SOME THOUGHTS ON STRIPED BASS AND ASMFC'S DRAFT ADDENDUM VI

The draft of Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass that was approved by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board on August 8 is now available for public comment.

The draft Addendum VI is a simpler document, that proposes only a few basic changes to the striped bass management plan.  In essence, it asks only two questions: 

1)      Should fishery managers act to end overfishing? and

2)      Should circle hooks be required to reduce the number of bass that die after release?

Of course, Addendum IV is not that simply worded, and there are sub-options to be considered, which each bring their own subtle nuances to the debate.  So, given that the comment period on the addendum is now open, and will run through October 7, and given that the first public meeting on the topic will be held in Pennsylvania as soon as August 28 (which will be followed by a meeting in New Jersey on September 3, meetings in New York and New Jersey on September 4, and other meetings all along the striper coast that finally wind up in Maine and Massachusetts on October 2), it’s probably time to take a good look at the draft addendum and figure out the implications of the options and sub-options therein.

Whether and how to end overfishing

The recent benchmark stock assessment found that the stock was experiencing overfishing and Amendment 6 to the management plan requires that, when overfishing occurs, the management board must act to reduce fishing mortality to the target level within one year.

So the answer to whether the management board should end overfishing seems to be an unequivocal “yes.”

But at the ASMFC, it’s never quite that simple.  Unlike federal fishery managers, ASMFC is not bound by the conservation provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, including those that prohibit overfishing.  That’s why ASMFC’s tautog management plan can allow overfishing to continue in Long Island Sound until 2029, and face no legal consequences for doing so.  

Thus, there is at least a theoretical possibility that the management board could adopt Addendum VI’s Option 1, status quo, and make no changes to the management process.

It’s very, very unlikely that is going to happen.  I attended the August 8 management board meeting, and the atmosphere in the room was manifestly in favor of remedial action, even if there were a handful of commissioners who still seemed to be seeking ways to keep landings high.  Even so, there will be the usual folks from various fishing-related industries who, used to plucking dollars off the heads of dead bass, will be pushing hard for the status quo option.  

They may try to flood some of the meetings, particularly in Maryland and the upper Mid-Atlantic, which makes it particularly important for anglers concerned with the striped bass’ future to come out in big numbers to show their support for needed conservation measures.

If the meetings become far too unbalanced toward the status quo side, there remains an extremely remote, but nonetheless real, chance that the status quo option might win.

Assuming that nothing unexpected occurs, and Option 1 is rightfully ignored by the management board, the next choice is between Option 2, which shares the burden of reducing fishing mortality equally among all fishermen, or Option 3, which places a disproportionate share of that burden on the recreational sector.  

While the choice also seems obvious here, a little consideration of the logic between the two options is probably in order.

Option 2 requires both the recreational and the commercial sector to reduce fishing mortality by at least 18%, the minimum amount needed to have a 50% probability of reducing such mortality to the target level.  Because the benchmark stock assessment found that recreational fishermen were responsible for 90% of all fishing mortality in 2017, requiring both sectors to cut mortality by the same amount will mean that anglers will be responsible for 90% of the reduction, commercial fishermen for 10%.  

To see how this works, assume that fishing mortality is limited to 1000 fish.  Using 2017 fishing mortality estimates, anglers would have killed 900 of them, commercial fishermen would have killed 100.  If each sector then reduced mortality by 18%, anglers would have to reduce the number of fish that they killed by 162 (900 x 18%)  while commercial fishermen’s reduction would only be 18 (100 x 18%), making recreational fishermen responsible for 90% of the cut.

Option 3, on the other hand, uses a strange calculation that would only require commercial fishermen to reduce their fishing mortality by 1.8%, while anglers would be required to make a 20% reduction.  

While the Option 3’s impact on recreational anglers, compared to that of Option 2, is small, the policy of placing a disproportionate share of the conservation burden on one sector, when all sectors benefit from a healthy fish stock, is something that’s better avoided.  The draft Addendum 

VI explains that the 1.8% figure was derived by calculating

“the product of the percent total reductions needed (18%) and the proportion of 2017 removals from the commercial sector (10%).”

