14 



Fishery Bulletin 103(1) 



reducing scup discards. Rather, the tendency of the 

 largest catches to contain proportionately more smaller 

 fish suggests that fisheries managers may want to lower 

 the legal-size limit for scup from 22.86 cm to 17.78 

 cm FL. The median size of scup discards in our study 

 was 17.78 cm FL. Setting the size limit at 17.78 cm FL 

 (19.83 cm TL) would greatly reduce discards and thus 

 overall discard mortality. This management change 

 would likely have a much greater effect in reducing 

 scup discards than any other single management mea- 

 sure directed at gear modification or area closure and 

 would not endanger the stock (most discarded scup fail 

 to survive); thus, any approach significantly reducing 

 discards must significantly increase overall survival of 

 the population. 



Acknowledgments 



We would like to thank the National Fisheries Institute, 

 Scientific Monitoring Committee, for providing support 

 for this project. We also thank the captain and crew 

 for the use of the four commercial fishing vessels from 

 Cape May that cooperated in the project. Without their 

 assistance, this project would not have been possible. 

 We also thank NMFS-NEFSC for providing the NMFS 

 observer data used in our analysis. 



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