STRIPED BASS AMENDMENT 7--NAVIGATING THE PID: PART V, RELEASE MORTALITY, REGIONAL MANAGEMENT, AND A FEW RANDOM THOUGHTS

This final installment of my five-part series on the Public Information Document for Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass (PID) will take a look at a few unrelated aspects of the PID, each of which is important, but none of which require a long enough discussion to warrant an entire edition of One Angler’s Voyage.  We’ll start with the one that has been getting the most attention:  recreational release mortality.

Dead is dead (Issue 7:  Recreational Release Mortality)

As most readers know, before beginning to draft the PID, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board created a so-called “Work Group,” and tasked it with making some broad recommendations about the issues that should be addressed in the proposed Amendment 7 to the ASMFC’s striped bass management plan.

The Work Group’s report was released ahead of the Management Board’s August 2020 meeting, and many striped bass anglers were probably surprised when it revealed that

“Multiple members of the [Work Group] indicated that recreational dead discards may be the single most important issue at this time, and addressing (or reducing discards) is [sic] the most important action that can be taken going forward.  Many [Work Group] members pointed to the fact that recreational discards accounted for just under 50% of the fishing mortality as basis for the critical need to address this issue.  Others noted that, particularly in states with primarily catch and release fisheries, the Board is running out of ways to control removals in the fishery.”

Let’s think about that paragraph for a minute, because it probably says a lot more about the mindset of some, perhaps even most, Work Group members than it does about the problems currently afflicting the striped bass stock.

First and foremost, we must never forget that the striped bass stock is now overfished.  Because of that, to me, and to most striped bass fishermen, “the single most important issue at this time,” and “the most important action that can be taken going forward” is rebuilding the female spawning stock biomass to the target level.

Reducing recreational release mortality is certainly one step toward achieving that goal.  But reducing recreational landings, reducing commercial landings, and reducing commercial discards, which collectively account for greater fishing mortality than recreational releases, would also greatly facilitate rebuilding.

Even if we just looked at landings, we see that recreational landings, which account for 42% of striped bass mortality, and commercial landings, which account for 8%, result in fully 50% of all striped bass killed, a bit more than can be blamed on recreational releases.  Based on that alone, it would seem that reducing striped bass landings should be at least as important an issue as reducing release mortality.

But that’s clearly not how the Management Board sees things.

Its original draft of Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan, which was supposed to reduce fishing mortality to the target level, had only a 50% probability of achieving that goal.  And the Management Board was so fixated on maintaining landings at as high a level as possible, particularly in New Jersey and Maryland, that the version of Addendum VI that it finally adopted has a 58% probability of failure.

Yet somehow, according to the Work Group, recreational release mortality is the problem.  The higher level of mortality resulting from recreational and commercial landings apparently isn’t viewed as a problem at all.

Perhaps that’s why the Work Group came up with the puzzling statement that “in states with primarily catch and release fisheries, the Board is running out of ways to control removals.”

First of all, all states’ striped bass fisheries are primarily catch and release.  While the precise numbers change from year to year and from state to state, Marine Recreational Information Program data shows that for the years 2015-2019 (reliable 2020 data isn’t available thanks to COVID-19), anglers in every state released more than 80% of the bass that they caught.  The lowest release rate was, not surprisingly, in New Jersey, where anglers still returned 81% of their bass to the water.  The only other states with release rates under 90% were Maryland and New York, where only 89% of all striped bass states were let go.

Thus, trying to distinguish states with “primarily catch and release fisheries” from other jurisdictions is an effort to find a distinction that doesn’t really exist.  

Yes, catch and release may be more intensely practiced in New England, where release rates run from 95% (Massachusetts) to nearly 99% (Maine), but with the over-all release rate approximating 92%, all state recreational striped bass fisheries are primarily catch and release fisheries.

In fact, the estimated mortality rate of recreationally-released striped bass, 9%, is fairly low, lower than the release mortality rate for other recreationally-important species such as bluefish (15%), summer flounder (10%), scup (15%), or black sea bass (15%).  Yet, because anglers catch a lot of striped bass, and because the striped bass fishery is primarily a recreational, catch-and-release fishery, that 9%, spread out over millions of fish, eventually adds up to a big number.

But the fact that the number is big doesn’t mean that it’s bad.  One out of approximately every eleven striped bass released, one bass dies.  So does every bass that an angler puts in a cooler.  From a biological perspective, every dead striped bass is the same.

Dead fish don’t contribute to the spawning stock.  Whether they are intentionally killed and eaten, intentionally killed and eventually dumped after spending too long in the freezer, or die after being released, a dead bass is a dead bass.

Biologically, no death is somehow “better” than another.  

