DOES ANYONE WANT TO MANAGE BLACK SEA BASS?

 

The black sea bass is the enigma of mid-Atlantic fisheries.

Since 2007, when the spawning stock biomass (SSB) was barely above the threshold that denotes overfishing, the stock has staged a remarkable comeback, with SSB reaching a high of 24,680 metric tons (mt), approximately 220 percent of the biomass target, in 2022. The SSB has declined since then, to an estimated 20,987 mt in 2024; a management track stock assessment completed in June 2024 (2024 assessment) suggests that SSB will decline more sharply in the near future, to 17,442 mt in 2025 and 14,042 mt a year later.

Still, even an SSB of 14,000 mt is well above the 11,225 mt biomass target, and more than large enough to produce the stock’s maximum sustainable yield (MSY), which is estimated to be 3,649 mt, or a little over 8 million pounds.

But what is most interesting about the black sea bass stock’s recovery is that it happened almost by accident, and not as the result of thoughtful and conservative management.

A difficult fish to manage

The first black sea bass management plan was adopted by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) in 1996, shortly before a 1998 stock assessment found that the stock was overfished and probably experiencing overfishing. At the time, scientists weren’t able to calculate biological reference points, which are used to determine the spawning stock biomass and fishing mortality targets, as well as the thresholds that define overfishing and an overfished stock, and only did so when the 2016 stock assessment (2016 assessment) was prepared.

The 2016 assessment found that, based on the new biological reference points, the spawning stock biomass was very high, about 230 percent of its target level, and fishing mortality was well below its target.

Because black sea bass appeared to be very abundant, particularly off New York, New Jersey, and southern New England, the party and charter boat fleet had long been calling on managers to relax regulations, which they believed to be overly strict. At a June 2014 meeting of the Council’s and ASMFC’s joint Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Advisory Panel (Advisory Panel), attendees complained that “black sea bass is facing a critical management situation that needs to be addressed immediately. Despite Magnuson Act restrictions, the Council and Commission need to approach these issues with more common sense. Waiting until a potential 2016 benchmark assessment will be too late. The current quota is punitive and based on bad information. Faith in the management system is being lost, and now is the time to break the rules and experiment with different solutions.”

When the 2016 assessment confirmed that the spawning stock biomass was more than twice the target level, demands to increase recreational landings became even more insistent. The report from the November 2017 Advisory Panel meeting, held after the 2016 assessment was released, noted that “Several advisors expressed frustration with the current process and the lack of Council/Board action in regard to the comments and suggestions provided by the [Advisory Panel]. Many felt that holding [Advisory Panel] meetings was done to just ‘check a box’ indicating this requirement was completed but their input is not considered…”

Despite managers’ imposition of increasingly restrictive regulation in an effort to constrain recreational landings to the recreational harvest limit (RHL), anglers chronically exceeded the RHL. During the period 2014-2018, the recreational sector exceeded the RHL in four out of five years, at times by as much as 84 percent, while only underharvesting in 2017, and that by a mere three percent.

By the time the Advisory Panel met in November 2019, it appeared that anglers would significantly exceed the 2019 RHL as well, and that it would take management measures restrictive enough to reduce landings by 20 percent to prevent another overage in 2020.

The Advisory Panel was not willing to accept such restrictive management measures. The report of the November 2019 meeting stated that

Twelve advisors spoke in favor of maintaining status quo recreational black sea bass management measures in 2020. Many advisors said they would prefer liberalizations but realized this is not possible given that projected 2019 harvest is higher than the 2020 RHL. One advisor said the restrictive management measures which would be required to prevent harvest from exceeding the 2020 RHL would be devastating to the recreational fishery. Many advisors expressed frustration that the fishery needs to be restricted when the stock is so healthy.

And that seemed to be the point when fishery managers gave up trying to actively manage black sea bass. For beginning in 2019, fisheries managers seemed to spend most of their time trying to find new and creative reasons to allow anglers to exceed the RHL, and very little time at all enforcing the provisions of the black sea bass management plan, or particularly the provisions regarding the permissible recreational harvest.

Scientists had already determined that the strength of black sea bass year classes was due less to the size of the SSB than to water conditions at the edge of the continental shelf, where recently-spawned sea bass spend their first winter. Warm, saline water tended to produce strong recruitment, making black sea bass a beneficiary of changing climate and a warming sea.

Managers decide to stop actively managing

Faced with a large spawning stock biomass, good recruitment of young fish into the population, and growing discontent among some in the angling community, managers apparently became resigned to the recreational sector exceeding its annual RHLs, and seemed willing to let nature take its course in the hopes that favorable environmental conditions would provide enough recruitment to make up for anglers’ excesses. A report of the November 2019 meeting of the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Monitoring Committee (Monitoring Committee), a group of state and federal fishery managers tasked with advising the Council and ASMFC on management matters, said that

The group agreed that it is very hard to justify a reduction in the harvest when the RHL is increasing by 59% [due to a recalculation of the SSB] compared to 2019, spawning stock biomass was 2.4 times the target level in 2018, and availability to anglers remains very high. They agreed that it is challenging to constrain the recreational fishery under current high levels of availability and further restrictions on harvest would likely increase discards. They also noted that spawning stock biomass has remained very high despite multiple consecutive years of [acceptable biological catch] overages, going back to at least 2015. Staff noted that recent above-average recruitment events have helped in maintaining a high biomass level despite [acceptable biological catch] overages…

So, the Monitoring Committee recommended that the Council and ASMFC maintain status quo management measures, even though such measures would probably result in the acceptable biological catch (ABC) for 2020 being exceeded. The Council and ASMFC ultimately heeded that advice, initiating a pattern of behavior that, although it would take different forms, has continued to the present day.

In 2020, the Monitoring Committee stated that

It is possible that there was a recreational overage in 2019. In addition, the use of status quo measures in 2020 was expected to result in an overage of the 2020 recreational [annual catch limit]; however…there were notable gaps in recreational data collection in 2020 due to Covid-19, which will pose challenges to estimating catch. Catch in 2021 is also uncertain; however, continued use of status quo measures may result in an overage of the 2021 recreational [annual catch limit] given past trends in the fishery…The [National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office (GARFO)] representative on the [Monitoring Committee] said that [the regional office] supports consideration of an additional year of status quo recreational management measures in 2021 given the current data limitations, the ongoing [fishery management plan amendment that would alter the commercial and recreational allocations of black sea bass] and [proposed changes to the recreational management process]…

The Council and ASMFC, apparently unconcerned about past and potential future recreational harvest overages, adopted status quo regulations once again.

