THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 10, 1997 TAG: 9701100503
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WANCHESE LENGTH: 106 lines
In the 23 years he's been working on the water, R.S. Meekins Jr. says, he has never seen so many flounder. The flat fish are so thick his crew can catch 10,000 pounds in a day. Watermen are making a killing on the popular food fish.
But at 4 p.m. today, selling commercially caught flounder in North Carolina will be illegal. Ten days after the season opened, the quota has been caught. Flounder fishermen must either tie up their boats and tighten their belts - or head to Virginia to land their fish there.
North Carolina has never had such a short season.
``I don't know how our family's gonna live. They only let us work 10 days this year,'' said Meekins, a 51-year-old Outer Banks captain who estimates that his crew members each earned $1,400 this season. ``Last year, we only got to land flounder for two months. We struggled all year. All of us are way, way behind on our bills.
``It just doesn't make sense to shut us down,'' Meekins said Thursday after docking the Bridget Denise, his 86-foot trawler, for the day. ``There are so many flounder out there it's pitiful.''
Federal fisheries laws allow North Carolina watermen to catch 1.8 million pounds of flounder this year. State rules require that 30 percent of that quota remain in reserve for a fall season. Biologists estimate that 70 percent of the annual quota will be caught by today.
So North Carolina's fisheries director shut the industry down. Until last year, watermen could catch flounder from November through May. More than 500 North Carolina commercial fishermen depend on flounder for the majority of their income.
Virginia ports will remain open until 1.2 million pounds of flounder are landed. Tuesday, only 175,000 pounds had been landed. So dozens of North Carolina trawlers will head north this weekend.
``There'll be a bunch of boats that don't normally come up our way,'' said Frank McLaughlin, manager of Chesapeake Bay Packing in Newport News. ``Carolina has never closed before Virginia. Our fishermen wish (North Carolina fishermen) wouldn't come, of course, because then our quota would last longer. But Virginia fishermen work down there, too. The flounder production off Ocracoke has been unreal.''
Officials with the National Marine Fisheries Service began setting flounder quotas in 1993. East Coast landings averaged 31.7 million pounds between 1976 and 1988. For 1997, the Monitoring Committee of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council recommended a coast-wide commercial quota of 8.4 million pounds.
Biologists say the reduction in landings is necessary to sustain flounder populations and protect the species from overfishing.
Fishermen say there are more flounder in the ocean than ever - and contend the regulations are killing the watermen instead of saving the fish.
``It's not just the fishermen that will suffer. It's all the dockside help, too. The whole community will feel it when we shut down,'' Pamlico Packing executive Ed Cross said. A former member of North Carolina's Marine Fisheries Committee, Cross runs a Vendermere fish house. He said at least 18 fishermen, 12 fish packers and 32 fish processors will be out of work at his plant when flounder season shuts down today.
``There's nothing for them to do. We've got to just tie these boats to the docks,'' Cross said. ``These people only started working Jan. 1. Some of them had been laid off since March, when last year's flounder quota was caught. And since the fishermen are self-employed, they can't even collect unemployment.
``Virginia's flounder season won't even last two more weeks,'' Cross said. ``New Jersey's closes Sunday. There's nowhere for us to go.
``Being nice, I'm mad as hell.''
Restaurants won't be able to buy American flounder after March, Cross predicted. They'll have to import the fish from Argentina. That could cause prices to climb well above the current retail of $3.10 per pound for medium, locally caught fillets.
``It makes a lot of sense to stop us from catching smaller flounder,'' said Cross. ``But we can do that with size and net mesh limits. We don't need quotas.''
``We've had the most fish caught in a short time that I've ever seen,'' said Cross, who's been in the business for 20 years. ``And we haven't even scratched the surface of what's out there.''
This year, 118 boats are permitted to land flounder in North Carolina, with at least four watermen on each boat. In Virginia, 120 boats hold flounder permits. Most of those vessels are based in North Carolina.
``Some of our boats will go to Virginia. But when Virginia closes, they'll have to tie up to the docks for the rest of the year,'' said Wanchese Fish Co. President Joey Daniels. ``People will lose their boats to the banks. It's uncalled for.
``Commercial fishermen are feeling the most injustice that's been done to anyone in this country since the Indians - or racism.''
National Marine Fisheries Service officials say the regulations are necessary to save flounder. Already, they say, stocks have shown signs of recovering. ``As soon as people see more fish out there, they want to go catch them,'' said Andy Rosenberg, a regional administrator for the federal fisheries service. ``But we need to retain lower pressure on the fish to help keep the numbers up.''
Fishermen say flounder populations aren't suffering. They attribute the increased amount of fish to natural cycles that cause populatons to build then decline.
``Scientists didn't bring the fish back with their rules,'' Daniels said. ``The fish came back by themselves. But the rules just won't let us catch 'em.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
DREW C. WILSON/The Virginian-Pilot
Above, the trawler Bridget Denise pulls into Wanchese Harbor on
Thursday loaded with flounder. At right, Marshall Sanderlin, 32, of
Wanchese unloads flounder from the hold of the 86-foot fishing
vessel. The fish have been so plentiful that the trawler's crew can
catch 5 tons in a day.