BETWEEN NOW AND DECEMBER: STRIPED BASS MANAGEMENT IN 2025

 

About 10 days ago, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board met, and decided to do something to make it more likely that the stock will rebuild by 2029.  What that something will be isn’t yet clear—because there is so much uncertainty surrounding the level of catch reductions that will be needed to make rebuilding likely, the Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee wasn’t able to come up with management suggestions until the Management Board decided which of five possible scenarios it deemed the most probable.

Once the Management Board selected their preferred scenario, the Management Board would be able to recommend a suite of management measures likely to achieve the associated reduction. 

In the end, the Management Board agreed with the Technical Committee, which advised that the most likely scenario—emphasis on the “most likely,” as there is still significant uncertainty that something different, to a greater or lesser degree, might ultimately emerge—is that the fishing mortality rate will be relatively low in 2024, will increase somewhat as the slightly above-average 2018 year class, which for the most part is still below the 28- to 31-inch coastal recreational slot limit this year, grows into the slot in 2025, and then will fall back to the lower, 2024 fishing mortality rate after most of the 2018s grow out of the slot in 2026.

The Management Board will now have to meet again in December to decide what the 2025 management measures will be.

Its preferred scenario theoretically calls for a 14.5 percent reduction in landings to make timely rebuilding probable but, like so many things associated with striped bass this year, the magnitude of the needed reduction is…uncertain.

The uncertainty stems from the fact that Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass was just adopted last January, with its provisions becoming effective early last spring, so the Technical Committee really doesn’t have any clear guidance as to how Addendum II is impacting fishing mortality.

It does know that recreational catch and landings are down so far this year.

Between March and August 2023, recreational fishermen caught about 13.5 million striped bass, and took about 1.5 million of them home; this year, during the same six-month period, anglers caught only about 10.5 million striped bass and landed fewer than 900,000, reductions of 22 percent and 40 percent, respectively.  If that level of reductions does not increase during the last four months of the year, the fishing mortality rate for 2024 will be about 0.13, well below the fishing mortality target of 0.17, and almost low enough to have as 50% chance of rebuilding the stock with no changes at all.

On the other hand, there is good reason to believe that the fishing mortality rate will increase in 2025, as the 2018 year class grows into the slot.  Such mortality spiked in 2022, when the big 2015 year class was seven years old, and managers were faced with a scenario similar to the one that they face today; 2021 fishing mortality was low enough to rebuild the stock under then-current management measures, so the the 2022 spike caught many by surprise.  Now, informed by that experience, and knowing that the 2018 year class is much smaller than the 2015, just a bit above average, the Technical Committee doesn’t believe that the fishing mortality increase in 2025 will be quite as large.

But they can’t know that for certain.

A lot of things contribute to the size of each year’s harvest.  The availability of harvestable fish is certainly one of those things, but it is not the only factor.  While there is a large group of anglers who dedicate most of their fishing time to chasing striped bass, there are also quite a few who are generalists, and move in and out of the fishery as the fortunes of other species wax or wane.  The angler seeking to just catch of fish of any kind, or put some fish in their cooler, might target striped bass if a legal bass was easier to find than, perhaps, an equivalent amount of sea bass, bluefish or summer flounder, or if he could catch such bass closer to home, or at less expense, than fish of other species.  On the other hand, if such alternative species were readily available, anglers might be more inclined to target them than the less predictable stripers.

Weather can play a role, either keeping anglers locked up inside or enticing them to spend time on the water.  Economic issues can come into play, particularly in the case of the for-hire fishery, while the cost of fuel, if it gets too high, can keep private boat anglers ashore.  And bass may be more or less catchable, depending on the presence of bait, water temperatures, water clarity, and similar factors.

The Technical Committee has no way of accurately predicting such things; it can only look to past years for guidance, and hope that current patterns of angler behavior more-or-less mimic the past.

Against that background of uncertainty, the Technical Committee will have until the December Management Board meeting to come up with a proposed set of management measures.

What will they be?

Given that all striped bass anglers, whether fishing in the ocean or in the Chesapeake Bay, may only keep one bass per day, and that the slot size limits are fairly narrow, spanning just 28 to 31 inches in the ocean and 19 to 24 inches in the bay, reducing the bag limit is impossible, and narrowing the slots won’t be easy to do.  That would seem to make some sort of closed season the most attractive alternative.

However, seasons are complicated.  There is no one-size-fits all.  A closure at the start of the season, in April or May, or perhaps at the end in November and December, might achieve the needed reduction in New York, New Jersey, or Maryland, but probably wouldn’t accomplish much in New Hampshire or Maine.  Similarly, closing part of the summer fishery would impact New England, but might not do much in the Chesapeake Bay, where warm water and existing closures already limit the catch.  Season length also has a disparate impact on different states; the northern New England states have to pack all of their fishing into a handful of months, while seasons farther south can run for most of the year, so a 30-day closure would have a much greater impact in Maine than it would in Maryland.

Thus, seasons would probably have to be imposed on a regional basis, but what should such regions be?  Here in New York, for example, we live and fish at the intersection of New England and the mid-Atlantic region, and our fisheries don’t exactly align with either one.  Out on Long Island’s East End, our calendar looks much like Rhode Island’s with runs peaking a little later in the spring/early summer and a little earlier in the fall than they do in the New York Bight or in western Long Island Sound, where Connecticut and New Jersey appear better partners.  But if Connecticut is paired with New York and perhaps New Jersey, where does Rhode Island fit in?  Maybe it makes sense to group it with Connecticut, too, but then, how about where it abuts Massachusetts?

