Thursday, November 11, 2021

CAMERAS KILL

 A few nights ago, my wife and I were having dinner with a couple we hadn’t seen since before the COVID pandemic blew up early last year.  I had known the other guy for quite a few years—from back in ’95 when a bunch of us tried to convince New York State not to liberalize its striped bass regulations too much or too soon.  He was a passionate and very capable surfcaster back then, and over the years has caught three or four over 50 from the beach, one of which might—probably would— have broken the 60-pound mark if it had been killed and put on a good scale instead of released.

He doesn’t fish the surf quite as aggressively now as he did in those years, but he still spends some time on the beach, and as we talked, he began talking about something he saw that bothered him quite a bit.

He had been fishing a Long Island inlet, and released a couple of bass, when quitting time came along.  As he was headed off the beach, something in the wash caught his eye.  It turned out to be a dead bass in the 40-pound range that hadn’t been dead for long.  He described it as “fresh as a daisy.”

It’s impossible to know how that fish died.  Fresh in the wash, it’s likely that it was caught and released by a surfcaster, although the possibility that it was caught in a boat, and died sometime after release can’t be discounted.  Maybe someone ignored the circle hook rules, and gut-hooked it on a chunk of bait, or engaged in some illegal snag-and-drop.

But if I had to bet, whether the fish was caught from beach or boat, I’d put my money on a camera being the instrument of that striper’s demise.

Because cameras kill.

It’s impossible to say how much it happens during the year, but the incidents aren’t rare:  Someone hooks a nice bass, and after an extended fight—just how extended depending on the gear used—the fish finally comes to hand, tired, its gills pulsing as it tries to drive oxygen into its blood.  At that point, it’s dragged out of the water, and…

“Hey, get the camera, I want a picture of this one…”

“Where is it?”

“It’s over there in the bag…Just use your phone…”

“OK, wait…I’ve got it over here, where it won’t get wet…

“Hold it up…OK…Got it…But that might not be good, better take another one…Hold your arms out some more…”

All the time, the bass’ gills are still working, futilely striving to draw wisps of oxygen out of the air.

“Maybe I ought to wash the sand [or blood, or whatever else] off, and take another one…”

“Got it…That’s good…You can let it go.”

“It’s not swimming too good.”

“Just move it around in the water to get some in its gills…Yeah, that’s pretty good.”

And then, as the released fish wobbles into the sea, moving slowly and not always upright,

“It’s swimming away…Yeah, it should live.”

And maybe it will, but the odds are pretty good that it won’t, and that at some point over the next couple of minutes, couple of hours, or couple of days, the “successfully released” bass will succumb to delayed mortality, and end up feeding the crabs and the gulls.  

The obsession with photographing just about every decent-sized bass before release is something that I’ve never understood.  For a novice angler, OK, he or she is excited, and wants to record the moment when a big fish is finally at hand.  But after spending some time and catching some fish, what’s the point of the photograph?  After all, the angler knows what they caught; they have the memories, and hopefully have grown enough confidence as a fisherman that they don’t need to seek others’ approval.

Taking pictures of a fish—bass or any other—that are killed and taken home is one thing, but risking the death of a fish that is later released, just to take a photo, is unacceptable behavior.

Released striped bass have a better chance of survival if they are hooked in the mouth rather than in the gut, and if they are fought on tackle heavy enough to bring them to hand quickly.  The State of Connecticut offers a number of suggestions to increase survival, including

“Ideally, keep the fish in the water to reduce stress and the potential for injury.  [emphasis added]”

“If a fish must be removed from the water, handle it as little as possible, and release it quickly.”

“If you need to lift a striped bass, hold it horizontally by gripping the lower jaw and supporting its weight under the belly.”

“Avoid touching the eyes and gills.”

None of those are compatible with the typical striped bass photo.

In just about all of them, the fish is out of the water.  The very act of taking the photo keeps the fish out of the water longer than it would be if merely unhooked and released.  While some show anglers holding bass horizontally, as they should, far too many show the fish in the traditional pose, hanging from the angler’s hand on its jaw or, far worse, shoved into its gills.

Yet, particularly in this age of social media show-and-tell, an unfortunately large number of anglers feel the need to demonstrate their prowess by posting photos of fish handled in just that fashion, without knowing and/or without caring that their actions are killing fish.

It's not unusual for photos posted by charter boats to show multiple above-the-slot-limit bass being held by multiple anglers at the same time.  It’s highly unlikely that all of those fish came aboard at exactly the same time; more likely, after a multiple hookup, the first fish landed was left on the deck until the last one came aboard, the pictures were taken, and the fish returned to the water, where some do and many don’t survive.

But a few dead bass are a price that many are willing to pay to promote their charter businesses.

Such irresponsible fish handling, born out of an obsession for photographs, is largely the fault of the angler, but regulators need to accept some responsibility, too.

When the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board adopted Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan in 2019, it ignored the majority of comments made by stakeholders, who preferred a 35-inch minimum size, and instead decided that a 28- to 35-inch slot limit was the best way to reduce recreational fishing mortality. 

While Amendment VI accounts for the release mortality of out-of-slot fish, such release mortality is calculated at the generally accepted 9% rate, which has been largely validated in studies conducted by at least three different states.  However, in those state studies, while striped bass were hooked, landed, and released by researchers who handled fish in approximately the same manner that anglers would, in none of them were the larger bass held out of the water for extended periods, in various positions, while the researcher posed for photos.

There is little doubt that, if such photo sessions were added to the next release mortality study, the mortality rate would go up.  That’s something that wasn’t considered when Addendum VI was adopted.

The ASMFC had a chance to correct that omission while preparing the initial draft of the pending Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass.  Unfortunately, the Plan Development Team decided not to include an option that would have required larger bass to be released without removing them from the water. 

In omitting that option, the Plan Development Team reasoned that people would need to measure fish to determine whether they fell into the slot, or were too large and must be released, and such measuring would require the fish to be taken out of the water.  The problem was that the PDT wasn’t creative enough in its thinking; it would have been a simple matter to require all bass over, say, 40 or 42 inches to be released in the water, while allowing smaller fish to be measured in a boat or on land.  A 5- or a 7-inch gap between the top end of the slot and the minimum size for in-water release would have left plenty of margin for error, while still requiring the biggest—and most likely to be photographed—fish to be kept wet throughout the release process.

The PDT was also concerned that in-water release would increase the chance that anglers would be injured while letting bass go, but that’s likely an overwrought fear.  After all, the National Marine Fisheries Service already requires the in-water release of recreationally-caught tuna, sharks, and billfish, and such fish are certainly larger, more difficult to handle, and caught in far rougher seas than a big, but toothless and docile, striped bass.

Thus, the responsibility falls solely on anglers to do the right thing.

And in the case of the already overfished striped bass, the right thing means handling every fish in a way that maximizes its survival and its future contribution to the spawning stock.

That means saying no to cameras, unless used to photograph the fish in the water during the course of a speedy release.

For if used any other way, cameras will just keep on killing the very big female bass that we can least afford to lose.

 

 

 

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