PUTTING THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE: ENOUGH FISH TO PAY FOR THE TRIP

There are ongoing themes in fishery management, arguments that resurface again and again.  Regardless of the species considered or the management measures being proposed, folks opposed to new regulations will appear at the meetings singing new verses to the same old songs.

Thus, as the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission lumbers toward new striped bass regulations, the band is striking up the old tune “There are Plenty of Fish, They’ve Just Gone Somewhere Else,” while the chorus belts out “They’re all in that big EEZ…”

We should expect that to be followed by lively renditions of “The Scientists Don’t Know How to Find Fish,” “The MRIP is Wrong,” and “We Think Your Science Is Bullcrap,” melodies which have become old standards at fisheries meetings, and are heard more often than the “Electric Slide” and the “Hokey Pokey” were once heard at wedding receptions.

And there is no doubt that we’ll hear one of the most well-known songs of all, the one that declares that regulations hurt business because “Anglers Won’t Fish Unless They Take Home Enough to Pay for the Trip.”

It’s a song that’s usually sung by the for-hire folks, although I’ve heard it reprised by those in the tackle shop business, too.  And on its face, it sounds perfectly reasonable.  After all, if you’re trying to make ends meet, you shouldn’t be spending scarce resources on things that don’t provide essential benefits in return.

But I happened to stop by a grocery store yesterday, and out of curiosity, I wandered by the fish counter.  Frozen fillets of various things, from tilapia to haddock to flounder, were selling for between $4.00 and $5.50 per pound, while fresh flounder—probably fluke—fillet was going for $9.99.  

I started wondering about how that compared to what anglers pay for the fish that they catch for themselves and take home.

Right from the start, we can leave the private-boat anglers out of the picture.  Between the initial cost of their boats, lost investment opportunities on the money spent, maintenance, insurance, repairs, dock space, fuel, etc., in most places, particularly in the northeast, they’ll probably operate at a loss in any realistic scenario.

Charter boat fishermen can fare a little better, depending on what species they target.  So consider a best-case situation, a full-day, mixed-bag inshore trip out of Montauk, at a time when most species of fish are abundant. 

The average price of such trip is about $1,200 for a full day, or $200/person assuming a 6-person charter.  For ease of calculations, no additional expenses will be added for the gas needed to get the anglers from their homes to Montauk, for food, or for possible lodging, although in reality, at least some additional cost would be incurred for such things.

We’ll then assume that each angler had a fairly successful trip, catching a 20-pound striped bass, four summer flounder averaging 5 pounds each (20 pound total), three black sea bass averaging 3 pounds (9 pound total), and fifteen scup with a 1 ½-pound average (22 ½ pound total). 

In terms of food production, would that angler break even, compared to buying an equal amount of fish at the store?

The first thing that we would have to do is break those fish down into edible meat.  A whole striped bass yields about 33% of its weight in skin-on fillets, so a 20-pound striper would provide 6.6 pounds of meat.  Yield from summer flounder is a little better, at 35%; 20 pounds of fluke would produce about 7 pounds of skinless fillets.  Black sea bass, with their big heads, yield about 33% in skinless fillets, meaning that 9 pounds of whole fish would yield 3 pounds of meat; scup yields are about the same, so 22 ½ pounds of whole fish would provide 7 ½ pounds of meat.

That’s 24 pounds of meat overall.  Did the fish caught pay for the trip?

Hard numbers don’t really tell the tale.  A lot of it depends on what retail fish prices are used for comparisons. 

Given that the industry representatives typically argue that people are fishing for food for themselves and their families, it probably makes sense to use a generic comparison, rather than compare the value of fish caught against market prices for each particular species.  Such an approach overvalues the lower-priced scup and undervalues the more expensive striped bass, but arguably evens things out by considering all species together, and best represents the value provided for an angler who is primarily seeking protein, and not entertainment.

The comparison also assumes that the fish are filleted on the boat, which allows direct comparison with market preparations, and not taken home whole, or even alive.

Given those limitations, if the cost of the 24 pounds of charter-caught fillets is compared to the same amount of frozen fish, the charter boat angler comes out on the short end of the economic equation.  If the low end of the frozen fish price range, $4.00 per pound, is used, the 24 pounds of fillets that cost the angler $200 to catch could have been purchased for only $96.  Even at the high end of $5.50 per pound, 24 pounds of frozen fillets would only cost $132, about one-third less than the price paid for the charter boat fare.

On the other hand, the charter boat angler would appear to come out ahead if the comparison was based on fresh fillets.  24 pounds of flounder fillets, at $9.99 per pound, would cost nearly $240, leaving the charter boat angler $40 ahead (again, only if travel and other costs are excluded from the comparison).  But tip the mate on the boat 20% of the fare—which the mate certainly earned after helping out catching and cleaning all of those fish—and the charter boat angler breaks even with folks at the grocery store.

