An operational stock assessment, released in August 2019 (Bluefish Assessment) advised that bluefish are overfished.
In response, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council
(Council), in conjunction with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries
Commission’s (ASMFC) Bluefish Management Board (Bluefish Board), is preparing a Bluefish Allocation and
Rebuilding Amendment (Rebuilding Amendment). Pursuant to the
provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act, that amendment must be implemented
by the fall of 2021, and must rebuild the bluefish stock to its biomass target
within ten years after implementation.
East Coast anglers had noticed a decline in the number of
bluefish over the past few years, but many were still surprised by the Bluefish
Assessment’s conclusions, as recreational fishermen account
for most of the bluefish landings, and anglers release about two-thirds of the bluefish that
they catch.
Yet one of the curious
features of the bluefish management plan is that anglers are effectively
penalized for releasing fish.
In most fisheries, anglers release all or part of their catch in
order to help conserve heavily fished species, and maintain or even increase
abundance. But in the current bluefish management
plan, if anglers don’t harvest their entire quota, the Council and
Bluefish Board may agree to transfer that unharvested quota to the commercial
sector.
Thus, in the bluefish
fishery, catch-and-release doesn’t accomplish its intended goal; fish released
by anglers don’t necessarily lead to increased abundance, but merely to a
larger commercial kill.
Many anglers had hoped that the Rebuilding Amendment might
change that strange situation. They argued that a fishery dominated by
recreational fishermen, who released the greater share of their catch, should
be managed for abundance, and not for yield. That argument appears to have
fallen on deaf ears. When the Council and Bluefish Board met
on May 6, 2020 to consider options that should appear in the
Rebuilding Amendment, they did not include an option that would end the
transfer of recreational quota to the commercial sector.
The only consideration they
gave to the release fishery came in the form of an option that would allocate
bluefish based on catch, rather than on landings, but even that concession was
illusory. The option defines “catch” as a combination of landings and dead
discards, which amount to about 15 percent of all releases, but omits all
bluefish that anglers catch which subsequently survive release. Even if the
option is adopted, and anglers receive a larger share of the overall quota, the
end result will remain the same, for unless anglers kill their entire
allocation, unharvested bluefish quota may still be transferred to the
commercial sector.
The Council and Bluefish
Board never seemed to acknowledge, or even accept, the value of the catch and
release fishery, even though such fishery provides real recreational and
economic benefits. By reducing the number of fish killed on any given trip,
anglers can spend more time on the water, without overfishing the stock. And
the more time anglers stay on the water, the more money they’ll spend on
fishing.
Saltwater fishery managers
just seem oblivious to such benefits. They focus solely on harvest, and
maximizing each year’s yield.
In freshwater, things are
very different.
The rivers that flow through New
York’s Catskill Mountains are some of the most revered trout
streams in the world. They receive heavy angling pressure. And in many portions
of them, catch and release is the rule, and anglers aren’t allowed to keep any
fish at all. In other places, harvest is permitted, but discouraged by both
anglers and fishery managers.
A sign on the Delaware River
expresses the prevailing attitude. It reads:
This River is Not Stocked! This
is a wild fishery, which means all trout are spawned and grow to catchable size
within the river system. It takes several years under widely varying and
adverse conditions for a trout to grow to large size. Obviously and most
importantly, every trout that is killed is one that will never spawn again.
Please respect this as a top-notch sport fishery and not as a food supply. By
practicing catch-and-release you are doing your part to keep this unique
fishery excellent.
The river’s trout anglers
generally respect that sentiment. As a result of the catch-and-release policy,
whether it is legally or culturally enforced, the Delaware watershed holds many
large trout, and hosts a correspondingly large number of anglers, who fish the
river from spring through the fall, and provide substantial benefit to a region
that would otherwise be dependent on hardscrabble farms, a waning resort
industry and a ski industry that is already feeling the effects of warming
winter weather.
Yes, there are anglers who aren’t happy with catch-and-release
fisheries, who rue the lack of stocked fish, and who even, at times, poach some
large fish from a no-kill section of river. But on the whole, New York’s
freshwater fisheries managers appreciate the impact of catch-and-release
fishing on trout and other fish populations. The state’s fresh water fishing regulations
guide lists over 100 different waters where only
catch-and-release fishing is allowed, at least for some species.
New York’s freshwater fishing
guide even goes so far as to advise anglers that, “Although a good fish dinner
can be the climax of a great fishing trip, more and more anglers have come to
realize that quality fish populations can only be maintained if catch and
release angling is practiced. This is particularly the case for large gamefish
that are typically rare in a population and usually take an extended time to
grow to a quality size.”
States don’t make similar efforts to promote catch-and-release
in saltwater fisheries. The benefits of catch-and-release apply to those
fisheries, too, where overharvest can also frustrate efforts to maintain
quality fish populations and eliminate most of the so-called “BOFFFs,” the ” Big, Old, Fat, Fecund, Female” fish that are critical to
maintaining a sustainable spawning stock. Yet, except in the case of fish with
little or no table value, such as Florida tarpon,
saltwater managers rarely if ever manage fisheries for catch-and-release.
Instead, the emphasis is
always on maintaining landings at the highest level that can be prudently
maintained and, often, a bit beyond that.
Bluefish may be the most blatant example of such
harvest-oriented approach, given the quota transfer provision in the management
plan, but the pro-harvest philosophy affects many different species. We see it
in the striped bass fishery, where recreational fishermen account for 90 percent of all fishing
mortality, and about 90 percent of anglers’ catch is
released.
Such a fishery would seem to
be a prime candidate for catch-and-release oriented management, but that’s not
what we see at the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board (Bass Board).
While some Bass Board members are very conservation-minded, others still cling
to the goal of maximizing the kill.
At the October 2016 Bass Board meeting,
after a stock assessment update indicated that fishing mortality was very
slightly below the fishing mortality target, some Bass Board members
immediately attempted to relax striped bass regulations in order to increase
landings, even though the female spawning stock biomass remained below the
target level.
Even after a more recent benchmark stock
assessment found the striped bass stock to be both overfished
and subject to overfishing, there was resistance to limiting harvest. In
Maryland, managers went so far as to
eliminate the spring catch-and-release season, so that anglers
fishing from for-hire vessels may continue to keep two bass per day, when every
other angler on the entire East Coast is subject to a one-fish bag limit;
Maryland regulations also include a so-called “trophy” season that targets the
largest, most fecund females, fish that are off-limits to anglers everywhere
else.
Once again, harvest was given
priority, even over a recreational catch-and-release fishery that anglers had
enjoyed for years.
A long time ago, freshwater
fisheries managers began distinguishing between “panfish” such as perch,
sunfish, and bullheads, which are abundant, fecund, and caught primarily for
personal consumption, and “gamefish” such as trout, muskellunge, and the
various black bass which, while they can be eaten, are pursued primarily for
sport. Regulations have long reflected that distinction, managing panfish for
yield, and gamefish for abundance and recreational opportunity.
Saltwater fisheries have yet
to recognize the difference between panfish and gamefish, and use the same
management approach for striped bass, bluefish, and weakfish as they use to
manage panfish such as flounder, snapper, and croaker.
It is well past time for that
to change.
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