But that's a nonsensical approach.  If we analyze it using the same approach taken in the hypothetical example above, anglers would still have killed 900 fish in the base year, while commercial fishermen killed 100.  But under Option 3, anglers would have to reduce their contribution to fishing mortality by 180 (900 x 20%) fish, while commercial fishermen would only have to reduce their contribution by 1.8 (100 x 1.8%) bass.  

Thus, while commercial fishermen would have been responsible for 10% of the landings in 2017, they would only be required to shoulder 1% of the conservation burden.

That doesn’t make sense.

Draft Addendum VI tries to explain the disproportionate burdens by saying

“The rationale for this suite of options is the commercial fishery is managed via a static quota system which keeps effort and removals relatively constant from year to year, while the recreational management program does not have a harvest limit.  That has allowed recreational effort and, therefore, removals to increase with resource availability and other social and economic factors.”

While that explanation certainly reflects the feelings of Option 3’s proponents, and while it is true that ASMFC manages the recreational fishery without annual catch limits and without imposing any sort of accountability on anglers when they overfish, employing such a contrived and ultimately illogical calculation to shift the conservation burden is not the answer to the stated problem.

As I’ve noted on a number of occasions, the right thing to do is to impose annual catch limits and accountability measures on the recreational striped bass fishery, an action that is long overdue.

Thus, Option 2 is the preferable option to reduce fishing mortality.

That opens the door to another required decision:  Should the fishery be managed with a fixed size limit of 35 inches on the coast, and either 18 inches (with a 1-fish bag) or 22 inches (with a 2-fish bag) in Chesapeake Bay, or should managers instead adopt a slot limit that would prevent the harvest of the largest, most fecund females in the spawning stock?

Both approaches have their proponents. 

Those who prefer the 35-inch minimum size tend to argue that setting a size limit high enough to allow important year classes to enter the spawning stock more-or-less intact was the strategy that successfully brought the striped bass population back to health after it crashed in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and so has a time-tested history of success.

Those who prefer slot limits tend to point to their success in other fisheries, particularly southern fisheries for red drum and snook.  They also cite what they see as the obvious logic of protecting the biggest, most fecund females in the population.  

Having said that, there are undoubtedly others, particularly those who profit in some way from recreational striped bass landings, who like slots because there are a lot of smaller fish coming up from the successfully recruited 2011, 2014 and 2015 year classes, which will be passing through the proposed slot sizes, and will thus be available for harvest, for at least the next five or so years.

And that, in the end, may be the biggest problem with slots.  They focus recreational effort, or at least recreational harvest, on the big year classes that are critically important to the future health of the stock.  As noted in the draft Addendum VI,

“the long term conservation benefits of implementing slot limits (i.e., protecting older, larger fish) may not be realized if effort is concentrated on fish within the slot limit, thus reducing the number of fish that survive to grow out of the slot.  While the [Plan Development Team] expects fish larger than the slot limit will be protected, concentrating effort within the slot limit may reduce the number of fish that are able to grow out of the slot thus potentially reducing the population of larger, older fish over time.”

In addition, managers probably shouldn’t be so sanguine about a slot protecting the fish that have already grown above a slot’s upper limit.  Release mortality remains an issue in the recreational striped bass fishery, and striped bass anglers with any significant experience in the fishery will readily admit that larger bass are more difficult to release in good condition than are smaller fish, both because such fish are usually fought for a longer time, and so come to the boat or shore more exhausted than smaller individuals, and because many larger bass are caught on bait, which often involves fish being deeplyhooked in the gills or gut.

Fred Galofaro, Editor of the New York edition of The Fishermanmagazine, described the problem well when he wrote

“My concern given the disturbingly high mortality rate of released fish by recreational fishermen provided in the assessment, which claims 48 percent (a number I find tough to swallow) of striped bass mortality is attributed to fish released by recreational anglers, is the ability of those big fish to survive release under a wide range of circumstances.

