Why It Matters: Recreational anglers in North Carolina generate over $40 million in funding for conservation through the “user pays – public benefits” structure of the American System of Conservation Funding (ASCF). Therefore, ensuring access for recreational angling is critical to maintaining sustainable fisheries. Recreational anglers are also a potentially strong resource for collecting biological data on the fisheries, underscoring the need for developing harvest reporting programs that generate reliable catch information.
Highlights:
- The North Carolina Southern Flounder Fishery Management Plan Amendment 3 (Amendment 3) establishes that commercial to recreational southern flounder allocations be as follows: 2023 and 2024 – 70/30, 2025 – 60/40, and 2026 – 50/50.
- The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission originally voted in 2020 that the shift to the 50/50 southern flounder allocation would take place by 2024, which has now been delayed to 2026.
- The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) recently solicited comments on a temporary amendment that would close recreational flounder season in 2024.
- On July 5, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF) submitted comments encouraging an earlier shift to the 50/50 allocation and the development harvest reporting requirements that generate more reliable catch data.
North Carolina, along with other South Atlantic states, relies on often highly uncertain angler catch information under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP). Reliable angler catch data is critical to successful marine fisheries management, both in state and federally managed fisheries. MRIP data is used in stock assessments, season length projections, and to monitor landings and discards for management purposes. The highly variable MRIP data has led to shorter seasons and a loss of recreational fishing access to many state and federally managed species.
Deficiencies in MRIP are being felt on multiple fronts in the Tar Heel State just in 2024 alone. In addition to the temporary amendment to close recreational southern flounder season, North Carolina anglers were only offered a 24 hour long red snapper season in 2024. On July 12, recreational anglers had 24 hours to harvest their limit of one red snapper per person. Unfortunately, many North Carolina anglers were not able to participate in this year’s “season” due to hazardous weather conditions, leaving them to miss out on red snapper fishing all together in 2024. Meanwhile, anglers in the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf) get to enjoy months (not hours) of red snapper fishing thanks to successful state-based data collection programs developed in recent years by all five Gulf states.
Fortunately, North Carolina has a unique, well-funded opportunity to develop a mandatory reporting requirement for both recreational and commercial fisheries that, if structured correctly, could significantly enhance the sustainability of the state’s marine resources while providing additional access for North Carolina’s recreational anglers.
While it is proposed that the 2024 recreational flounder season be closed, the commercial sector will still be able to harvest southern flounder this year. Had the allocation shift to 50% for each sector occurred in 2024 as originally proposed, there likely could have been a recreational season this year.
CSF will continue working alongside its many in-state and national partners to conserve access to our public trust fisheries resources.
