THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT  
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Wednesday, February 7, 1996            TAG: 9602070395
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 
SOURCE: BY JOE TAYLOR, ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: NORFOLK                            LENGTH: Medium:   54 lines

WEAKFISH BAN OPPOSITION TAKEN TO U.S. COURT BY FISHERIES GROUP

A fishery ban intended to protect weakfish will interfere with state conservation measures and hurt commercial fishermen seeking other species, a federal judge was told Tuesday.

``The North Carolina fishery is a multi-species fishery,'' Waverley L. Berkley III, an attorney for the North Carolina Fisheries Association, told U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar. ``You don't put your net in the water and say, `You weakfish stay away.' ''

But harvest figures indicate the moratorium is needed to prevent overfishing and allow weakfish to repopulate, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Samuel D. Rauch.

``The moratorium does not preempt the current laws in force in North Carolina,'' Rauch told the judge. ``The idea is that they're complementary.''

Last November, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown approved a ban on the possession of weakfish, also known as gray trout or ``pan trout,'' along the East Coast. The National Marine Fisheries Service contends the species needs protection because catches have declined 85 percent since 1983.

But North Carolina commercial fishermen, who account for almost half of Atlantic weakfish harvests, contend the population goes up and down in cycles and that stocks are rebounding.

The fishermen's group and five seafood dealers challenged the moratorium in court. On Dec. 20, Doumar granted an injunction stopping its enforcement, but only off North Carolina's coast.

The ban took effect Dec. 21 along the rest of the Atlantic coast in federally controlled waters from 3 miles to 200 miles offshore. It does not include coastal waters within 3 miles of land, where approximately 70 percent of all weakfish are caught.

North Carolina, a member of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, already had imposed a 10-inch minimum size to protect spawning weakfish and banned the use of fly nets south of Cape Hatteras before the federal action.

The fly nets account for much of the high mortality rate when weakfish get caught in mesh used by fishermen seeking more lucrative species like spot and croaker. The fishermen contend that throwing back dead weakfish to comply with the possession ban is senseless.

Commercial weakfish harvests contributed about $2 million to North Carolina's fishing economy last year, said Jerry Schill, executive director of the 1,000-member fishries group.

The trial before Doumar, who is hearing the case without a jury, is expected to end today. by CNB