The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife Commission has implemented a salt-water angler survey to collect information on certain recreationally important marine finfish species. Current data collection efforts for recreational fisheries are hindered by sampling only a small portion of the fishing public and from collecting only minimal data on discarded fish. Information collected through this voluntary survey will provide data that may support alternative management strategies that increase fishing opportunities for the public.
The Commission made note of the fact that 2011 is the first year for which New Jersey was permitted to use the data collected in the New Jersey Fish & Wildlife Recreational Salt Water Angler Survey in 2010 instead of using federal fisheries data, commonly known as MRFSS. Since even the National Marine Fisheries Service agrees that MRFSS data is faulty at best, the New Jersey survey data collected permitted the Commission to replace the federal data with the more accurate data collected in the New Jersey Survey.
How did this benefit New Jersey salt-water anglers? The results of the 2010 New Jersey Survey allowed the Commission to INCREASE the 2011 permitted Fluke catch by New Jersey salt water anglers by as much as 124%.
It will be critical for all New Jersey Salt Water Anglers to complete the Survey for each outing made in 2011.
Let's all help each other by completing the 2011 Survey for each fishing trip so we can expect to have more liberalization of the size, bag limits, and number of days in each season for 2012.
The Survey may be found at http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/marinesurvey.htm.