In 2021, perhaps to no one’s surprise given that recreational overages were predicted for 2019, 2020, and very possibly 2021 as well, the Monitoring Committee was informed that a 28 percent reduction in recreational landings would be needed to keep such landings within the 2022 RHL. In addition, the GARFO representative to the Monitoring Committee noted that, because excessive recreational landings in 2018, 2019, and 2020 triggered accountability measures, regulations required that the Council take action to reduce recreational landings.

However, according to a report of the Monitoring Committee’s November meeting, “The [Monitoring Committee] preferred no change in the measures given that biomass is more than double the target and there are no concerning trends in recruitment or other stock status indicators…Therefore, the [Monitoring Committee’s] primary recommendation was for status quo measures in 2022. [emphasis in original]”

But on this one occasion, the Council and ASMFC did not follow the Monitoring Committee’s advice, because Michael Pentony, GARFO’s regional director, told the Council in no uncertain terms that if, despite the clear regulatory requirement that accountability measures be imposed, the Council did not adopt a 28 percent recreational landings reduction, then GARFO would not approve the Council’s decision. Thus, both management bodies reluctantly put such reduction in place.

To legally exceed the RHL

That would be the last time that the Council and ASMFC would adopt the full harvest reduction needed to constrain recreational landings to the RHL, for the management bodies were in the process of adopting a new way of managing recreational fisheries, called alternatively the “harvest control rule” or the “percent change approach” (new approach), which would formally allow them to set recreational harvest targets that substantially exceeded the RHL and even the recreational sector’s annual catch limit (ACL).

Although the Council and ASMFC approved the new approach in June 2022, the National Marine Fisheries Service would not issue final regulations embracing it until March 2023. Nonetheless, when the Council and ASMFC met in December 2022 to set 2023 recreational management measures for black sea bass, they proceeded as if regulations adopting the new approach were already in place. That had a major impact on the measures adopted, for under the traditional management approach, recreational black sea bass landings for 2023 would have been reduced by 45 percent, but, pursuant to the new approach’s methodology, only a 10 percent reduction was needed.

Such small harvest reduction allowed recreational landings to remain well above the RHL, and might have been difficult to justify on purely biological grounds, but in 2023 and 2024, the black sea bass management discussions became self-contradictory and perhaps somewhat weird.

2024 recreational black sea bass landings were predicted to exceed the RHL once again, and the new approach called for reducing such landings by 10 percent. Council staff noted that under the prevailing circumstances, “the Percent Change Approach does not allow for status quo measures.” However, it was clear that the Monitoring Committee was still reluctant to cut recreational landings and was seeking a reason to once again maintain the status quo, regardless of what the new approach required. The report of the November 2023 Monitoring Committee meeting noted that

The [Monitoring Committee] discussed the requirements of the Percent Change Approach given that the 2024 black sea bass RHL differs from the 2023 RHL due only to three additional years of catch data without updated stock status information. They agreed that the Percent Change Approach requirements in this situation are not clear. The framework/addenda which implemented the Percent Change Approach did not contemplate a situation where the RHL would change without a stock assessment update. When the framework/addenda was finalized, it was assumed that the management track stock assessments would be available every other year. The Percent Change Approach intends to set identical recreational management measures across two years to provide some stability; however, measures were set for just 2023 with the intent of setting 2024-2025 measures in response to an anticipated 2023 management track assessment. However, the management track assessment was later delayed for 2024…

Given all these considerations, but with greatest emphasis on the lack of updated stock assessment information, the [Monitoring Committee] recommended that recreational black sea bass measures be left unchanged in 2024. [emphasis in original]

And, eagerly accepting the Monitoring Committee’s advice, the Council and ASMFC again avoided reducing recreational black sea bass landings, even though such reduction was called for by the new approach, and would have been called for by the traditional approach, too.

The stock assessment no longer governs

But even if one accepts that the lack of an updated stock assessment justified leaving recreational management measures unchanged for the 2024 season, black sea bass management went completely off the rails when 2025 management was initially discussed in August 2024. By then, the Council and ASMFC had the new management track stock assessment that they lacked the year before. But the ASMFC, and eventually NMFS, simply chose to ignore it, even though such assessment had been peer reviewed by an independent panel of experts, who found that it “represents the Best Scientific Information Available (BSIA) for this stock for management purposes,” and the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens),which governs all fishing in federal waters, clearly states that “Conservation and management measures shall be based upon the best scientific information available.”

The reason, which by then shouldn’t have surprised anyone familiar with how the resource has been—or, perhaps more accurately, has not been—managed up to that point, was that the 2024 assessment called for a reduction in landings.

Or, more precisely, it informed the Council and ASMFC that the black sea bass stock was about 20 percent smaller than the 30,774 mt estimate provided in the earlier 2021 stock assessment (2021 assessment). The 2024 assessment also determined that the target SSB was just 11,225 mt, compared to the 2021 assessment’s finding of 14,092 mt, and reduced the estimate of MSY from 4,773 to 3,649 mt.

In response to the findings of the 2024 assessment, the Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee reduced its estimate of ABC by 20 percent, which should have translated into a 20 percent reduction in both commercial and recreational landings.

But that was something that no one—not the Monitoring Committee, not the Council nor ASMFC, and not NMFS—apparently wanted to do.

The report of the August 2024 Monitoring Committee meeting revealed that

Six [Monitoring Committee] members expressed concern with the 20% decline in the 2025 ABC compared to 2024 as there was not a clear explanation for why the biomass was projected to decline so sharply. Four of these six [Monitoring Committee] members said they couldn’t endorse the use of the SSC’s recommended 2025 ABC, though they acknowledged that the Council is bound by the SSC’s ABC recommendation.

The four [Monitoring Committee] members who could not endorse the 2025 ABC said a decrease in the ABC is not justifiable given that biomass is so far above the target level…The [Monitoring Committee] agreed that a decline in the ABC would have negative socioeconomic impacts for both the commercial and recreational sectors… [emphasis in original]

If you combine the comments in the 2023 and 2024 Monitoring Committee reports, what that committee was essentially saying was that the new approach called for recreational landings to be reduced by 10 percent in 2024, but the Monitoring Committee didn’t want to do that, because it didn’t have a recent stock assessment that demonstrated that such reduction was needed, and left 2024 landings unchanged. Then, in 2024, the Monitoring Committee received the 2024 assessment, which represented the best scientific information available, and indicated that the SSB was 20 percent smaller than previously believed. The Monitoring Committee also received an SSC recommendation based on the 2024 assessment which called for both commercial and recreational landings to be reduced by 20 percent. However, many committee members still didn’t want to recommend that reduction, either because they disagreed with the peer-reviewed assessment, or because they felt that there were enough black sea bass in the ocean that the scientific advice could be ignored.

