Red drum plan likely to stay, with updates

RALEIGH - The red drum fishery management plan appears to be working, so state officials want to keep it in place, with a few modifications.

That's the message that Lee Paramore, a biologist with the Division of Marine Fisheries, sent to the Joint Legislative Commission on Seafood and Aquaculture on Monday.

"Right now, the stock is being fished at a level that we consider sustainable," Paramore told the commission.

A couple of the modifications have to do with gill nets. The proposal calls for placing large mesh gill nets at least 10 feet from the shore from June through October. Small mesh gill nets would have to be 200 yards off shoreline in the river systems and 50 yards in the Pamlico and Core sounds, extending south to the South Carolina state line in May through November.

Some exceptions would be made in October and November in waters south of the N.C. 58 bridge in Swansboro.

Current attendance requirements, where recreational fishermen are required to be near their gill nets from May through October, would be extended to November. Commercial fishermen would have to abide by the attendance regulation too.

Small mesh recreational fishermen already have to be near their gill nets year-round.

Commission member Gerry Smith had some qualms with the attendance requirement.

"These net recreational fishermen are really upset about having to attend nets in September and October," Smith said. "They're not young people. They catch these fish and they usually salt them or put them in their freezer."

Smith said that such people aren't the kind of fishermen who like to go out and fish with a hook and a line.

"The red drum fishery is not in trouble," Smith said. "They're coming out of the woodwork."

Louis Daniel, director of the Division of Marine Fisheries, said the division would oppose a change exempting such fishermen from the attendance requirement.

"That's the meat of the plan," Daniel said.

The proposal is a draft plan that could be finalized by the fall.

Barry Smith can be reached at bsmith@link.freedom.com.