THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 24, 1994 TAG: 9408240485
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB HUTCHINSON, OUTDOORS EDITOR
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
If you have a hankering for fresh gray trout, you better run to your seafood market. Starting at midnight Sunday, there will be a ban on the possession and sale of any gray trout caught in pound nets.
The regulation was adopted and given emergency status Tuesday by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, which was meeting in Newport News. The ban will run through Oct. 31.
The measure was necessary to keep all gray trout fishing from being banned in the state, said Rob O'Rilley of the agency's staff.
That could have happened if the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, a coalition of all East Coast states, had determined that Virginia was not complying with a coastwide plan to reduce the 1994 catch of the beleaguered trout by 25 percent.
The multistate commission had agreed on the 25 percent reduction earlier this year and then allowed member states to come up with acceptable plans for its im-ple-men-ta-tion.
In Virginia, one of the options called for pound-net fishermen with at least two licensed nets to surrender one of their licenses; those with at least four nets to give up two licenses; and those with at least seven to give up three.
The plan backfired when the commission left a loophole, giving the fishermen time to buy additional licenses. By surrendering those new licenses, the netters figured, they would not have to abandon their older rigs.
About 37 new pound-net licenses were purchased between July 29, when the regulation was adopted, and Aug. 5, when it became effective.
As an alternative to abandoning some of their existing licenses, the netters were to have been allowed to cull and discard all trout caught between Aug. 5 and Sept. 9.
Now, all pound-net fishermen, including those who followed the letter of the law, will have to release any gray trout caught between Aug. 28 and Oct. 31.
In other action Tuesday, the commission placed a ceiling of 1.2 million pounds on the commercial catch of bluefish in state waters. Again, this is to keep the state in compliance with a coastwide management plan for the species.
The quota is not expected to affect commercial fishing for blues in Virginia because the state's catch was only 629,000 pounds for all of 1993, and this year's catch is expected to be lower. by CNB