Today, June 20th the Judge denied the Dept of Justice’s request for a delay on the preliminary injunction hearing and granted the plaintiff’s (charter operators) the preliminary injunction. This keeps in place the two fish bag limit – one under 32″ and the carcasses must be kept until landing in place until an appeal is filed and heard or the main trial on the actual merits of the case are heard. The Judge stated that the trial would occur before “next fishing season”.
We’re disappointed that the Judge still does not understand that the one fish bag limit is about keeping a sector to within it’s allocation to prevent the resource from being over-fished. Â