What You Are Seeing Matters: Bringing Fishermen’s Observations To Management

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The State of the Ecosystem team is requesting fishing inputs of recent, notable or unusual on-the-water observations. For example, are the ocean conditions different, is fishing unusually high/low, are you seeing new or different species, is the migration timing shifted? Reported observations will be synthesized into annual reports for the New England and Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Councils and used to improve our understanding of the ecosystem.

If you have observations to share, please email us at northeast.ecosystem.highlights@noaa.gov and include the following information:

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• What was your observation(s) and why do you think it happened?
• When and where were you when you saw this?
• What were you doing when you saw this (e.g. recreational/charter/commercial fishing)?

Examples

• While longfin fishing near Hudson Canyon in February I noticed that the temperatures were warmer than expected and we saw large aggregations of whales and sharks in the region. Just to the north of Hudson, the waters were cooler and squid fishing was very low.
• Billfish fishing was great all summer in the Mid-Atlantic. Normally good catch years coincide with high Illex squid years, but this year they appear to be eating sand lance.
• Red drum fishing in Chesapeake Bay was high in 2024, but low in 2025 from June to September (recreational fishing).