While the Monitoring Committee did, in the end, adopt an overfishing limit, ABC, ACL, and RHL consistent with the 2024 assessment, committee members from Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland (dissenting states) objected, and provided a minority report calling for status quo specifications. They declared that “Based on the latest stock assessments, fishery performance data, and insights from the Monitoring Committee,” the 20 percent reduction recommended by the SSC “is not justified and could lead to negative economic and ecological impacts.”

In support of that position, the dissenting states argued that “The 2024 Management Track Stock Assessment confirms that the Black Sea Bass stock is not overfished, and overfishing is not occurring,” and that “Spawning Stock Biomass (SSB) in 2023 was an estimated at 54.17 million pounds, which is 2.19 times the target level, indicating a robust and thriving population. [emphasis in original]”

The dissenting states did not mention, however, that such 54.17 million pounds was 20 percent less than the estimated biomass when the current management measures, which they hoped to perpetuate, were adopted.

The dissenting states also argued that “The recommendations for a 20% reduction in ABC are primarily based on projections for 2025-2026, which do not align with current trends observed in the assessment data,” and that “Biomass has continued to increase and management has continued to mostly reduce harvest since 2017…There is no indication that current levels of recruitment will not maintain current biomass levels. [emphasis in original]”

While all that could be true, the representatives of the dissenting states still failed to acknowledge that the 2024 assessment found that black sea bass SSB was 20 percent smaller than managers had previously believed, and so failed to explain why it would not be reasonable to reduce 2025 landings by 20 percent, thus scaling annual landings to the smaller SSB and achieving a consistent rate of removals from the stock.

The dissenting states concluded their report by stating, “Given the current robust stock status, we recommend advocating against the proposed ABC reduction and maintaining the current management strategies to continue the positive trend observed until the current assessment model and projections are currently evaluated,” even though such current assessment model had already passed a rigorous peer review, by a panel of three independent, internationally-recognized experts, who deemed such model “a significant advance from” the models used to determine the management measures that the dissenting states sought to preserve.

In the end, it was clear that the dissenting states just didn’t want to cut black sea bass landings, regardless of what the peer-reviewed science might say. They justified their reluctance by arguing that “Under-harvesting a stock can disrupt the balance within an ecosystem, leading to unintended consequences such as increased mortality to prey populations or changes to predator-prey dynamics,” that “A 20% reduction in ABC could unnecessarily constrain both commercial and recreational sectors, leading to lost economic opportunities and reduced community benefits,” and that “Such a reduction could undermine public confidence in fishery management and compliance with regulations, especially when stakeholders perceive are not agreeing with the data.”

Such arguments gained sympathetic ears on August 14, 2023, at the joint meeting of the Council and ASMFC convened to set black sea bass specifications for 2025. Various attendees commented that it would be “difficult to carry the message [of a 20 percent reduction in landings] back to the industry,” asked “how do we go back to stakeholders” with news of such reduction, fretted that managers were “at great risk of alienating our many stakeholders,” and declared that “this one [landings reduction] doesn’t make any sense.”

In the end, James Gilmore, New York’s legislative proxy, moved that the ASMFC suspend the rules that require it and the Council to adopt identical management measures with respect to 2025 black sea bass specifications. Such motion was seconded by John Clark, the Delaware fisheries manager, and passed on a near-unanimous vote, with only North Carolina opposed and NMFS abstaining. A follow-up motion made and seconded by the same people, to maintain status quo regulations, also passed easily, with only Rhode Island, North Carolina, and NMFS opposed.

Michael Luisi, the Maryland fisheries manager, moved that the Council also adopt status quo specifications, a motion that was seconded by Scott Lenox, an at-large Council member who was also from Maryland. However, Michael Pentony was quick to remind the Council that such action would violate the express language of Magnuson-Stevens, which states that ACLs set by regional fishery management councils “may not exceed the fishing level recommendations of [that council’s] scientific and statistical committee,” and stated that GARFO would disapprove any Council action that didn’t comply with the law. Thus, the Council adopted the 20 percent reduction in the ABC and set the commercial quota and RHL accordingly, creating different catch limits for state and federal waters.

Michael Pentony, referring to existing regulations, said that GARFO would take administrative action to resolve any inequities caused by such differing rules, although he wasn’t yet certain what that action would be.

The law might not govern, either

To steal a phrase uttered by Alice during her sojourn in Wonderland, after that, things began getting curiouser and curiouser.

The regulation that Michael Pentony referred to reads

If the total catch, allowable landings, commercial quotas, and/or RHL measures adopted by the ASMFC Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board and the [Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council] differ for a given fishing year, administrative action will be taken as soon as possible to revisit the respective recommendations of the two groups. The intent of this action shall be to achieve alignment through consistent state and Federal measures such that no differential effects occur to Federal permit holders.

The regulation had never been used before, and it’s not completely clear that the regulation’s instruction to “revisit the respective recommendations” authorizes NMFS to issue proposed regulations without first consulting the Council, but that’s how the agency interpreted the language so, despite Michael Pentony’s adamant stance against status quo measures at the August 14 meeting, on October 16, 2024, NMFS issued a proposed regulation that embraced the same status quo measures that Pentony opposed (proposed regulation).

In justifying the proposed regulation, which ignores both the findings of the 2024 assessment and the advice of the Council’s SSC, NMFS echoed the language used by the dissenting states, claiming that, “Given the current status of the black sea bass stock, which is well above the [Fishery Management Plan’s] definition of a biomass capable of producing maximum sustainable yield, and the potentially significant social and economic harm to Federal permit holders that would result from divergent state and Federal quotas, we are proposing to implement 2025 black sea bass specifications consistent with those adopted by the [ASMFC].”

The proposed regulation also seems to violate some of Magnuson-Stevens’ provisions, although NMFS doesn’t believe that is true.

As Michael Pentony noted on August 14, Magnuson-Stevens prohibits the Council from setting an ACL that exceeds the SSC’s fishing level recommendation. Another provision of Magnuson-Stevens limits NMFS’ authority, saying that “The Secretary shall approve, disapprove, or partially approve a plan or amendment…by written notice to the Council.” Read together, such provisions strongly suggest that NMFS lacks the authority to substitute its own status quo ACL, which exceeds the SSC’s harvest level recommendation, for the recommendation that the Council made on August 14; at most, it appears that NMFS might have disapproved the Council recommended specifications and requested that the Council revisit the issue.

But NMFS interprets the law differently, observing that the law requires “Each Council” to set annual catch limits no higher than the SSC’s recommendation, but places no such restriction in NMFS itself. NMFS also believes that language limiting its authority to either approving, disapproving, or partially approving a Council action applies only to fishery management plans and amendments thereto, and not to setting annual specifications for the various fisheries. NMFS believes that its authority to overrule a Council decision on specifications, and replace that decision with its own, arises from a different section of Magnuson-Stevens which grants the agency “general responsibility to carry out any fishery management plan or amendment…in accordance with the provisions of this Act,” and provides that “The Secretary may promulgate such regulations…as may be necessary to discharge such responsibility or to carry out any other provision of this Act.”

