New England fisheries regulators, who met in Portland last week, approved a further reduction in the number of days groundfishermen can go out to sea. There is a better way to manage the country’s fisheries without forcing fishermen to sit at home. A quota system, coupled with a strict overall limit on what can be caught, would allow fishermen to fish when it was safe and economical.

If further evidence is needed that the current system of input controls – limiting days at sea, gear restrictions, closed areas – is not working, the New England Fisheries Management Council meeting provides it. After dropping the allowed number of days at sea from 88 to 53 in 2004, the council cut fishermen’s time on the ocean by another 8 percent. There were proposals to cut even further.

A reduction is necessary, the council said, because the number of fish is still dropping in New England waters. According to the latest assessment by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, the cod population had fallen by 20 percent between 2001 and 2004. The agency also said the yellowtail flounder population had been overestimated by 77 percent.

As a result, the council determined that the yellowtail flounder catch must be cut nearly in half and the cod catch reduced by one-third in the Gulf of Maine this fishing season, which begins May 1. To limit the catch, the council plans to restrict how much time fishermen can spend fishing.

A better approach would be to set a hard limit on how much of each fish stock can be caught and to assess penalties if the limits were exceeded. Such a provision is included in an updated version of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, national fishing rules that are now being revised by Congress. The next step is to set up a system of quotas to divide up the allowable catch among fishermen.

The bill currently requires a two-thirds vote among fishermen in New England to enact quotas here. Instead of impediments to quotas, lawmakers and fishermen should realize that existing rules aren’t working and that a new approach is needed.

Although groundfishermen resist catch limits and quotas, a strict new regime was approved for the region’s herring fishery with the support of fishermen. To stop herring overfishing, a new management plan puts in place strict catch limits, bans trawling near shore to reduce catches and decrease by-catch, the unintentional capture of unwanted species.

The herring plan, which is expected to get final approval at this week’s management council meeting, shows that strict limits can be accepted by fishermen. It is model that the council and Congress should follow with groundfish.