April 7, 2016 — Last year, sea bass literally put some commercial fishermen in the black.
The black fish with the delicious pure white meat abundantly filled local waters and made up some financial losses for fishermen curtailed by otherwise stringent regulations on striped bass, cod, flounder and other lucrative species.
But that might change soon.
In a memo dated March 18 from the Division of Marine Fisheries in Boston, while regulations for striped bass, bluefish, fluke and scup will likely remain unchanged this year in Massachusetts, “Regulations for black sea bass have been amended to achieve a mandatory 23 percent harvest reduction.”
The Massachusetts regulatory agency says these revisions are being implemented along the entire Atlantic seaboard via “emergency rulemaking” to take effect prior to the onset of the 2016 season. Public hearings will be held to discuss proposals before changes are finalized.