It is very general language that mentions neither annual specifications nor Council actions. NMFS’ interpretation of the two relevant sections of Magnuson-Stevens, read together, apparently assumes that Congress was extremely concerned that when regional fishery management councils drafted management measures, including annual specifications, they do not stray from the SSC’s scientific advice, but that Congress had no problem whatsoever with NMFS ignoring such scientific advice and adopting whatever annual specifications that, in the exercise of its sole discretion, it felt it appropriate or convenient to put in place.

That would seem a strained interpretation of the law, and helps to illustrate why, in deciding the case of Loper Bright v. Raimondo last June, which also involved NMFS’ interpretation of a provision of Magnuson-Stevens that provided it with a general grant of authority, the Supreme Court of the United States abolished the so-called Chevron doctrine, and found that an agency’s interpretation of a statutory provisions is not entitled to any deference when a court reviews such agency’s actions.

But whether or not the aforementioned provisions of Magnuson-Stevens apply, it’s difficult to understand how NMFS’ failure to conform the proposed amendment to the information provided in the 2024 assessment complies with the legal requirement that such measures are based on the best scientific information available.

Does it really matter?

Fishery managers would have the public believe that status quo management measures are appropriate, because the black sea bass stock has been thriving regardless of chronic recreational overharvest and combined commercial and recreational landings that exceeded the ABC, often by a very substantial amount, in 10 of the last 11 years.

But is that really the case? Some available data suggests that it’s not.

It is difficult to compare recreational black sea bass landings over the years, because of frequently changing size limits. However, data for New York and New England during the years 2022-2024, when the age and size limits remained consistent, seems to shows a steady decline in landings. During the period March-August of each of those years (the March-August period is used for comparison because data for the last four months of 2024 are not yet available), landings fell from slightly over 1.7 million fish in 2022, to 1.3 million in 2023, to just over 0.9 million in 2024. While three years probably don’t provide enough data to indicate a trend, the declining landings do suggest that the 2024 assessment’s projections of an SSB decline may be rooted in reality, despite some managers’ doubts.

It is virtually certain that NMFS will adopt the proposed regulation in their final 2025 specifications for black sea bass. That being the case, the next question is how the Council and ASMFC will react after the next management track assessment is released sometime around June 2025.

Will they conform 2026 management measures to the 2025 assessment, and whatever recommendations the SSC might make? Or, if they don’t like what an assessment and SSC say, will they just ignore the advice again, as they ignored it in 2024?

Time will tell.

But given the Council’s and the ASMFC’s past responses to recommendations they didn’t particularly like, it would probably be foolish to bet against them maintaining the status quo, regardless of what the best available science might say.

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This essay first appeared in “From the Waterfront,” the blog of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, which can be found at http://conservefish.org/blog/

STRIPED BASS REBUILDING EFFORT STALLS AT THE ASMFC--WHAT MIGHT BE NEXT?

 

On December 16, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board met to consider possible new management measures for 2025.  Such measures would have made it more likely that striped bass spawning stock biomass will be rebuilt to its target level by 2029, as required by the striped bassmanagement plan.

A number of Management Board members had been concerned that the 2018 year class of striped bass would be entering the 28- to 31-inch slot size limit for the coastal recreational fishery next year, and that if additional management measures were not adopted, a significant proportion of the 2018s would be removed from the population during the 2025 season.  The fact that striped bass recruitment since 2019 has been far below average, with the Maryland juvenile abundance index for the years 2019 through 2024 indicating  the lowest average spawning success for any six-year period since 1957, convinced some fishery managers that protecting the 2018s was a particularly urgent concern.

But, in the end, that didn’t happen.  

Instead of opting to take certain, if admittedly imperfect, actions to further protect the striped bass stock in 2025, a substantial majority of the Management Board decided that it made more sense to kick the can down the road, and initiate an addendum to the management plan that might—or might not—lead to the adoption of additional management measures in 2026.

I can’t say that I was surprised by that outcome, as I thought some sort of delay—either deferring any possible action until the February 2025 Management Board meeting or doing what the Board ultimately did, initiating an addendum—was the most likely outcome, although for a time during the meeting, I had a real hope that a well-crafted substitute motion, that would have imposed modest reductions in landings, might prevail.

I could speculate as to why it didn’t, but my views would be only that—mere speculation based more on observations than demonstrable facts—and so would contribute little of value to the discussion.

I could opine that, if the Management Board was composed solely of professional fishery managers, and not dominated by amateurs who have no formal scientific training and/or do have a vested financial interest in killing striped bass, the vote would have been different, but we need to take the Management Board as we find it.  While we can work for change, we cannot dwell in the land of “if only.”

What matters now is what happens next, because the future is something that, with enough work, might still be changed.

Unfortunately, I fear that last Monday’s inaction may have convinced many formerly staunch conservation advocates that the ASMFC process is fatally flawed, because a majority of the Management Board lacks the will, the requisite sense of responsibility, and the political courage to make hard decisions when hard decisions are called for.  They are convinced that, when pressed, it will opt for delay rather than make a potentially controversial decision.  

Still, it’s too early to abandon hope. 

Recreational striped bass landings for March through August of this year were substantially lower than they were in 2022 and 2023, and it appears that landings for the months of September and October are following, if not slightly accelerating, the same trend.  Based on such landings, the Striped Bass Technical Committee has calculated that there is a 57 percent probability that the stock could rebuild by 2029 without any additional management measures being adopted.  

So it’s not impossible that, despite the Management Board’s inaction, rebuilding will still occur.

However, the Technical Committee also made two other projections, based on slightly different assumptions of fishing mortality, and if either one of those better mirrors future fishing mortality patterns, the stock with probably not rebuild on time.

And given that the Technical Committee advised that

“all three primary scenarios represent a credible range of what might happen,”

and none are deemed a more probable outcome than the others, the fact that the striped bass rebuilds without any further management action in only one out of three possible futures is not reassuring.

So if additional action is required, the bass’ next hope lies in the proposed addendum. 

The problem is that, If such addendum is to be adopted in October, as the Management Board contemplates, the ASMFC’s Plan Development Team will have to complete a draft addendum, which would go out for public comment, by the Board’s August meeting.  There was even some talk last Monday about having the draft ready by May.  That schedule would make it nearly impossible to know whether the most optimistic projection bears any resemblance to reality when it comes to removals of fish from the 2018 year class.

I suspect that such projection will predict 2024 landings with a reasonable degree of accuracy, but if those landings were atypically low, it may well underestimate landings in 2025 and beyond.  

