April 27, 2013 — Several coastal residents, along with a county panel focused on the fishing industry, are adamantly against parts of a House bill that if passed, would stop commercial fishermen from being allowed to catch and sell three fish species.
House Bill 983 was introduced to the General Assembly April 17 and is currently before the assembly’s Committee on Commerce and Job Development. If the bill passes, it will declare red drum, spotted sea trout and estuarine striped bass as gamefish, meaning only recreational fishermen will be allowed to catch them.
Brit Shackleford, owner and operator of Doghouse Sport Fishing of Manteo and president of N.C. Watermen United, a nonprofit organization of commercial fishermen, said this bill “flies in the face of the law of the land,” namely the Fisheries Reform Act, the state legislation that guides fishery management in North Carolina.
“It (the bill) is taking fish, which science has proven commercial fishing has little impact to, and gives it to the group that has 90 percent of it,” he said. “They (state legislators) are saying recreational fishermen should be given full control of the fishery.”
This isn’t the first time such a bill has been introduced in the General Assembly, and coastal counties and organizations have approved resolutions in opposition to the proposal. Those entities include Outer Banks Visitor’s Bureau, the N.C. Travel and Tourism Bureau and the N.C. Hotel and Motel Association.
Mr. Shackleford said NCWU is going to do anything and everything it can to stop H.B. 983. He said the group was in Raleigh on Wednesday, meeting with state department heads and legislators.
“They’ve been misled to think we don’t have any (commercial fishing) rules established,” Mr. Shackleford said. “We need to make them aware of the law, which deals with all users.”
Previous bills focused solely on making the four species gamefish; the new bill, however, has other provisions, including providing funds for coastal dredging projects, increasing the fee for a recreational fishing license and providing compensation for commercial fishermen due to the gamefish designation.
Read the full story at the Carteret County News-Times