ASMFC'S STRIPED BASS MANAGEMENT SHOULD REFLECT REALITIES OF THE FISHERY

One size does not fit all.

Yet too often in fisheries management, we see the same model—managing for a high, if arguably sustainable, yield—dominate discussions, even when it doesn’t make very much sense. 

While yield may be the proper measure in fisheries for species such as whiting and tilefish, which are dominated by the commercial fishery and are exploited primarily for dead fish on the dock, they are far less appropriate for recreational fisheries where greater emphasis is placed on the mere experience of catching fish, which are then frequently released to be caught again, and harvest is a secondary consideration.  In such cases, managing for the highest practical abundance and the long-term health of the spawning stock is a far more important management goal than maximizing landings.

That is a particularly important consideration as the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board prepares to address continued overfishing and the overfished state of the striped bass stock when it next meets on the morning of August 8.

For the past few years, far too much of the conversation at Management Board meetings has focused on yield. Michael Luisi, a fishery manager for the State of Maryland, has been driving much of that discussion.  For example, at the October 2015 Management Board meeting, after regulations intended to return spiking fishing mortality to the target level hadn’t yet been in force for even one year, he complained that

“I know that my stakeholders—we’ve heard from a number of them today—have concerns over the reductions that have been taken as a result of Addendum IV…

“There has been a great deal of hardship in Maryland.  The commercial charterboat captains have gone out of business as a result of the actions that have been taken.  I would like to have it on the record, Mr. Chairman, in your opinion when will stakeholders have an opportunity and when will this board have an opportunity to look at making management change [to increase landings] for the future or are we expecting to just hold the line where we are indefinitely into the future?

“…we’ve made the argument before we felt that these reductions were extreme.  I’ve heard the word ‘crisis’ from my stakeholders.  The charter, the recreational and the commercial industry are suffering greatly as a result of the reductions that we’ve taken.”

A year later, at the October 2016 Management Board meeting, information provided in connection with a new stock assessment update demonstrated that far from “suffering greatly,” recreational fishermen in Maryland were killing more striped bass than they had been before Addendum IV was adopted.  Instead of reducing fishing mortality by 20.5%, compared to the 2012 base year, as they were obligated to do under the amendment, anglers in Chesapeake Bay actually increased their landings by over 50%.  And they were allowed to maintain such high landings despite the Addendum’s explicit terms.

Apparently, even that wasn’t enough.  

Since the 2016 stock assessment update found that fishing mortality in 2015 was 0.16, slightly below the fishing mortality target of 0.18, Mr. Luisi, supported by a few other Management Board members, including John Clark, a fishery manager from Delaware, wanted ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee to determine how much the regulations could be liberalized in order to increase fishing mortality by two hundredths of a one digit, an amount so small that it was well within the margin of error of the original calculation.

Mr. Clark and Mr. Luisi apparently believe that leaving even one extra striped bass in the ocean, to survive and to grow and contribute to the spawning stock, when that fish could have been killed without exceeding the fishing mortality target, is akin to creating an Eighth Deadly Sin.  Because he seems to believe that high harvest levels are the only attribute of successful fishery management, Mr. Luisi argued

“…if we were to move from 0.16 to 0.18, it would be a small tick, maybe a 5 to 8 percent liberalization, in terms of numbers.  Maybe that’s what it would be.  I don’t have the number to refer to in front of me.  But what I’m thinking about and what I’m looking at, is the fact that perhaps just that very small change could be something that saves a few of the fishermen in my state.

“A half an inch in minimum size could mean a lot to our fleets, our charterboat and recreational fleet; more so to the charterboat community.  I’ve been thinking about this and thinking about what we could do as a next step.”

Again, it’s hard to understand why the recreational fleet needed a half-inch reduction in the minimum size limit, when they were already grossly overfishing their share of the landings under Addendum IV, but Mr. Luisi never seems to be too concerned about such overage.

He actually convinced the Management Board to task the Technical Committee with providin an idea of what sort of management measures would achieve a .02 increase in the fishing mortality rate, although in the end, such changes were never adopted.

Even so, that sort of harvest-oriented thinking has dominated the striped bass debate at ASMFC, to the point that the Management Board has given substantial consideration to creating a new amendment to the management plan that would lower the biomass target and threshold and allow higher levels of landings, even though that would increase the long-term risk to the spawning stock.

Yet when you take a good look at the striped bass fishery, none of that makes any sense.

The first thing that managers need to acknowledge is that the striped bass fishery is primarily a recreational fishery.  