Should that prove to be the case, the Technical Committee will have little chance to make a mid-course correction before the draft addendum is released for  public comment, as it will not receive Wave 2 landings data until mid-June, while wave 3 landings—those from May and June, which capture recreational harvest during the heart of the spring migration—won’t be available until around August 15, after the summer Management Board meeting is held.  Thus, there will be little or no 2025 data to inform the proposed addendum, which makes it difficult to understand what the Board gained by delaying any new management measures for another year.

If the 2024 landings match those in the most optimistic scenario, and support a 57 percent probability of the stock rebuilding if no further action is taken, there is a very good chance that more precautionary management measures will not be adopted for 2026.  And if that is the case, the Management Board night decide to abandon the new addendum.  Such things have happened before.

But even if the Board decides not to implement harvest restrictions, it could well decide to adopt measures that will make things worse for the bass, as well as for surf and private boat anglers.

To understand why, we need to take a look at the motion that was approved by the Board.  It reads

“Motion to initiate an addendum to support striped bass rebuilding by 2029 in consideration of 2024 recreational and commercial mortality while balancing socioeconomic impacts.  Options should include, if needed, a range of overall reductions, consideration of recreational versus commercial contributions to the reductions, recreational seasons and size changes taking into account regional variability of availability, and no harvest versus no target closures.  Final action shall be taken by the annual 2025 meeting to be in place for the 2026 rec and comm fisheries.  [emphasis added]”

The language that requires striped bass mortality—that is, landings data and the associated science—to be balanced with socioeconomic impacts opens the door to all sorts of mischief.

It could lead to the abandonment of risk-averse management strategies, because they impose greater short-term socioeconomic costs.  It could lead to an imbalance of commercial and recreational harvest reductions, based not only on the potential costs to commercial striped bass fishermen, but also because of “consideration of recreational versus commercial contributions” to overall removals.  It could lead to the Board creating special privileges for the for-hire fleet, allowing it a wider slot limit, a higher bag, or exemptions from certain seasons, or no-targeting requirements, that everyone else is required to obey.

Of course, if the Management Board wanted to do the socioeconomic analysis correctly, it would also consider the economic losses attributable to reduced striped bass abundance.  But in all of the years that I’ve been watching the Management Board do it work, such losses have never been considered, and I don’t expect the Management Board to begin considering them now.

The “socioeconomic impacts” language brings particular cause for concern given the comments made by Michael Wayne, a spokesman for the American Sportfishing Association, the primary trade association for the fishing tackle industry.  At Monday’s meeting, Wayne said

“…I think the public process is really important for such a significant decision of season closures.  And it seems like on the fly, the Board has chopped up this motion to look a lot like the conservation equivalency process that I think everyone had opposed moving forward with given the status of this resource.  And so, I think giving the addendum the opportunity to consider this more thoroughly, really develop options out that the public can consume and provide input on is the best way best path forward.  You know, I think about you guys know I am a part of a lot of these fisheries management discussions, and this is probably the most unique fisher that ASMFC manages, especially recreationally.  And I look at the public comments, and I know there’s millions of striped bass anglers out there.  Millions.  And I’m only seeing twenty five hundred comments from a lot of the same people that we know have been commenting.  And so, as an organization, we’re going to work with our members to try to get more people integrated into this process.  We know that the recreational fishery is very diverse, and I don’t feel the public comments really are a good reflection of that diversity.  And so, where is the opportunity to get those individuals into this process?  Where is the opportunity to give folks the chance to get involved and engaged?  I don’t think it’s on the fly with this substitute motion, and I challenge the Board to go the addendum route and reach out to the constituents that they haven’t heard from.  Don’t talk to the same folks  that you’ve been talking to all the time.  Find the people who care about this resource and value it in a way that their voices should be heard, too.  And that’s what we’ll do as an organization ourselves.  [emphasis added]”

It's a significant comment, not only for it’s unintended irony (if the ASMFC heeded his advice “Don’t talk to the same folks that you’ve been talking to all the time,” they would stop talking to Waine, who comments at just about every meeting), but because it appears to be something very close to the tackle industry dismissing the concerns of the conservation community and the anglers who have long sought to protect the long-term health of the striped bass stock—“the same people that we know have been commenting…the same folks that you’ve been talking to all the time”—while expressing the ASA’s intent to stack the deck when it comes to public comment, to “work with [its] members to get more people integrated into this process,” because it’s not hard to figure out that if the ASA is going to get more people involved in the management process, the people who it turns out will support the interests of the tackle industry, and not necessarily the interests of the striped bass or dedicated striped bass fishermen.

Thus, we can expect the fishing tackle industry to make every effort to shape the proposed amendment in a way that maximizes short-term profits, and not the long-term health of the striped bass stock.

And then there’s the benchmark assessment.

Our first look at the impact of Monday's delay, and of the addendum that the Board has initiated, on the success or failure of the rebuilding effort will come in 2027, after the next benchmark stock assessment is completed.  The assessment is scheduled for peer review in June 2027, which means that it will be released too late for the Management Board to adopt a responsive addendum that year.  Should the benchmark suggest that a new addendum is called for, such addendum won't be finalized before February 2028, giving whatever measures might be included little time to affect stock rebuilding before December 2029.

Right now, we don’t know what the 2027 benchmark assessment is going to look like, but we can already predict that it might and probably will be significantly different from the last benchmark, which was completed in 2018.

The benchmark assessment is the time when the Technical Committee and the Stock Assessment Subcommittee reexamine the assumptions underlying striped bass management.  Such review can include a reconsideration of whether the model used to evaluate the health of the stock is the right one to employ, or whether another model might be more appropriate.  There has already been some speculation that the model might change this time around.

Any new model could attempt to regionalize the assessment, and separate bass hatched in the Chesapeake Bay from those that originate in the Delaware and Hudson rivers.  Scientists tried to do that in the 2018 assessment, but their effort did not pass peer review.  It’s very possible that, by 2027, they will have refined their approach enough to have it accepted by the peer review panel.

In addition, the apparent problemwith the Marine Recreational Information Program, which seems to cause it tooverstate the number of trips taken by recreational fishermen, and so leads to inflated catch and landings estimates, will probably have been corrected before theassessment is prepared.  If that is the case, it is likely that recreational catch and landings estimates will be reduced as part of the correction process and, because such data is an important input in the striped bass stock assessment, that the species' spawning stock biomass estimate will be redfuced; if that happens, the biomass target and threshold for striped bass will almost certainly be lowered as well.

That probably won’t change the stock's status, because all of the reductions will be on about the same scale, so a stock that was overfished based on the current calculations will probably also be overfished after any MRIP revisions, although that might not be true if the stock is very close to the biomass threshold, whether above or below.