“Assuming even half that mortality is attributed to recreational anglers, it is still way too high.  But the reality is that many fishing situations do not provide an opportunity to conduct a healthy release.  It is often necessary to revive big stripers before sending them on their way.  How do you do that when the surf is running three or four feet, or from a wave battered jetty, or from the deck of a party boat far above the waterline.  Throw in some warm water temperatures and that 30 or 40 pounder becomes a feast for the resident crab population.”

That makes a lot of sense to me.

Thus, between the uncertainty of whether slots might do harm by concentrating effort on a few important year classes, and so reduce the number of fish that enter the spawning stock, and the reality that requiring the release of big fish, under all circumstances, will probably lead to increased release mortality, I have to come down in favor of the larger minimum size, both on the coast and in Chesapeake Bay.

But having said that, I’d certainly rather see the management board adopt a slot than see them adopt no new restrictions at all.  

Of course, as mentioned above, a lot of the largest bass caught are caught on bait, and that means that a slot will probably lose much of its impact if gut-hooked fish must be returned to the water to die.  Thus, slots shouldn’t even be considered unless circle hooks are required for all bait fishing for striped bass.

Circle hooks

There is no question that circle hooks reduce the number of striped bass that die after being released.  The draft Addendum VI lists a number of studies that have demonstrated that fact.

Given that truth, it is difficult to understand why more states have not already required the use of circle hooks in striped bass bait fisheries.  Some anglers object to their use, arguing that they don’t work well with eels, or with sandworms, or with some other baits, but such arguments should bear little weight.  

Offshore anglers, recognizing the conservation benefits of circle hooks, have long used them when trolling baits for billfish such as sails and white marlin.  It took a while to develop rigging techniques appropriate to the circles, as they do behave differently than traditional J-hooks, but circle hooks are now regularly used by anglers pursing such species.  If circle hooks can be effectively used to catch the smaller billfish, which have hard, narrow mouths and tend to slash and grab at trolled baits, it’s difficult to believe that striped bass anglers can’t find new ways to rig eels and worms in a way that will allow them to easily hook a large-mouthed, relatively soft-mouthed suction feeder like the striped bass.

Yet, despite the clear benefits, it's likely that there will be oppositon to a mandatory circle hook requirement.  Nearly 20 years ago, when the ASMFC first started discussing the document that eventually became Amendment 6 to the management plan, I heard tackle shop owners object to mandatory circle hook requirements, and say that the managers’ emphasis should be on “education, not regulation,” and there is a provision in the draft addendum that reflects such a view.

But the educational process doesn’t seem to be going too well, for as recently as last June, I walked into shops to see fishermen buying treble hooks—not the weighted, snag-and-drop treble hooks, although they’re problematic, too, but small unweighted hooks in the #3/0 - #5/0 range--which they planned to use when live-lining bunker for bass. 

While that was a common practice years ago, given what we know today, it is inexcusably irresponsible.  

Education having failed, it is time to regulate the issue.  Option B, listed under Section 3.2 of the draft Addendum VI, is the right way to go.

In summary

The draft Addendum VI is not perfect.  We should all be disappointed that it makes no effort to rebuild the striped bass biomass within 10 years, as required by Amendment 6, and apparently leaves that task for a new amendment that, depending on how it is ultimately written, has the potential to harm, as well as to help, the future health of the stock.

Having said that, Addendum VI seems to provide an effective framework for ending overfishing and returning fishing mortality to target levels.  However, it is likely to face stiff opposition from some quarters of the fishing community, who will undoubtedly seek to block, water down or amend its provisions in a way that might harm the striped bass, and so the greater angling community, but help their bottom lines. 

Thus, it is vitally important that bass anglers concerned with the future of the stock turn out in high numbers at their states' striped bass meetings, to represent the striper’s best interests and, in doing so, represent their own best interests as well.