JCAA Fisheries Management & Legislative Report

ASMFC Winter Meeting Summer Flounder

The states did as well as they could with the summer flounder recreational tables. Because we haven’t fixed the stock assessment for summer flounder, the quota is still ridiculously low. The peer review stock assessment states that the amount of spawning stock biomass does not appear to correlate to recruitment.

 When we had a spawning stock biomass less than ¼ of what we have now, with females no larger than 18 inches, we were getting higher recruitment than we are now. We now have a spawning stock biomass that is almost 5 times what it was in ’94. The majority of the females are much larger (over 27 inches), yet we are producing less recruitment.