However, we can probably also expect to see an effort to reduce the biomass reference points that is unrelated to any changes to MRIP, driven by Management Board members who merely seek higher striped bass landings.  While we can hope that any such proposal would fail—an effort to lower the biomass reference points was quickly and decisively shot down a few years ago, during the development of Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass--there are still some Management Board members who are very much in support of such change.

Finally, the 2019 year class—the first of what, so far, has been six consecutive striped bass year classes that were far, far below the long-term average—will enter the spawning stock biomass in 2026, the terminal year of the benchmark assessment.  How the assessment will handle the impacts of the small 2019 year class and subsequent poor recruitment has yet to be seen.

With all of those changes, it is impossible to guess whether the benchmark assessment will  find that the stock is no longer overfished, or whether it might find that overfishing is once again occurring.  It might find that the stock is in better shape than we currently believe, or it might find its status has deteriorated at some point since 2018.

But the next question is:  What will the Board do if the 2027 benchmark assessment brings bad news?

Given the Board’s non-response on December 16, it is far from unlikely that, if rebuilding is only somewhat unlikely to occur—say, no less than a 40 percent probability—it may choose to do nothing once again, and try to learn to live with a stock slightly below the threshold.  I hope that’s not what happens, but if socioeconomics is given parity with the needs of the stock, as called for in the recently adopted motion, it could well occur.

A bigger question is what the Board might do if the benchmark advises that the bass are headed for serious trouble, and that instead of worrying about rebuilding the stock, managers will have to make a serious effort to keep the stock from  collapsing.

Hopefully, we won’t get to that point, but if recruitment continues to tank, and if fishing mortality drifts upward again, the odds favoring a stock collapse could increase.  Should he possibility of a collapse ever become a probability, provided that no management action is taken, we have to wonder whether the Management Board would be willing to take decisive action to avert a crash, or whether it will again pick  the least disruptive option—say, something with a bare 50 percent probability of success, assuming that the most optimistic assumptions prove true--and so set the table for a calamity.

After last Monday, I can’t set that possibility aside.

But I also can’t sit by and watch it happen.

I know that for a lot of the folks who have been fighting for the health of the striped bass stock over the last three, five, ten or more years, last Monday’s decision felt like a punch in the gut, that made them just want to throw up their hands and walk away.  I know because I’ve spoken with some of them, and corresponded with others, and that’s what I’ve been told.

The fact is, that’s just what folks like Michael Waine and his cronies at the American Sportfishing Association want to hear.  They want concerned anglers, who understand the management system and the needs of the striped bass, to walk away and not call for responsible management.  They want the ASMFC to stop listening to those who advocate for the resource, so that the industry can flood the arena with shills who will advocate for business interests instead.

And if folks walk away, that’s just what will occur.

I know that recent events make the bass’ future look bleak.  But, as I noted before, that future is not written in stone.

It can be changed.

By us.

If we shake of this loss, and get back in the fight.

STRIPED BASS: THE RECREATIONAL FISHING INDUSTRY VERSUS THE RECREATIONAL FISHERMEN

 

The recent discussions impacting striped bass conservation, and the need to rebuild the spawning stock biomass by the 2029 deadline imposed in the management plan, have been disappointing in many respects.

The data on which any management measures must be based is, at best uncertain, with biologists forced to make projections of 2024 landings, future fishing mortality rates, and so the trajectory of the spawning stock biomass based on information that is not really sufficient for the scientists’ needs.  So it’s probably not surprising that the Technical Committee came up with a disappointing set of no-harvest (and no-target) options that would impose punitive closures on some states, particularly in northern New England, where seasons are already short, while allowing anglers in long-season states such as New Jersey to escape the same sort of consequences.  And, given that the coastwide size limit hasn’t fallen below 28 inches since the mid-1980s, it’s understandable, yet also disappointing, that the Technical Committee lacked the data to adequately analyze the impact that reducing the slot limit below 28 inches would have on striped bass landings in 2025 and beyond.

But perhaps the most disappointing thing about the debate is how the recreational fishing industry has come together to oppose conservative management measures, in order to  maintain their short-term profits and the status quo, while recreational fishermen, who have generally shown concern for the health of the striped bass resource, have failed to find common ground and instead have broken up into myriad factions, making it much more likely that the industry will win the stasis that it is seeking, and that the striped bass will lose.

Historically, the recreational fishing industry, by which I mean both the for-hire fleet and at least the retail side of the fishing tackle business, has opposed striped bass conservation.  Here in New York, that opposition dates back to at least 1995, when the striped bass stock was first declared “fully rebuilt” after it had collapsed a decade and a half before.

Amendment 5 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass had just been released.  It allowed states to drop their size limit from the 34 inches permitted by the previous Amendment 4 to just 28 inches, while allowing the bag limit to increase from one bass to two.  While the comments received from most striped bass fishermen and just about all of the striped bass fishing clubs asked that New York maintain its 1-fish bag limit and 36-inch minimum size (because of overwhelming angler sentiment expressed subsequent to Amendment 4’s adoption, New York, like most other northeastern states, had never reduced its bag limit from 36 to 34 inches, even though Amendment 4 allowed it to do so), just about all of the tackle shops and for-hire boats were demanding the most relaxed regulations that Amendment 5 would allow, thinking that a relaxed regulatory scheme would be better for business.

A long and very intense debate ensued, in which tempers frequently frayed and voices were frequently raised, the umbrella organization that supposedly represented both anglers and the angling industry took the industry’s side against its member clubs (at the time, the organization’s president took me aside and tried to explain that they had to make the industry happy, as industry members made the contributions to the organization’s auction that raised the funds that the organization depended to fund it for the entire year) and as a result was almost put out of business, friends were made as people came together, enmities festered as disagreements deepened, and I somehow ended up as one of the spokesmen for the angling conservation community,  a post I have yet to successfully escape.

In the end, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, trying to give everyone what they wanted, split the baby in half—or maybe in thirds—dropping the size limit to 28 inches and giving the for-hire boats a two-fish bag limit, while keeping the bag limit at one for everyone else.

Throughout much of the northeast, the story was the same, if without the baby-splitting, with a 28-inch bag limit becoming the standard from New Hampshire to North Carolina (except, at times, in New Jersey, who was finding a way to finesse a few more dead bass for everyone).

It is probably no coincidence that the 2018 benchmark stock assessment found that striped bass suffered from overfishing in 1996, and experienced overfishing in most of the years between then and 2017.  Such overfishing, which didn’t abate until 2020, is undoubtedly the main reason that the striped bass stock remains overfished today.

We have since learned that, even with striped bass recruitment reaching some of the highest levels ever recorded in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a 28-inch minimum size and a two-fish bag limit was just not sustainable in the long term.

