The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council will consider a petition requesting 50 percent of the summer flounder (fluke) quota be allocated to recreational fishermen. The petition, filed by the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) and the United Boatmen, seeks to change the present 60/40 split that favors commercial fishing and will be considered at the August meeting in Baltimore, Maryland. The inequitable split was established by using landing statistics from the 1980s, when trawlers decimated summer flounder stocks on wintering grounds far offshore, leaving little for anglers to catch inshore during the summer. For more information, visit www.mafmc.org.
