Commercial Red Drum Harvest Limit Reduced

MOREHEAD CITY – N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries Director Louis Daniel has reduced the commercial red drum harvest limit by more than half this year to pay back overages from last year.

The commercial red drum harvest limit for the fishing period Sept. 1, 2008, through April 30, 2009, is set at 60,000 pounds, which is 90,000 pounds less than the 150,000-pound seasonal allowance for North Carolina’s commercial fall fishery under the state’s Red Drum Fishery Management Plan.

Additionally, Daniel plans to close the commercial red drum fishing season Dec. 1, if the harvest limit is not caught before then.

North Carolina waters closed to commercial red drum fishing April 3 this year because the harvest was approaching a 250,000-pound annual commercial cap. The season normally runs Sept. 1 through Aug. 31.

Traditionally, the highest incidental catches occur in the fall gill net fisheries. But this year, landings in the winter were just as high, indicating some commercial fishermen may have been targeting red drum.

Red drum is a commercial bycatch fishery; it is illegal for commercial fishermen to target red drum.

However, the closure caused concern that fishermen would be forced to throw back dead or dying fish caught as bycatch while targeting other fish. Also, because the discarded fish would not be landed, they would not be counted against the overall commercial harvest limit.

To reduce these regulatory discards of dead fish, Daniel reopened the commercial red drum harvest season April 28 with a four-fish limit (three fish fewer than the usual bycatch limit) with a provision that the red drum catch must not weigh more than the combined catch of flounder and/or striped mullet.

The trip limit for this fall remains at 4 fish per day, and the red drum catch must not weigh more than the combined catch of flounder, spotted seatrout and striped mullet.