New rules for keeping triggerfish and greater amberjack in the Gulf of Mexico will take effect August 4, 2008, as part of NOAA Fisheries’ recently instituted Reef Fish Amendment 30A.

New triggerfish minimum keeper size will be 14 inches, up from 12 inches. Bag limit remains the same: a recreational bag limit of up to 20 fish within the recreational reef fish aggregate bag limit. (That 20-fish bag limit includes any species that does not have a specific bag limit. Red snapper, for instance, which has a two-fish bag limit in Federal waters, is not included in the reef fish aggregate bag limit.)

New minimum size for greater amberjack is 30 inches fork length, up from 28 inches. Greater amberjack bag limit remains one fish per person. The bag limit for the captain and crew of chartered vessels will be zero for greater amberjack.

Reef Fish Amendment 30A was adopted by NOAA Fisheries to address the overfished stock status of triggerfish and greater amberjack. In addition to the increased minimum keeper sizes for the two species, Amendment 30A also puts into place, for the first time, commercial quotas for triggerfish and for greater amberjack.

Here are the landings of triggerfish in ’03 and ‘04, with no quotas in place for either recreational or commercial:

• 2003: recreational: 915,200 pounds, commercial: 251,800 pounds
• 2004: recreational: 1,029,700 pounds, commercial: 218,500 pounds
• Under the regulations implemented with 30A, the commercial quota is substantially reduced from those landing levels:
• 2008 comm. quota: 80,000 pounds
• 2009 comm. quota: 93,000 pounds
• 2010 comm. quota: 106,000 pounds

The quota has been allowed to increase each year as the triggerfish stock replenishes itself, as it is expected to do so with the lower catch allowances.

The recreational fishery has no quota, but does have a “catch target,” according to Dr. Steve Branstetter, Gulf Branch Chief in St. Petersburg, and a “catch limit,” which also increases over time. The targets are:

2009 = 356,000 pounds
2010 = 405,000 pounds

“The catch limits,” says Dr. Branstetter, “which should not be exceeded, are slightly higher.

“As you can see, both the recreational catch targets and the commercial quotas are well below the landings of recent history, but are being allowed to increase over time as the stock recovers. The size limit increase for triggerfish is expected to achieve the reductions in total harvest needed.

“If the new quotas are exceeded,” says Dr. Branstetter of NOAA Fisheries, “the new accountability measures for the gray triggerfish recreational fishery will be put into place for the following fishing year. However, NOAA Fisheries Service has the authority to close the recreational amberjack fishery within a given year, if the catch limits are projected to be reached. The commercial fishery can be closed in-season when the quota is met. We are already monitoring the commercial and recreational fishery landings for both species for the 2008 fishing year.”

For greater amberjack, the recreational fishery quota for 2008 will be 1.368 million pounds and for the commercial fishery, for 2008 it will be 0.503 million pounds.

The new accountability measures to be used by NOAA Fisheries Service, which Dr. Branstetter refers to, are called the system of Annual Catch Limits (ACLs) and Accountability Measures (AMs). The NOAA Fisheries Service Assistant Administrator (AA) can shorten the fishing season if landings go over the ACL.

Copies of the final rule Amendment 30A are available by contacting NOAA Fisheries Service’s Southeast Regional Office at 263 13th Avenue South, St. Petersburg, Florida 33701. The final rule can be obtained in electronic form from the Federal Register Web site: www.gpoaccess.gov/fr. To find the rule on the Web site, use the advanced search for final rules function and put in “AV34” as a keyword. Rules contain all new aspects of the regulations.