Agency News from the VMRC

Agency News

Note: to see public notices for proposed regulatory actions, upcoming meeting dates and past meeting minutes use the Agency Meeting Calendar.
May 2013

May 23, 2013: You may fish without a license during the second weekend in June. Take advantage of the free fishing days, June 7, 8 and 9, 2013 and enjoy the great outdoors with your family and friends without having to spend money for a fishing license. <Press Release>

May 15, 2013: Effective 6:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), Thursday, May 16, 2013, the Virginia horseshoe crab commercial fishery for any gear other than trawl, dredge, pound net, or hand harvest, will close. Based upon landing reports from Virginia seafood buyers and horseshoe crab harvesters, it is projected that Virginia will have caught 100% of the horseshoe crab quota allocated to harvest by gears other than trawl, dredge, and pound net, or hand harvest, by the above date and time. <Notice>

May 1, 2013: At the April 23, 2013 Commission meeting, a user conflict in the horseshoe crab fishery was brought to the attention of the Commission during a public comment period. To appropriately address this issue, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission will hold a horseshoe crab industry meeting to gain industry input on fishery modifications for the 2013 horseshoe crab season on Thursday, May 16, 2013 from 4-7 p.m. at the Chincoteague Community Center located at 6155 Community Dr, Chincoteague Island, VA. <Notice>

April 2013

April 25, 2013: On April 23, 2013, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission extended the public oyster ground hand tong harvest season in the James River seed area including the deep water shoal state replenishment seed area through Friday, May 17, 2013 for the harvest of seed oysters only. <Notice>

April 23, 2013: The Virginia Marine Resources Commission has scheduled a public hearing and vote next month to repeal the existing oyster taxes and replace them with an annual user fee on all oyster industry participants. The revenues raised by the fees would be used for the agency’s annual oyster replenishment program, which benefits the oyster industry. This reform of the oyster tax system was proposed and unanimously endorsed by an industry panel last summer and is required under House Bill 1400, which was unanimously approved by the Virginia General Assembly this winter. <Meeting Summary>

April 19, 2013: The annual scientific winter dredge survey of the bay-wide blue crab population shows a mixed bag of good, and not-so-good, news that may result in a slight tightening of commercial harvest restrictions. The overall abundance of blue crabs dropped precipitously, from 765 million to 300 million crabs. This was because the number of juvenile crabs plummeted from 581 million to a mere 111 million. This reduction in abundance was not a result of overfishing and may have been caused by increased predation and other factors. <Press Release>

April 15, 2013: The Virginia Marine Resources Commission has adopted a new fee schedule for oyster ground applications, transfers, recording, assignment, restaking and surveying, effective May 1, 2013. These fees have not been adjusted since at least 1998. <Fee Schedule>

April 5, 2013: The Virginia Marine Resources Commission is preparing to embark on the largest state-funded oyster replenishment initiative in state history, thanks to a record $2 million appropriated in the budget by Governor Robert F. McDonnell and the Virginia General Assembly. The program provides significant ecological and economic benefits. A single adult oyster can purge up to 50 gallons of water a day, and every $1 spent by the state to plant oyster shells yields $7 in economic benefits in the form of larger harvests and oyster industry jobs. <Press Release> <Funding History>

April 3, 2013: The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is urging fishermen and other interested groups are encouraged to provide their input on Draft Addendum III to the Interstate Fisheries Management Plan for American Eels. <Announcement | Draft Addendum III American Eel>

March 2013

March 29, 2013: Effective 6:00 P.M., Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), Friday, April 5, 2013, the Directed Virginia Offshore Summer Flounder Fishery will close. Vessels that have entered Virginia waters and secured to an offloading site prior to 6:00 P.M., EDT, Friday, April 5, 2013, may possess and offload no greater than 12,500 pounds of summer flounder during the April 3 – April 5 landing period. <Press Release>

March 26, 2013: The Virginia Marine Resources Commission today enacted regulations to achieve a 20 percent reduction in the commercial harvest of menhaden, including a 20 percent reduction in the bay harvest, as part of a comprehensive fisheries management plan that was authorized by the Virginia General Assembly. <Meeting Summary>

March 11, 2013: An ongoing Virginia Marine Police operation to protect a resurgent oyster population has resulted in 500 citations issued to commercial watermen over the past two years for violating oyster catch restrictions. The offenses ranged from harvesting too many oysters, poaching them from sanctuaries, stealing them from privately leased ground, and illegally harvesting them at night. <Press Release>

February 2013
February 28, 2013: Eligible commercial crab gear licenses under the Commission’s limited entry program have been authorized for 2013. Eligible 2013 crab gear licenses can be purchased at MRC license agents starting tomorrow, Friday, March 1. The 2013 commercial crab pot season begins on March 16th. <MRC License Agent Locations>

