THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 20, 1996 TAG: 9604200419
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
TYPE: METRO BRIEFS
DATELINE: REGIONAL LENGTH: Short : 34 lines
Beginning Oct. 1, fishermen will be required to use 3 1/8-inch mesh nets to catch weakfish in the Atlantic Ocean, members of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's Weakfish Management Board decided this week.
North Carolina watermen had hoped to be able to fish 2 3/4-inch mesh nets - and had asked that regulations not go into effect until April 1997 so that state biologists could gather better data about what size fish the smaller nets catch.
``It is discouraging to sit in a meeting realizing that the management board is adopting bad mesh sizes and not be able to fight back simply because we don't have the needed data to back up our position,'' North Carolina Fisheries Association spokesman Bob Peele said.
Fisheries Association members, most of whom are commercial fishermen, praised state biologist Louis Daniel and North Carolina Director of Marine Fisheries Bruce Freeman for fighting for some changes in weakfish rules for the watermen.
Management Board members also voted to increase the minimum size of weakfish - also called gray trout - from 10 to 12 inches in the ocean. And they determined that any fishing trip that lands more than 150 pounds of weakfish should be considered a ``directed fishery'' rather than a bycatch.
The new rules are part of Amendment 3 to the Weakfish Management Plan. by CNB