Editor’s note: Proposed state legislation known as House Bill 442 started out as a Four-Year Pilot Program to improve recreational fishing for flounder and red snapper. However, a sudden amendment adopted Tuesday goes far afield by attempting to impose new restrictions on commercial fishing, including a complete ban on shrimp trawling for all inshore fishing waters. The following excerpt is language from the four-page bill.
PROHIBIT SHRIMP TRAWLING IN ALL INSHORE FISHING WATERS AND WITHIN ONE-HALF MILE OF THE SHORELINE SECTION 3.(a) G.S. 113-187(d) reads as rewritten:
“(d) Any person in charge of a commercial fishing operation conducted in violation of the following provisions of this Subchapter or the following rules of the Marine Fisheries Commission; and any person in charge of any vessel used in violation of the following provisions of the Subchapter or the following rules, shall be guilty of a Class A1 misdemeanor. The violations of the statute or the rules for which the penalty is mandatory are:
(1) Taking or attempting to take, possess, sell, or offer for sale any oysters, mussels, or clams taken from areas closed by statute, rule, or proclamation because of suspected pollution.
(2) Taking or attempting to take or have in possession aboard a vessel, shrimp taken by the use of a trawl net, in areas not opened to shrimping, pulled by a vessel not showing lights required by G.S. 75A-6 after sunset and before sunrise.
(3) Using a trawl net in any coastal fishing waters closed by proclamation or rule to trawl nets.
(3a) Taking or attempting to take shrimp using a trawl net in any coastal fishing waters other than areas of the Atlantic Ocean located more than one-half mile from the shoreline.