Yet to most fisheries managers, reducing mortality from the catch-and-release fishery, in order to increase permissible landings, is somehow a more important endeavor than reducing landings in order to provide greater abundance for the catch-and-release fishermen.  It is a pro-harvest bias that’s very apparent on the Management Board, but it makes little sense, for if the striped bass stock was managed for maximum economic return, it would be managed for the greatest abundance, not for the highest possible yields.

The relationship between abundance and recreational fishing effort, and so economic benefits from the fishery, is clear.  In 1985, when the stock was collapsed and rebuilding had just gotten underway, Atlantic Coast anglers took about 1.3 million directed striped bass trips.  Just one decade later, when the stock was declared rebuilt, that number increased tenfold, to 13 million trips.  Spawning stock biomass peaked in 2003, when 22 million directed striped bass trips were taken.  Abundance then began to decline, although there were still enough bass, particularly larger bass, around to keep angler interest high; recreational effort didn’t peak until 2008, with 26 million directed trips.

But after that, the decline in striped bass abundance disuaded anglers from fishing.  2012 trips fell to 2003 levels, and fell farther, to 17 million trips, in 2017.  That declined to a little under 16 million trips in 2019, when the stock was declared to be overfished.

In the context of managing for renewed abundance, and maximum economic benefit, rather than for yield, the Work Group’s comment that “the Board is running out of ways to control removals in the fishery” is patently untrue.  

Removals could be reduced by narrowing the current 28- to 35-inch slot; if a 30- to 35-inch slot were in place for 2021, it would have offered more protection to the upcoming 2015 year class, and certainly reduced landings.  A 35-inch minimum size, rejected in Addendum VI, would also probably reduce removals.  So would seasons, although they would also limit angler effort, and should be seen as a last resort.

But the bottom line is that managers still have multiple options for further limiting removals, if that’s what they decide to do.

As sportsmen and conservationists, we have an obligation to try to minimize release mortality.  Good release practices, the use of adequate tackle, and not using J-hooks when fishing with bait are all means to achieve that goal.  However, the most important issue in striped bass management today is rebuilding the stock, and to do that, fishing mortality from all sources, including but not limited to recreational release mortality, must be reduced, to or below the target level.  But recreational fishing mortality poses no more threat to the bass than does recreational and commercial landings.

A bridge too far (Issue 5:  Regional Management)

The PID asks

“Should separate regional management programs be pursued for the Chesapeake Bay and the ocean region, which includes the Delaware Bay/Hudson River stock complex?”

The most recent benchmarks stock assessment answers that question with a resounding "No!", saying

“the [peer review panel] concluded that the two stock model was not acceptable to serve as a basis for fishery management advice.’

It’s not that managing striped bass on a stock-by-stock basis is impossible, or a bad idea, or will never be done.  Biologists recently completed a comprehensive DNA study on the composition of the striped bass population, and identified six genetically distinct groups of fish between Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence and North Carolina.  The basis for regional management is being developed.

However, scientists still lack a reliable, peer-reviewed population model that will allow them to manage striped bass regionally.  Perhaps such a model will be developed in time for the next benchmark assessment, which we’ll probably see in 2025.  Perhaps it will take a little longer to put one together. 

Right now we just don’t know.

But what we do know is that no such model currently exists. 

Thus, the management measures contained in Amendment 7 should not be allowed to outrun the best available science.  Once a reliable regional stock assessment model has been designed and passes peer review, the Management Board might consider regional management.  Until the science underlying a regional management approach has been developed, reviewed and found adequate, regional management should not be considered viable, and a regional management approach should not be a part of Amendment 7.

Final thoughts on the PID

The Management Board’s sole reason for being is to conserve and manage the striped bass stock.  Thus, maintaining the long-term health and sustainability of that stock must be the Management Board's overriding priority, and eclips all other concerns.

Prioritizing management stability and flexibility is not consistent with the Management Board’s primary obligation to the public and to the striped bass resource. 

While management stability is a desirable objective, it must yield to concerns about the health of the stock; efforts to maintain stability must never compromise, to any degree, the sustainability of the resource.  The marine environment is inherently unstable, and in a constant state of flux.  The Management Board must at all times stand ready to adjust management measures in response to such changing conditions and the changing needs of the striped bass.

In all cases, the resource must come first.

Because it doesn't, in any way, benefit the striped bass resource, “flexibility,” which serves as a euphemism for inaction and/or undermining the effectiveness of needed management measures, is anathema to good striped bass management.  

Contrasting the success of the notoriously “inflexible” federal fishery management system with the ASMFC’s long track record of failure, overfishing, and overfished stocks provides more than ample evidence that flexibility is a bad idea.

As it moves forward with Amendment 7, the Management Board must achieve one task above all:  Rebuild the female spawning stock biomass to the current target level, and do so within no more than ten years.

Doing anything else would amount to nothing less than a dereliction of the Management Board’s duties to the public and the resource, and would represent just one more failure to be laid at the door of the ASMFC.