February 26, 2013: The Virginia Marine Resources Commission has lowered the recreational flounder size limits for the fourth year in a row, from 16.5 to 16 inches. This allows anglers to keep more of the fish they catch and reduces the flounder size limit to its lowest level in more than a decade, since 2001. <Meeting Summary>

February 13, 2013: The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council has awarded Marine Resources Commissioner Jack Travelstead with the prestigious Ricks E Savage Award, which has been bestowed only seven times. The Council was established in 1976, and is responsible for management of fisheries in federal waters off the Mid-Atlantic coast. Council Chairman Rick Robins presented the award on Feb. 13, noting that Commissioner Travelstead’s work on the Council began 32 years ago, not long after the Council was formed. He said the Commissioner has been “a true leader and a diplomat for a generation of fishery managers. He has set a very high standard.”

February 7, 2013: Online registration for the Fisherman Identification Program (FIP) is open. Toll-free, call-in registration is also available. Saltwater anglers who do not need to buy a license under state law must register for free and supply their contact information before they fish every year. Anglers who buy a saltwater fishing license will be automatically registered. The intent is to create a Virginia-wide “phone book” of saltwater anglers, which will be given to the National Marine Fisheries Service in order to improve fishing effort surveys and to exempt Virginia anglers from having to sign up directly with the National Saltwater Angler Registry and pay the annual $15 federal registration fee. Anglers that registered last year must register again this year; registrations are valid for one year from date of issuance. If you provided a valid email when you last registered a renewal notice will be sent 14 days prior to expiration. Please keep your FIP number with you while fishing. The free FIP registration is not a substitute for a license when the angler is required by law to purchase and hold a saltwater license. <FIP Information Page with Online Registration>

January 2013

January 31, 2013: Anglers registered 6,071 trophy-size fish for Citation awards during the 55th Annual Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament that ran from January 1st through December 31st 2012. This was only the eighth time anglers had achieved 6,000 or more Citations in any year since the Tournament began in 1958. <Press Release>

January 22, 2013: The Virginia Marine Resources Commission has approved an expansive program to plant oyster shells on a variety of public oyster grounds, anticipating a $2 million influx of funds through Governor Robert McDonnell’s proposed 2014 state budget. If approved by the Virginia General Assembly, this would be the largest appropriation for oyster replenishment in state history. The oyster harvest has increased ten-fold over the past decade, and every $1 spent on oyster replenishment yields $7 in economic benefit when the oysters grow to market size and are harvested. <Meeting Summary>

December 2012

December 19, 2012: The 56th annual Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament, which opens January 1, 2013 and runs throughout the year, will see no modifications in its popular Citation program. At its annual meeting last month the Tournament Committee reviewed the minimum and maximum qualifying standards for a number of different species. A downward trend was noted in Citation numbers of croaker, flounder, spot and gray trout while an upward trend was seen for red drum, speckled trout and striped bass. Following this review the Committee voted to maintain the current qualifying standards. [Press Release]

December 17, 2012: Governor Robert F. McDonnell’s proposed budget does not cut the agency’s funding for the 2014 fiscal year. Instead, the Governor proposed increasing the funds for oyster restoration to $2 million, allocating money for the Tangier Island Seawall project, and increasing General Fund appropriations to pay for two fisheries management and two law enforcement positions in jeopardy from the impending loss of federal grants. A full breakdown of the Governor’s proposed amendments to the budget can be found here: [Budget Proposals]

December 10, 2012: The Virginia Marine Resources Commission voted to reduce the 2013 recreational and commercial striped bass quota by 14 percent, as required by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. The reduction is necessary due to 2012 harvest levels and several years of poor to mediocre spawning rates. Also, the Commission voted unanimously to approve a large oyster farm with up to 1,670 floating oyster cages in parts of Morris and Poropotank Bays off the York River. <Meeting Summary>

December 7, 2012: the Commission has established a new web page that lists individuals that are interested in obtaining or selling a shellfish lease using the lease transfer process. This is very similar to other web pages hosted by the Commission to facilitate exchange of commercial licenses and commercial fishing quotas. Please click on the following links to learn more. [Shellfish Leases for Sale] [Licenses and Quota for Sale].

December 3, 2012: The Virginia Institute of Marine Science Marine Extension Program will host two workshops in December to help watermen and aquaculturists put together applications for 2013 Fisheries Resource Grant funding. <Workshop Announcement>

December 1, 2012: The Virginia Marine Fisheries Commission has issued its annual report on the status of the blue crab stock, which in 2012 reached t 764 million crabs. This was the high level recorded since 1993. In fact, the bay-wide blue crab stock abundance is now more than triple the record low of 249 million, set in 2007, the year before a bay-wide stock rebuilding program began. <Report>