Yes, there is a commercial component, but the most recent benchmark stock assessment found that it only accounts for about 10% of the overall fishing mortality, making it a relatively minor part of the overall fishery.  Even if the commercial share of the fishery doubled, something that could arguably occur if the stock continues to decline and so leads to bass being less available to anglers, 80% of the fishing mortality would still be attributable to anglers. 

In addition, the commercial harvest is relatively simple to control, as effort remains fairly consistent and reductions can be assured merely by cutting the commercial quota and assessing paybacks when such quota is exceeded.  Regulating the recreational fishery, which is much more affected by local and coastwide abundance, weather, other angling opportunities, etc., is a far more difficult process.

However, one can start by looking at who actually fishes for striped bass.  The National Marine Fisheries Service’s recreational data query page readily provides that information, which in turn provides a blueprint for how striped bass ought to be managed.

To begin, the fishery is dominated by surfcasters and the private boat fleet, with surfcasters claiming the highest level of fishing activity.  

For all of the past five years, 2015-2018, inclusive, anglers fishing between Maine and North Carolina made about 87.4 million fishing trips that primarily targeted striped bass.  Of those trips, about 45.6 million, or 52%, were made by surfcasters, 40.3 million, or 46%, by fishermen on private boats, 1.4 million, or 1.6%, by charter boat anglers, and just 0.2 million, or 0.2%, by party boat fishermen.

Those numbers vary a little by region.  In New England, surfcasters account for nearly 60% of all trips made, private boat anglers for just 39%, charter boat fishermen for 1% and party boats for less than 0.1%.  In the Mid-Atlantic, the surfcasters’ share drops to 46%, while private boats can claim a bare majority of all striped bass trips with 51%.  But charter and party boat trips are still a very small part of overall effort, at less than 2% and 0.3%, respectively.  (Note that, in all cases, rounding error might result in numbers not adding up to precisely 100%.)

Thus, while representatives of the charter and party boat industries are often among the most demanding stakeholders, the majority of whom often vigorously oppose needed conservation measures, they represent a very small minority of targeted striped bass trips.  When considering how management measures affect recreational striped bass fishermen, the ASMFC would do well to tailor such measures to the 98% of trips taken by surfcasters and small boat fishermen, and not to the 2% of trips attributable to the for-hire industry. 

It should also be noted that the for-hire striped bass fishery is not of one mind on striped bass management measures.  

While party boats and larger “six-pack” charter boats tend to favor rules that facilitate harvest, there are also a significant number of charter boat operators who fish from smaller boats.  They often call themselves “guides” to distinguish them from the rest of the for-hire fleet, emphasize the overall angling experience rather than merely dead fish on the dock, and are very strong proponents of effective striped bass conservation.  Such “guides’” trips are included in the charter boat totals, even though the guides’ philosophy on striped bass management is closer to that of the surfcasters and private boat fleet.

It is also important to note that catch-and-release angling is a very strong component of the recreational striped bass fishery.  

During the five years between 2014 and 2018, anglers between Maine and Florida caught slightly more than 17 million striped bass.  Of those fish, only about 14.8% were harvested; the remaining 85.2% were released.  Release percentages ranged from a low of 77.6% in 2014 (when the bag limit was still two fish in most places, which should have theoretically reduced the number of regulatory discards) to 91.5% in 2018 (when an influx of fish from the large 2015 year class increased the number of undersized fish in the catch).

Ultimately, the striped bass fishery can be characterized as a fishery that

1.       Is dominated by the recreational sector;

2.       Sees 98% of all recreational trips made by surfcasters and private boat anglers; and

3.       Has a strong commitment to catch-and-release angling.

In such a fishery, managing for yield, instead of abundance, is absolutely the wrong way to go, both in the context of maintaining a “quality” recreational fishery and in the context of maximizing economic gain from the fishery.  

NMFS data makes it clear that angling effort, and so economic benefits, are driven by striped bass abundance, with directed trips dropping from 19.3 million in 2014, to 18.5 million in 2015, 17.4 million in 2016, 16.8 million in 2017 and 15.5 million in 2018, as striped bass abundance declined.  There is no reason to believe that the number of trips targeting striped bass, and thus the economic value of the recreational striped bass fishery, will not continue to decline if the striped bass population is not rebuilt.

Thus, whether a Management Board member is more concerned with the long-term health of the striped bass stock or the short-term economic benefits to business, conserving striped bass and rebuilding the stock are clearly the right way to go.

And managing for landings, rather than for abundance, is a fool’s errand, for it accomplishes neither goal.