NOAA Fisheries is slashing 2017 and 2018 recreational and commercial catch limits for summer flounder and the 2017 commercial quota for black sea bass.
The sweeping cuts will impact both the commercial and recreational harvesting of the summer flounder. The cuts, based on the recommendations of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, will be most severe in 2017, when the commercial and recreational quota for the species is cut by 30 percent from current levels.
Those reductions will set the set the commercial quota at 5.66 million pounds and the recreational at 3.77 million pounds in 2017.
The 2018 reduction summer flounder catch limits is projected to be 16 percent below current levels, setting the commercial quota at 6.63 million pounds and the recreational catch limits at 4.42 million pounds.
