FishWatch

Harvesting Scup

About 75 percent of the commercial harvest of scup is caught with otter trawls. Otter trawls tow a cone-shaped net along the seafloor. Large, rectangular doors keep the wide mouth of the net open. The catch is gathered in the narrow, “cod end” of the net.

The rest of the commercial harvest is mainly caught with floating traps and hand lines. Floating traps are anchored to the bottom in inshore waters in the migratory path of scup. Fishermen check on the traps daily to sort their catch. Hand lines work exactly as you would expect – fishermen deploy single lines with baited hooks and haul in fish by hand.

Paired trawl, pound nets, and pots catch a small percentage of the harvest.

Management

Who’s in charge? The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council jointly develop management measures for the scup fisheries in state and federal waters north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Individual states may set different regulations for the commercial scup fishery. Where state measures differ from federal regulations, federally permitted fishery participants must adhere to the more restrictive measures. NOAA Fisheries implements and enforces management measures.

Current management: Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan.

• Managers set an annual commercial quota that is divided into three harvest periods: Winter I (January–April), Summer (May–October) and Winter II (November–December). NOAA Fisheries monitors the commercial harvests and closes scup fisheries when the quotas are reached.
• Minimum size limits to prevent the harvest of young fish that likely haven’t yet reproduced.
• Minimum mesh size requirements for trawl nets to reduce bycatch of undersized scup.
• Scup pots and traps must have degradable hinges and escape vents to reduce bycatch and to prevent “ghost fishing” (when a lost trap continues to catch fish or lobster).
• A moratorium on entry into the fishery.

A small amount of scup is harvested incidentally in snapper/grouper fisheries in the South Atlantic (south of Cape Hatteras). The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council includes scup in their Snapper Grouper Fishery Management Plan, which requires fishermen to have a permit and to comply with gear restrictions.

Annual Harvest

Current landings of scup are a fraction of what they used to be. U.S. commercial landings averaged over 18,000 metric tons annually in the 1950s and mid-1960s, peaking at over 22,000 metric tons in 1960. They subsequently decreased to about 1,200 metric tons in 2000, less than 6 percent of the peak in 1960. Commercial landings have since increased a bit and totaled 4,855 metric tons in 2010. The majority is landed in Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New York. The recreational fishery for scup catches a significant portion of the total landings, almost 35 percent in 2010.

Economy

Commercial scup landings in 2010 were valued at $7.03 million in 2010 ($0.66/pound). The value of commercial landings of scup from 2008 to 2010 averaged $6.36 million, with an average ex-vessel price of $0.79/pound.

RECREATIONAL

There is a major recreational fishery for scup. The 2010 recreational harvest of 2,605 metric tons made up almost 35 percent of the total scup harvest. Most recreational landings come from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York.

In the Mid-Atlantic and southern New England, the recreational scup fishery is managed under separate regulations for federal and state waters. Managers set regulations for the recreational fishery annually; they usually include a combination of an annual catch quota, minimum size limits, bag limits, and fishing seasons. For-hire recreational vessels must have a permit. In the South Atlantic, there is a limit on the amount of scup recreational fishermen can keep and restrictions on the type of gear they can use.