The Fishing Advisory Board was formed in 1978 by The Fisherman Magazine and New York State Parks Commissioner Orin Lehman. The purpose was to assist Long Island State Parks in solving various problems, maintain and enhance fishing access, and develop a rapport and working understanding between different departments of State Parks and the angling public. Representative groups to FAB include LIBBA, The Coalition for Recreational Fishing, The Fisherman Magazine, Montauk Surfcasters, and a founding advisory group member. New groups are added or subtracted when appropriate.
In fact, at the January 25th meeting, the board discussed the replacement of several FAB representatives, unfortunately, because of illness and one long-time member who passed away. We also discussed expanding the representative groups to include a freshwater representative.
Over the decades, the FAB has secured new access. These include, but are not limited to, fall-restricted fishing-only access at Robert Moses field 3, spring/fall access at field 4, development and access to the Green Island area, as well as 4-wheel drive access to the shore near the coast guard station at Jones Beach. We prevented permanent beach closures such as that proposed in the early 1980s by Regional Director John Sheridan in order to deal with vandalism and drug trafficking, adjusted permit regulations to prevent abuses, especially by non-fishing park users, worked with the park managers, police, and rangers to develop better approaches to monitoring and enforcement, opened the boat launching ramp at Captree, and these are just a few highlights.
At each meeting, many items are discussed. At the recent meeting, the following items were either provided to us as information, discussed, or moved forward. Dredging at Jones Inlet is complete, but Fire Island dredging is ongoing. Seven hundred thousand plus cubic yards of sand will be dredged and spread from RM fields 2 to 5. The addition of this much sand should, bearing severe storms, provide better beach stability in 2023 and could allow natural forces to create better beach structure over the summer.
The board was given updated regional information on permit sales. Lt. Goodman updated us on the status of the current police academy. State parks should have enhanced availability of officers by the summer of 2023. The FAB also learned that the revetment at the Montauk Lighthouse is complete. They saw photos of the resulting structure, and it offers wonderful angling opportunities as well as non-conflicting tourist walkways. Additional opportunities for fishing were also discussed, including expanded fishing at Caleb Smith State Park.
The east coast states have been developing a Habitat Conservation Plan for some time. Massachusetts has completed its plan. The plans are intended to protect piping plovers while also protecting 4-wheel drive access. This is a complicated process, and it seems Long Island State Parks is now moving more directly towards finishing and implementing the plan.
The next tentative meeting date for the FAB is during the month of April.
