Monday, February 26, 2007

New Species of Billfish Identified; White Marlin Numbers Questioned

Roundscale spearfish; link to Guy Harvey Institute

A team of scientists from the Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University and NOAA Fisheries Service's Southeast Fisheries Science Center in Miami has confirmed the existence of a new billfish species closely resembling white marlin. This new species, dubbed the roundscale spearfish, looks so much like the white marlin that only DNA testing or trained experts can tell them apart. "The existence of the roundscale spearfish was confirmed by analyzing the shape of its mid-body scales, which are slightly more rounded at one end compared to the scales of all other Atlantic billfish species, and by analyzing its DNA which turns out to be very different from other billfish species," says Mahmood Shivji, Ph.D., director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute. As a result of this discovery, previous population estimates for the threatened white marlin are now in serious doubt. More on the new billfish species is available from underwatertimes.com.

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Sunday, February 25, 2007

Message from the Crew

After over a year and a half of 3 to 4 news stories about North Carolina fishing per week, this past month we were forced to take a break. As everyone is surely familiar, every now and then life throws you curve ball that you have to focus on 100% to even have a chance at hitting - lucky for us that this happened in February and not July. We would like to sincerely apologise to our loyal readers who missed our coverage and promise to be back in full gear that the spring season is just around the corner. We'll be catching up on top stories to cover any big topics we may have missed and then implementing a few improvements to the website. One of our first big improvements is going to be overhauling our fishing reports section to be hands down the best available - if you have found any reports that we may have missed be sure to leave a comment below and we'll add it. Tight lines all from the Fishing-NC.com crew, we are looking forward to a great 2007.

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Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Grey Trout Creel Limits Lowered

Catches of gray trout, also known as weakfish, have been strictly regulated under the ASMFC (Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission) for several years and grey trout stocks were considered nearly recovered in the late 1990s. By 2003 however, commercial and recreational landings had plummeted, and grey trout were reclassified as overfished again in 2005. Now in an effort to help make sure that populations never fall to critical levels again, North Carolina's recreational creel limit for gray trout has been lowered from 7 to 6 fish per day. Scientists aren't sure why catches fell so dramatically in 2005, many feel that the population decline may be due to natural mortality, possibly from a lack of food source, and increased predation or other environmental conditions. More the grey trout creel limit change is available from the Jacksonville Daily News.

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