YOU CAN'T CATCH FISH THAT AREN'T THERE

The striped bass debate will hit one of its short-term milestones on August 8.

On that date, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board will meet in Alexandria, Virginia, to decide whether and how to move forward with an addendum that addresses the benchmark stock assessment’s finding that the stock is both overfished and experiencing overfishing.

Right now, it seems extremely likely that the Management Board will make a serious effort to end overfishing, although it also seems all too likely that it will also ignore the management plan’s injunction that it “must” rebuild the overfished stock within ten years.

While, under the management plan, it should be taking both actions right now, we should note that even ending overfishing has become a controversial issue, with some Management Board members arguing that standards should be relaxed in order to allow a higher annual kill and smaller spawning stock biomass.  One of the most vocal proponents of allowing more harvest has been Michael Luisi, a fishery manager from Maryland, who has claimed that

“A half an inch [reduction] in minimum size could mean a lot to our fleets, our charterboat and recreational fleet; more to the charterboat community.”

He has also claimed that

“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 [to reduce fishing mortality].”

In support of his constant efforts to increase striped bass landings, Mr. Luisi has argued that his state’s charter boat fleet has been particularly hard-hit by fishing mortality reductions because

“One of the reasons for those impacts to the state of Maryland is the lack of variety of other fish to target.  The charterboat industry has been built around striped bass fishing.  We don’t have the same opportunity given the proximity of Maryland’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay to the ocean.  We don’t have the variety to bring people in.”

He told other members of the Management Board that

“If you’re not catching striped bass you can move on to another species, it is just not available for us…”

It’s an interesting argument, because it underlines something that has become more and more true as a number of recreationally-important fish stocks decline, and some, for all practical purposes, disappear:  You can’t catch fish that aren’t there, and it’s very hard to maintain a viable recreational fishing industry with a shrinking handful of species.

In the long term, a healthy industry depends on healthy fish populations.

Abundance matters.

Yet abundance often seems like a bad word to members of the charter boat fleet, who often show up at hearings to oppose needed regulation and demanding things be kept at the status quo.  At the same time that some charter boat operators are demanding more—or, at the least, not fewer—fish for their customers, their opposition to science-based regulation ignores the effects of dwindling fish stocks on their fleet.

Here in New York, the charter boats striped bass landings declined from nearly 120,000 fish in 2014 to 72,000 fish in 2015, which is understandable given the bag limit reduction in Addendum IV.  But the downhill trend continued after that, while regulations remained the same, dropping to 42,500 fish in 2016, 37,300 fish in 2017 and a mere 13,800 fish last year.  Given the overfished stock and continued overfishing, it’s hard to believe that things won’t keep getting worse unless new regulations reverse the trend and build up bass abundance again.

Yet I’m constantly hearing rumors that much of the industry stands opposed to the 35-inch minimum size (or equivalent slot limit with a 40-inch cap) needed to end overfishing.  If those rumors are true, it seems that the fleet is ready to shoot itself in both feet, and oppose the only action likely to improve stock abundance and give their customers reason to leave the dock.

Coastwide, the charter boat fleet isn’t faring much better, although Maryland landings, and the big 2011 year class, cloud the picture a bit.  But for all of the coast between Maine and North Carolina, overall striped bass landings dropped from roughly 400,000 fish in 2014 to about 336,000 in 2015 (again, Addendum IV and the change in regulations played a part in that) to 235,000 in 2016, then spiked to more than 370,000 in 2017 before dropping to about 235,000 again last year.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story.  Take Maryland out of the picture—and remember that Maryland was fishing on the dominant 2011 year class while it was still immature and unavailable to fishermen on the coast—and the numbers tell a different and more truthful tale, with landings going from 267,000 in 2014 to 246,000 in 2015, then to down to 90,000 in 2016, up to 120,000 in 2017 as the 2011s recruited into the fishery, and then back down to just 82,000 in 2018, suggesting that the 2011s might not have as long-lasting impact on the coast as we may have hoped.