Of course, very, very few people—and very few families—are likely to consume 24 pounds of fillets in only one sitting; most will probably be frozen, making comparisons with the frozen fish prices more appropriate for that portion of the catch.

And, of course, the catch used in the example isn’t typical of every charter boat trip out of Montauk.  It’s possible that anglers might limit out and catch 30, rather than just 15, scup, and in September, anglers would be legally entitled to take 7 black sea bass and 45 scup along with their 1 striped bass and 4 fluke—although the likelihood of limiting out on all four species at that time of year isn’t particularly high.  15 bluefish could, theoretically, also be added to the mix.  So trips that yield far more than 24 pounds of fillets per person are a possibility.

On the other hand, it’s possible to catch a lot fewer fish, too.  

Given the current lowered abundance of striped bass and summer flounder, there are no guarantees that a charter trip, even out of Montauk, will see everyone on board catch their limit of either species—and the bass that are caught might average well under 20 pounds, and the fluke under 5.  While limiting out on black sea bass is pretty much a lock, those fish might well average less than 3 pounds.  Thus, over all, the 24 pounds of fillets per trip probably represents a reasonable daily average.

Having said that, someone concerned about catching enough fish to pay for a trip isn’t all that likely to be part of a Montauk charter.  Instead, such folks would probably board one of the many party boats that sail out of various ports along the coast.  Such boats charge much lower fares than the charter vessels, although they have greater limitations, as well.

For example, a typical party boat sailing from my local port at Captree State Park (NY) might get $49 for a half-day trip targeting fluke and black sea bass.  That’s a much lower price than a charter boat would charge, even considering that the trip only lasts a half-day, but the return in fillets is a lot smaller, too. 

For example, the odds of limiting out on fluke, much less limiting out on fluke averaging five pounds apiece, are extremely low out of Captree.  On many trips, the largest fish on the boat weighs less than 4 pounds, although large ones are caught on occasion.  There, a very fortunate angler might, on occasion, limit out on fish weighing 3 pounds apiece (12 pounds total), and might, if luck was running high, also have caught three 2-pound black sea bass (6 pounds total). 

Using the fillet yield percentages employed in the charter example, that’s 6.2 pounds of meat, worth between $25 and $34 if compared to frozen and $61 if compared to fresh; only the latter comparison would render fish caught by an angler less expensive than fish bought at the store, and a $10 tip to the mate would make all but $2 of that cost advantage disappear.

But limiting out on both fluke and black sea bass at Captree, on a single, half-day trip, would be the exception rather than the rule.  Anglers sailing out of most other Long Island ports would face similar difficulties in filling their coolers, although those targeting scup on the East End and in Long Island Sound, when catching and keeping 45 decent fish isn’t out of the question, would see better returns on their effort.

Industry representatives argue that less restrictive limits would increase the number of fish taken home, and thus make fishing more attractive to many anglers.  But when anglers seldom limit out on summer flounder now, it’s difficult to argue that increasing the bag will significantly increase the landings.  Decreasing the size limit would put more fish in anglers’ buckets—but it would also reduce the average size of fish kept, and so the value of the fillets taken home.

Black sea bass, on the other hand, are abundant enough that a bag limit increase would lead to higher landings.  But with a 3-pound fish yielding only 1 pound of fillets, it would take 15 pounds of black sea bass to break even on a half-day party boat trip—assuming no tip to the mate and no other expenses—if compared to the $9.99/pound price of fresh flounder fillet, and between 27 and 36 pounds of fish to break even based on frozen fish prices.

While such landings are certainly possible in many places, whether they would be sustainable is a very different question.  Right now, the best available science says that current size and bag limits are already as relaxed as they ought to be (although a stock assessment update, scheduled for August, may change that view).

The bottom line is that catching enough fish to fully offset the cost of an inshore fishing trip is possible, but even under a relaxed management measures scenario, would be difficult to accomplish on a regular basis.  To argue that regulations must be set to accommodate the hypothetical “subsistence” angler, who can only justify the cost of a trip by the value of the fish taken home, ignores the reality of today’s fishery, which sees a number of species at depleted levels, and even healthy stocks in need of continuous management.

In the end, recreational fishing is just that—recreation, just like golf, going to a ball game, or taking the family to an amusement park.  It’s something that anglers do because they enjoy it; bringing fish home is just an added bonus, that adds to the appeal of the trip.  Surveys conducted by NMFS demonstrate that catching and keeping fish is not the reason that most anglers go fishing, and that anglers who only seek fish to take home are an exception, and not representative of the overall angling population.

For as most anglers can tell you, if you’re only looking for some fish to eat, it’s usually cheaper to go out and buy them.