April 30, 2015 — With a federal ban on recreational cod fishing in place for at least another year, Mike Pierdinock and other South Shore charter boat captains desperately needed good news.
And, finally, they got some.
The New England Fishery Management Council last week voted down a proposal that would have closed 55 square miles of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary to recreational and charter-boat groundfishing. While they still can’t catch cod, sport fishermen can go after haddock, pollock and other fish in those waters.
“I couldn’t be happier,” said Pierdinock, Massachusetts chairman of the Recreational Fishing Alliance and captain of the Perseverance, a charter boat based in Marshfield’s Green Harbor. “Science is science, and we were able to show flawed science and economics that would have been the last nail in the coffin for the charter boat fleet.”
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