ASMFC weakfish meeting August 19, 2009

[bababooey]

There is a weakfish meeting on August 19. if you thiink the stock is depleted, or even if you don't, they want your comments. Send them to-
http://www.asmfc.org/ (http://www.asmfc.org/)

It only takes a minute to send an e-mail. They talk about weakfish being cyclical. I personally think that's because folks over-fish them whenever they are here in abundance, and stop taregeting them when they are not. This makes perfect sense to me, unless someone else has a better explanation.


http://www.asmfc.org/commissionerManual/ISFMP/25.%20Weakfish.pdf

[nitestrikes]

They talk about weakfish being cyclical. I personally think that's because folks over-fish them whenever they are here in abundance, and stop taregeting them when they are not. This makes perfect sense to me, unless someone else has a better explanation.


http://www.asmfc.org/commissionerManual/ISFMP/25.%20Weakfish.pdf

I think they are overfished as well. I think the pound nets have a lot to do with that and prevent a lot of spring spawning, but I don't know how you would prove that.

[bababooey]

MR. RUSS ALLEN --

"And, finally, I would just like to say, as I said before,


no matter what happens with the peer review in June
the board needs to remember that weakfish is in a
depleted condition, a depressed state. We can’t agree
with that particular panel on why it is there. One of
the main things that they said was that predation may
be maintaining the population at low levels without
having contributed to the original decline in the
stock.
We agree that overfishing was the problem in the
eighties. We have used management to get the stock
started back in an increasing mode during the early
nineties and mid-nineties, and then all of a sudden it
dropped back down. Now, we definitely agree that it
was overfishing early on. We’re saying the split
happened in the early thousands that predation is the
main focus of a problem out


out there, and it is
continuing to maintain those levels and we can’t
seem to break through it to move forward. That’s it
for me. Like I said, I tried to do this real quick. "

Update,

The ASMFC weakfish board initiated an addendum. The draft addendum will include a range of options to severely restrict the harvest of weakfish, including a moratorium on harvesting weakfish. The addendum is being fast tracked and could be approved in November. New Jersey will most likely hold a meeting in October.