In the very early 2000s, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board was developing Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, and a similar split between the recreational fishing industry and the recreational fishermen occurred, which became particularly nasty here in New York.

This time, the cause of the controversy wasn’t a single proposed regulation, but the overall philosophy of striped bass management.  On one side stood those in the commercial and recreational fishing industries who believed that striped bass should be managed for yield, with a lower spawning stock biomass target and a higher permissible fishing mortality, a situation which would lead to higher landings of smaller bass, while removing most of the older, larger, and most fecund females from the population.

On the other side stood anglers concerned with the long-term health of the striped bass stock, who argued that the fishing mortality rate, and resultant landings, should be low enough to permit older, larger striped bass to form a significant portion of the spawning stock biomass.  They found support in a report jointly issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, which noted

“The distribution of age classes in a population has important implications for stock productivity and stability.  Studies on striped bass have shown that larger fish produce larger eggs and larvae, and larger individuals of these life stages have a greater chance of survival.  [references omitted]’

Some of the concerned anglers banded together in a coalition they called “Friends of the Striper” and, adopting the slogan,

“The job’s not done until we BRING BACK THE BIG BASS,”

began a grassroots campaign to highlight the issue.

The campaign was contrary to local industry hopes that, at a time when summer flounder regulations were becoming more restrictive and winter flounder were disappearing, striped bass regulations might be lenient enough to convert what had historically been a sport fish targeted by a relatively small group of anglers into a panfish that might replace some of the disappearing flounder, tautog and similar species in their customers’ buckets.

The ASMFC scheduled an Amendment 6 hearing here in New York.  Ahead of that hearing, the local publisher of a now-defunct weekly fishing newspaper, which was then available both in hard copy and on line, conducted an online poll of his readers, to see which option they preferred.  The response overwhelmingly favored the more conservative, “bring back the big bass” position, and he testified to that result at the hearing.

The industry response was both immediate and extreme.  The morning after the ASMFC hearing, the publication was beset by calls from its advertisers, as for-hire boats, tackle shops and marinas sought to punish the publisher for representing his readers at the hearing, and not hewing to the industry’s party line.  Thousands of dollars of advertising was pulled, enough to force the publisher to partially recant in print by supporting the for-hire’s privileged two-bass bag limit, and causing him to withdraw from the conservation arena, where he had previously served as a valuable and articulate spokesman.

But the bass and the anglers who argued their case won that round, with Amendment 6 stating as its goal,

“To perpetuate, through cooperative interstate fishery management, migratory stocks of striped bass; to allow commercial and recreational fisheries consistent with the long-term maintenance of a broad age structure, a self-sustaining spawning stock, and also to provide for the restoration and maintenance of their essential habitat.  [emphasis added]”

Amendment 6 also included, as one of its objectives, to

“Manage fishing mortality to maintain an age structure that provides adequate spawning potential to sustain long-term abundance of striped bass populations.”

When the Management Board adopted Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass in 2022, that goal and that objective remained intact.

Now, as the December 16 Management Board meeting looms, and the possibility of rebuilding the spawning stock remains in doubt, the recreational fishing industry is again setting itself in opposition to concerned, conservation-minded anglers and the long-term health of the striped bass population.

And this time, it’s pulling out some of its biggest guns.

Last Friday, the ASMFC released the public comments submitted on the rebuilding issue.  The very first comment in to appear was written by the American Sportfishing Association, the national trade organization for the fishing tackle industry and an imposing lobbying force; the letter opposes any additional management measures that might make rebuilding more likely.

The ASA’s position wasn’t surprising, as one of its spokesmen, Michael Waine (who once was the Fishery Management Plan Coordinator for striped bass at the ASMFC) had already suggested that the striped bass biomass target was too high, and that the ASMFC ought to seek some kind of “balance” between rebuilding and allowing the public to access—that is, catch and kill—striped bass in a podcast a few months ago.

In its comments, the ASA argues that

“New stock projections show that the current management measures are working to control fishing mortality and achieve rebuilding by the 2029 deadline.  The new projections include lower recruitment assumptions to account for the ongoing scenario of poor recruitment coming out of the Chesapeake Bay.

“The technical committee estimates that the striped bass population is not currently experiencing overfishing and is below F rebuild of 0.13 which is a fishing mortality target that accounts for achieving rebuilding by 2029…

“…This demonstrates that the current management plan is effective without requiring additional restrictions…”

It’s one of those examples where telling a half-truth may be more effective than telling a lie, for everything that the ASA alleged in the above statements—except for the last sentence—is undoubtedly correct.  But it’s what the ASA doesn’t say that really matters.

For yes, one stock projection does say that the stock has a 57 percent chance of rebuilding if no further management measures are adopted.  However, two other stock projections project that the stock is unlikely to recover unless additional management measures are imposed.  And, in its report to the Management Board, the Striped Bass Technical Committee clearly stated that

“all three primary scenarios represent a credible range of what might happen.”

With respect to the projection cited by the ASA, which included an extra two-month “wave” of data, the Technical Committee warned,

“While including additional data (i.e., adding Wave 4) is generally informative, the [Technical Committee and Stock Assessment Subcommittee] notes that using Waves 2-4 to predict removals does not always result in a more accurate estimate of final removals than using only Waves 2-3.”

In other words, while the ASA cites only one of three possible scenarios in support of its position, there are two other scenarios, both just as likely to reflect reality, which contradict the ASA’s claims.

Of course, the ASA didn’t mention those two scenarios at all…

But that doesn’t mean that the ASA doesn’t include an outright falsehood or two among its comments.  Consider its statement that

“The narrow [28- to 31-inch] slot limit protected the strong 2015-year class and is similarly expected to protect the 2018 above-average year class in 2025.”

That assertion is just plain wrong.

The 28- to 31-inch slot limit wasadopted in 2023, when the 2015 year class was eight years old.  The mean size of an eight year old bass is 31.8 inches, meaning that less than half of the 2015s were still in the narrowed slot when it was adopted.  However, the 2018 year class will only be seven years old in 2025.  The mean size of a seven year old bass is 28.7 inches, meaning that more than half of the 2018s will be in the slot, and so targeted by the catch-and-kill fishery in 2025, and just under half will still be in the slot, and targeted again, in 2026.  

Those two years of focused catch-and-kill will result in a lot of the 2018s being removed from the population before they can grow out of the slot.

It's what the ASA might call “increasing angler access.”  It’s what the rest of us think of as reducing the size of the spawning stock.  In fact, the American Sportfishing Association wants to go farther and increase the striped bass kill, as its comments make clear when it suggests that

“the ASMFC should consider adding additional days to the recreational fishery to improve equity across regions for both anglers who prefer to take a fish home for dinner or practice catch and release.  [emphasis added]”

The reason for that position is clear as well:

“We urge you to avoid season closures that would have unnecessary economic impacts on both anglers and the sportfishing industry.”