Yes, there is a problem with stripers.

So perhaps it is time to take a deeper look at Mr. Luisi’s claim that charter boats along most of the coast have something else to fish for when striped bass become scarce.  Between Maine and North Carolina, the most logical replacement species to look at are probably bluefish, which are often caught along with striped bass, and summer flounder, scup and black sea bass, which form the heart of the region’s “meat” fishery.

The good news is that black sea bass and scup are doing well, with a current biomass well in excess of the target level.  While neither bluefish nor summer flounder have been declared overfished, and neither has yet been found to experiencing overfishing (although the stock assessment update for bluefish, expected to be released in September, ought to be watched in that regard) numbers of both seem to have been falling coastwide, as have charter boat landings.

What we find when we look at the issue is a very healthy scup stock, that saw charter boat landings drop from more than 630,000 in 2014 (the “percent standard error” of that estimate is somewhat high, at 41.9, suggesting that there is a significant chance that it did not accurately reflect reality), but then more-or-less stabilize in the mid-200,000s.  

We also see a robust black sea bass stock, that saw charterboat landings rise sharply from nearly 380,000 in 2014 to 870,000 in 2015, when substantial overfishing occurred in states between New Jersey and New England, but then also stabilize in the mid- to high 200,000s as a new 2016 stock assessment provided regulators with better insights needed to manage the fishery.

On the other hand, both bluefish and summer flounder saw sharp declines in charter boat landings, which are suggestive of a decline in abundance.  

Bluefish landings in the New England/Mid-Atlantic region increased from 310,000 in 2014 to 470,000 in 2015, then dropped sharply, to 155,000 in 2016, 130,000 in 2017, and just 65,000 in 2018, a trend that makes it very clear that bluefish won’t provide much of an alternative to declining striped bass abundance.

Although a 2018 benchmark stock assessment made it clear that the summer flounder stock was in relatively good condition, it did express concern about the many years of below-average recruitment, a trend that is reflected in summer flounder landings.  In the charter boat sector, those landings steadily declined from 367,000 in 2014 to 181,000 in 2015, 103,000 in 2016, 76,000 in 2017 (as regulations tightened), and a slight increase (as regulations were relaxed just a bit) to 88,000 last year.

So summer flounder don’t seem to be providing striped bass fishermen with another alternative, either.

What we’re seeing seems to be a declining abundance of striped bass, bluefish and summer flounder, with a healthy and stable abundance of black sea bass and scup.

What we’re also seeing is a steady decline in the number of charter boat trips that people are taking in the New England/Mid-Atlantic region.  

For the five year period 2014-2018, that effort has dropped from a high of more than 950,000 trips in 2015 to a low of 455,000 trips—a bit less than half of the trips taken one year before—in 2016, and a seeming stabilization in the low 500,000s.

If I was in the charter boat business, that trend would have me concerned.

While we all know the old saying that “correlation does not necessarily indicate causation,” it’s hard not to believe that a lot more people would be going fishing, and patronizing the charter boat trade, if fish were more abundant.  Because fishing in a depleted ocean isn’t too much fun, and paying a charter boat in order to do so makes less and less sense as the fish disappear.

Thus, you would think that charter boat captains would be some of the most vocal supporters of fisheries conservation, and some—mostly those in the small boat/lighttackle “guide” business—are.  

But the fact is that, throughout the New England/Mid-Atlantic region, far too many in the charter boat business still tell regulators that there are no problems with any fish stocks, and that rules should remain as they are.

I keep hoping for some kind of breakthrough.

I keep telling myself that, one of these days, people will realize that if they want to have a fishing industry, they also need to have fish.

I hope that the striped bass decline will finally force folks to accept the fact that, far from hurting their businesses, good fishery management is the only thing that keeps them alive.  Because, Mr. Luisi’s statements to the contrary, no one will have too much to fish for if we don’t staunch the striped bass decline.