dungery going on.
Like every other issue in fisheries, CCA did participate in the weakfish issue. Thats what the organization and its members do; participate.
CCA SC was indeed responsible in 2006 for weakfish in SC going from no size limit and no creel limit to 10 fish and a 12 minimum. The state board felt then as it does now that any recreationally important fish species should be treated as having value and should be managed with reasonable harvest measures; the same took place with black drum in this comprehensive finfish legislation that CCA SC crafted and fought to have put in to law. That measure took a proactive position on many species which has since become the cornerstone in management circles and was the first time SC took action on more than one species at a time.
The ASMFC stock assessment indicates this is a stock in real trouble certainly at less than 5 percent of an unfished stock. The goal is 30 percent. The measures taken by the ASMFC concerning weakfish and a reduction to one fish, which came from an ongoing stock assessment by the ASMFC not at the behest of CCA, does appear to provide additional credence to the actions taken in SC four years ago concerning this seasonally popular species now.
CCA did participate in the ASMFC process by submitting consensus developed comments (as could have any other group by the way) as well as adopting a position statement which has been referenced. Those comments were submitted to our state ASMFC commissioners which are John Frampton and Robert Boyles, both of the SC DNR, and Malcolm Rhodes, owner of the Charleston Angler and a CCA SC State board member. Other CCA states followed suit in submitting the same comments to their respective ASMFC commissioners. The one fish creel limit adopted by the commission was based on the notion that there was virtually no rebuilding difference in this case based on the data between a complete closure and a one fish limit.
Again, as is the case in nearly every instance, this is CCA participating in the current management pro
Has CCA done an independent review of the red snapper assessments yet?
What about the warsaw and snowy assessments?
Haven’t other groups done independent reviews and found serious flaws?
Couldn’t independent reviews of either of these stocks by CCA provide solid footing for CCA members to stand on the right side of these issues? Or is the side you want people to stand on more about ideology than science?
Couldn’t independent reviews, which you have very willingly done for other stocks, help prevent or curtail the unprecedented 98-240ft closure or the 240ft seaward closure to recreational bottom fishing?
What is CCA doing about these massive restrictions on recreational fishing?
Are these restrictions just bitter medicine we all need to swallow?
