April 18, 2014 — The N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries has closed commercial fishing for red drum statewide because netters caught more than their allowable poundage for the entire season in just a few months last fall.
NCDMF announced on April 14 that the commercial fishery will be closed until at least Sept. 1 because it estimated that netters had caught 261,000 pounds, 11,000 more than the allowable quota.
“We knew we had an exceptionally good year class of red drum in the slot this year, but didn’t expect so many to be caught so quickly,” said Dr. Louis Daniel, director of the agency. “We are seeing some of the same year-class fish now in the good spring numbers in the recreational catch. We certainly had not anticipated that even with the exceptionally large year class so many red drum could be caught so quickly.
“When we looked at the trip tickets at the end of October, we realized there was potential for an overage in the catch,” Daniel said. “We … weren’t thinking about exceeding the total catch for the year. We examined the trip tickets the third week in November, and when the total was 144,258 pounds; I issued the proclamation to close the season. We were stunned when the reports containing all the written trip tickets were tallied later and the total exceeded the poundage for the annual catch.”
NCDMF divides the commercial season on red drum between Sept. 1-March 31 and April 1-Aug. 31. Fishermen were allowed to catch 150,000 pounds in the September-to-March season; they actually caught 261,000. The agency said that the 11,000 pounds of overage will be deducted from the allowable catch for the 2015 season.