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State marine fisheries changes rules for striped bass gear
By SUSAN WEST The permit will require fishermen to lock into using one gear type to harvest striped bass for three years and will cost $10 annually. Striped bass, also called rockfish, are harvested with beach seines, gillnets, and trawls. The state Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) divides the statewide, annual 480,480 pound quota among the three gear types. For Billy Beasley of Colington, the sticking point in the new permit is the beach seine definition included in the rule. The rule defines a seine as “a swipe net constructed of multi-filament or multi-fiber webbing fished from the ocean beach that is deployed from a vessel launched from the ocean beach where the fishing operation takes place.” Like most other commercial fishermen, Beasley turned to the lighter and less-expensive monofilament net to replace the nylon or multi-filament net he once used in the fishery. Beasley said small fish escape the 8 1/4-inch mesh in the monofilament net he uses, and predicts that smaller fish will be caught with nylon net. “There’s more rock now than ever, and if the small fish are there, we’ll catch them too,” he said. He said that in 1971, he caught more than 56,000 pounds of rockfish in two hauls at Cape Point. “The difference was that back then we could sell a 12-inch and up fish,” he explained. Now the minimum size limit for striped bass in the ocean is 28 inches. “I’ve told them that they are opening up a slaughterhouse with this change,” he said. “Fish will smother and die and wash up on the beach, and the towns will complain and then they’ll shut down the whole mess,” he said. DMF has said that the definition originated in part from a request from traditional beach seine fishermen who complained that fishermen using monofilament gillnets were catching the quota share assigned to the beach seine fishery. DMF has also said the rule will help prevent interaction between bottlenose dolphins and beach seines. The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission (MFC) approved the gear permit rule at its September meeting. DMF will send the rule to the Rules Review Commission for approval in October. Louis Daniel, DMF director, said the agency would not implement the rule until next year. “The state shouldn’t have done this. What they need to do is cut back on the number of people fishing for rockfish. Many of them aren’t even commercial fishermen to start with,” said Beasley. 
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