Other industry organizations made similar arguments.  For example, the New York Fishing Tackle Trade Association, which represents the state’s bait and tackle dealers and wholesalers, argued that

“Conserving resources for the future is not just managing the fishery from a conservation or regulatory approach, but also accounting for the socioeconomic impact of such regulations and maintaining fair and equitable access.”

While saying that conserving resources for the future is not just about conservation seems like a dubious and self-contradictory claim, and while NYFTTA, like ASA, is seeking to leave striped bass regulations unchanged, the NYFTTA comments are actually a little more rational, conceding that there might be a place for regulations that appeared to be a little more equitable and a little better thought-out.

Still, NYFTTA, like the rest of the industry, is supporting the most risk-prone position, although its position is at least based in some semblance of reality, unlike that of the Marine Trades Association of New Jersey, which was somehow able to write, with a completely straight face, that

“the spawning stock biomass is robust,”

and

“the numbers and range of fish is astounding.”

Predictably, most of the for-hire fleet also opposed any change in striped bass management measures.  Their comments differed in detail, but were all some variation on the theme of, “We’ll lose money if we can’t kill as many fish.”

Thus, the Cape Cod Charter Boat Association talked about “a healthy striped bass population with great fishing,” even if a peer-reviewed stock assessment update found the stock to still be overfished, while the Captree [New York] Boatmen’s Association completely disregarded the health of the stock and simply maintained that a proposed closure sometime during the November/December period would be “devastating” to their business.

The Connecticut Charter and Party Boat Association calls the stock “robust” and whines that

“Every Striped Bass reduction has been on the backs of those who need and want to harvest striped bass and 0 reductions from the catch-n-release shareholders [sic],”

sentiments echoed by a group of for-hire operators that calls itself the East Coast Fishing Coalition, which also made the remarkable statement that

“It is unconventional to factor the 2018 year class as harvested fish prior to a season even beginning, on the basis that they ‘may’ enter the current 28”-31” slot.  Without that factor there would be a 50-57% chance of being rebuilt by 2029.”

Which is something like saying, “If we could ignore the fact that small fish are going to grow larger, we could stop worrying about the 2018 year class growing big enough to be caught next year…”

And then they complain that

“There just isn’t any room left to cut the For Hire sector.  There is nothing left to fish for.  Paying customers want to harvest fish and eat them for dinner plain and simple.  This has been built into the industry for generations.  Perhaps one day catch-n-release will become mainstream, but present day is just a small fraction of the customer base that find this acceptable.”

In making the statement, they miss the irony that, if the striped bass isn’t rebuilt, and perhaps falls into deeper decline in the near future, there will be even less to fish for, and less for paying customers to harvest, while they also completely ignore the fact that the ASMFC has already admitted that

“The recreational [striped bass] fishery is predominantly prosecuted as catch-and-release, meaning the majority of striped bass caught are released alive either due to angler preference or regulation…Since 1990, roughly 90% of total annual striped bass catch is released alive…”

Given those facts, the striped bass wouldn’t be one of, if not the, most important recreational species in the northeast and mid-Atlantic if “just a small fraction” of anglers were willing to participate in the catch-and-release fishery.

Yet the for-hire fleet keeps making such assertions.

The spokesperson for the East Hampton [New York] Town Fisheries Commission alleged that

“The implementation of the 2023 emergency action restricted the taking of striped bass and reduced income for all the small businesses dependent on this one fish.  Reports of up to a forty-percent loss in income within the For-Hire fleet were made.”

And in truth, there was a big drop in the number of for-hire trips made in New York, but a quick look at the effort data provided by the National Marine Fisheries Service will quickly show that the drop occurred well before the emergency regulations were put in place in 2023.   New York for-hire trips dropped from nearly 400,000 to just over 270,000—about a 32% reduction—between 2021 and 2022, a full year before the emergency regulations were adopted.  However, between 2022 and 2023, the year the emergency regulation went into effect, the number of for-hire trips taken in the state only dropped by 3.15%, fairly persuasive evidence that the emergency regulations did not have a significant impact on the for-hire industry as a whole.

Other incredible claims were made by the Montauk Boatmen and Captains Association, which operates out of East Hampton, and made the impossible argument that

“Following the striped bass emergency action that was implemented in 2022, which introduced a 28” to 35” slot striped bass, we began to see a downturn in business.”

Such statement is completely contrary to a couple of facts, first that the 28- to 35-inch slot was introduced in 2020, not 2022, as part of Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, and second that the emergency action the MBCA complained about was introduced in 2023, not 2022.

An organization incapable of getting such basic facts straight, and which tried to tie supposed declines in business to a completely and demonstrably false timeline, should be granted no credibility at all.

I could go on quoting the various comments made by the various for-hire groups, but whether we are talking about the North Fork [of Long Island, New York] Captains Association, or the Rhode Island Party and Charter Boat Association, or the Stellwagen Bank [Massachusetts] Charter Boat Association, they are all variations on the same theme:  There are plenty of bass in the ocean, we need to kill fish to make money, and that the bass will do fine without any additional management (and if they don’t do too well, it’s not our fault).

In other words, it’s about the same argument being made by the fishing tackle and marine trades organizations, all of which are in vehement opposition to any meaningful striped bass conservation effforts.

Which puts them in sharp opposition to the majority of anglers, who understand that the bass is at risk and are urging the ASMFC to do something about it.

While the anglers aren’t all on the same page about what needs to be done, at least most understand the need for action, making comments such as

“I remember the days when the striped bass stock was severely depleted and do not want to see those days again,”

“[I]f effective and enforceable measures are not taken now to reduce harvest and protect 2015 and 2018 spawners, it is almost certain that fishing mortality will increase not just next season but possibly for years to come, putting at further risk the most valuable sport fish on the East Coast.  That is a risk not worth taking.”

And

“Taking immediate, conservative, and risk-averse actions at this point is required.  That means hard choices and real action, not milquetoast measures or business as usual.”

The positions taken by the majority of the recreational fishing industry and by the majority of recreational fishermen could not be more different, and stand in complete opposition.  There is little to no room for compromise.

If the industry wins, the anglers, and the bass, will lose, and the consequences of that loss could echo for years.  And the industry, left with a less vital ocean that is far less attractive to anglers, will lose in the end as well.

Ironically, if the industry loses this current fight that they’re trying so hard to win, they prevail in the battle that matters, as a restored striped bass population encourages anglers to fish, and to fish more often, and in so doing makes them more likely to patronize the very businesses that are trying to throttle needed conservation efforts.

The benefits of conservation, and a restored striped bass stock, would be easy to see, if only the industry wasn’t blind.