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Commission expedites southern flounder 50/50 allocation for 2025 despite industry concerns
Summary
The Marine Fisheries Commission voted to accelerate a planned allocation change for southern flounder, moving to a 50/50 recreational/commercial split in 2025. Supporters framed it as correcting a prior delay; opponents warned allocation shifts won’t fix discard mortality and may unduly burden mobile commercial gears.
The Marine Fisheries Commission voted to expedite a sector-allocation change for southern flounder, moving the state’s recreational-commercial allocation to 50% recreational and 50% commercial for 2025.
The motion: Commissioner Tom Roller moved to adopt the expedited allocation shift; the motion was seconded and carried by a 6–3 vote. Commissioners who opposed the motion voiced concern that using allocation to address short-term access problems does not solve underlying biological or discard-mortality issues.
Division rationale: Jeff Dobbs, a plan coordinator, told the commission the amendment is an abbreviated, short-term measure designed to address the commission’s prior motion to increase recreational access while keeping the Amendment 3 rebuilding requirement in place. “This allocation shift is a short term solution to address recreational access,” Dobbs said, adding that the overall allowable catch under Amendment 3 remains constrained by the required 72% reduction.
Technical context: Amendment 3 set a total allowable catch designed to achieve a 72% reduction from 2017 levels to rebuild the stock. Amendment 3 phased allocation from 70/30 (commercial/recreational) toward 50/50 by 2026; Amendment 4 accelerates that shift into 2025, adding approximately 106,470 pounds to the recreational allocation in the staff projection. Dobbs cautioned that even with the 50/50 shift, modeled recreational seasons under Amendment 3’s 1-fish bag limit would likely be short — two to four weeks in 2025 — because of historic dead discards and elevated recreational landings in recent years.
Opposition and concerns: Several commissioners and commercial-sector speakers argued the allocation change shifts the impacts onto mobile commercial gears while leaving other management problems unresolved. “I can’t agree with this — it’s taking action against one industry that’s already paralyzed,” one commissioner said. Opponents urged a broader Amendment 5 process to examine single-species management, gear-specific suballocations, discard reduction measures and other tools.
Next steps: The division will send the Amendment 4 package to the DEQ secretary for review and return to the commission for final adoption at a future meeting. Staff also outlined scoping for Amendment 5, a more comprehensive review that will examine single-species management, season timing, and commercial sub-allocations.
The vote: The motion to expedite the allocation to 50/50 passed 6–3.
