ASMFC PUBLIC MEETING ON WINTER FLOUNDER / BELMAR N.J.

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The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection?s Division of Fish and Wildlife will host a public meeting to gather comments regarding recreational and commercial management measures contained in Amendment 1 to the ASMFC?s Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Winter Flounder.

The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, January 5, in the Belmar Court Room, 601 Main Street in Belmar, Monmouth County. Similar meetings are scheduled for Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Maine and Rhode Island.

Fishermen and other interested groups are encouraged to provide input only on the proposed recreational and commercial management measures of the amendment, since all other sections were reviewed and finalized this past summer. Copies of proposals can be obtained via the ASMFC?s web site at www.asmfc.org under Breaking News or by calling 202-289-6400. Written comments will be accepted until 5 p.m. on January 7, 2005 and should be forwarded to Lydia Munger, FMP Coordinator, 1444 Eye Street, NW, Sixth Floor, Washington, DC 20005; 202-289-6051 (fax); or [email protected].

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The public meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in the Belmar Pavilion, 5th and Ocean Aves. It was originally to be held in the Belmar court room.

The entire recreational harvest of winter flounders has fallen from 16,306,302 flounders in 1985 to 948,517 fish in 2001. The recreational landings totaled 550 metric tons compared to 4,400 metric tons for the commercial sector in 2001.

Thus the recreational share of the overall landings, commercial and recreational, dropped from more than 40 percent of the landings in 1985 to 11 percent in 2001

New York's winter flounder harvest dropped from 5,979,492 fish in 1981 to 232,768 fish in 2001. The landings now compose 31 percent of the total catch on the East Coast.

Massachusetts anglers harvested 5,643,405 winter flounders in 1981, and only 71,653 in 2000. Last year the catch dropped to 42,765. New Jersey's landings in 1981 were 1,012,734 fish, and in 2000 they were 1,056,144. In 2003 they were 301,384.

A copy of the ASMFC's management proposal for winter flounder can be found on its Web site, www.asmfc.org, under Breaking News.

Comments on the proposals may be submitted in writing until Friday, Jan. 7. They can be mailed by Lydia Munger, FMP Coordinator, 1444 Eye Street, NW, Sixth Floor, Washington, DC 20005; faxed to (202) 289-6051, or e-mailed to [email protected] no later than 5 p.m.