The New England Fishery Management Council is asking the National Marine Fisheries Service to establish a control date that potentially could be used to determine eligibility criteria for
Control dates become effective the day NMFS publishes a notice in the Federal Register, which may not be until March for this particular request. The Council took this step as a precautionary move while it assesses a recent increase in fishing activity and permit switching in the Northern Gulf of Maine, especially between C and B permits.
Category C permits give vessels the opportunity to land 40 pounds of scallops as incidental catch on non-scallop trips, while B permits allow directed fishing on 200 pounds of scallops per day in the Northern Gulf of Maine area.
LAGC Category A permit holders with individual fishing quota (IFQ) can make a one-time transfer from a Category A IFQ permit to either a Category B 200-pound NGOM permit or a Category C 40-pound incidental catch permit.
The permit switching issue is not one of the Council’s 2023 scallop work priorities, so no action is forthcoming in 2023. But the control date will remain in place should the Council choose to
A control date by itself is not binding, and it does not commit the Council to
The council may choose to develop management measures that do not use a control date – or it may decide to select a different control date or take no action. The council has twice before voted on establishing a control date for the NGOM fishery – first in June 2017
But the council’s scallop committee voted in October 2022 to ask the full council to once again request a control date, in large part because of the recent shift from Category C incidental permits to Category B with a 200-pound daily limit, as well as one-time switches by Category A permit holders.