Judgement calls and compromise will obviously come into play.

Then there is what may be the most contentious issue of all:  Should any closed seasons merely prohibit harvest, or should catch-and-release also be banned?

In theory, a no-targeting closure could be shorter than one that merely prohibits landings, as release mortality would also be suppressed.  But would it work that way in the real world? 

Perhaps not.  There would certainly be enforcement problems.

Last spring, the Management Board appointed a Work Group to look into ways to reduce recreational release mortality.  When the Work Group report was presented at the October meeting, it was noted that the National Marine Fisheries Service has prohibited targeting striped bass in federal waters for about 30 years, yet in all that time, NMFS could not cite a single occasion when an angler was successfully prosecuted for doing so, unless there was a bass in the boat.  Similarly, although a number of states have limited no-targeting closures in place, none could cite a successful prosecution that did not involve a bass in possession.

It is all too easy for an angler to target striped bass while claiming to target bluefish, weakfish, red drum, or white perch, while it is nearly impossible to prove to a judge, beyond a reasonable doubt, that such angler was violating a no-target regulation.

Still, some Management Board members seem to want to put no-targeting seasons in place.  They include Adam Nowalsky, New Jersey’s Legislative Proxy, who has in the past complained that harvest reductions, unaccompanied by restrictions on catch-and-release, unfairly target the for-hire fleet and other catch-and-kill fisheries.  On several occasions during the October meeting, he made a point of asking whether such closures might be considered in December.

Emerson Hasbrouck, the Governor’s Appointee from New York, has close ties to the commercial and for-hire fisheries, and has always seemed somewhat averse to the interests of the surf and private sector anglers, particularly those who release their fish.  Like Nowalsky, he has been a past supporter of no-targeting closures, seemingly believing that allowing catch-and-release is unfair to his commercial and for-hire constituency and, at the October meeting, repeatedly asked questions intended to ensure that the topic comes up in December.

So even if closed seasons turn out to be the Management Board’s preferred way to achieve the needed reduction, the debate over how such seasons should be structured is likely to be very contentious.

Is it possible that the Board will choose to forego seasons and instead shift the coastal slot limit downward, to minimize removals from the 2018 year class?  While the answer to that question is yes, and it seems to make sense that, if the goal is protecting the 2018s, the best way to do that is to shield the entire cohort from the recreational fishery, that might be easier to say than to do.

The 28-inch size limit, whether used as a minimum size or the lower end of a slot limit, has been in place since 1995, so the Technical Committee has a good understanding of the role fish of that size play in recreational landings.  But except for New Jersey’s so-called “bonus” fishery, in which anglers are allowed to fish on that state’s commercial quota and target bass between 24 and 28 inches long, and except for a slot limit in Maine that allowed the recreational harvest of fish no larger than 26 inches, which was abolished in 2015, there is no data that might help the Technical Committee calculate how many sub-28 inch bass might be kept by anglers.

Would the ability to catch a smaller bass bring more anglers into the fishery?  Or would the small year classes produced, beginning in 2019, lead to such a dearth of smaller fish that fewer anglers would try to catch them?  While such smaller slot would do the best job of protecting the 2018s, it could also lead to an overall reduction that was far larger, or perhaps a little smaller, than the 14.5 percent that appears to be the current goal. 

Changing the slot size would also make it more difficult for the Technical Committee to determine how many bass would be caught because the current “selectivity curve,” which indicates the proportion of different-aged bass that would probably be caught in the fishery, is based on the current size limits.  Changing the slot limit would change the selectivity of both the recreational and commercial fisheries, and leave biologists in about the position that they suffer in today, with the new size limits ushered in by Addendum II blurring the selectivity assumptions made in previous years.

While such considerations will probably lead managers to disfavor a new slot, if it gets enough support, it might well get another look.

Which leads to the final point of this essay—public input.

There will not be a series of public hearings before the December Management Board meeting, as there are when addendums are drafted, so stakeholders won’t find it easy to comment on possible management measures, although it is possible that the ASMFC will be able to schedule a webinar or two, where public comment will be entertained.

There probably will be a meeting of the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Advisory Panel, but the panel’s makeup doesn’t reflect the makeup of the striped bass fishing community; it provides commercial and for-hire interests with greater representation than they enjoy in the real world, and their comments comprise a far greater share of the AP comments than their typical share of the comments associated with public outreach.

Many states will also reach out to stakeholders, in either a formal or informal context.  But in that case, there is always the risk that the people the states reach out to will represent particular interest groups—commercial fishermen, for-hires, tackle dealers and such—and their comment will not accurately reflect overall stakeholder sentiment.

So it is important that anglers concerned about the striped bass’ future take the initiative, and provide their state fishery managers, and their ASMFC representatives, with input on the sort of management measures that they’d like to see, and the sort of measures that they oppose.  Comments need not be long, although logically presented arguments, based on facts and made respectfully, are always the best way to go.

A list of the ASMFC representatives, along with contact information for the members of each state’s delegation, can be found at https://asmfc.org/about-us/commissioners.

It doesn’t take long to make your thoughts known, and there can be real consequences if too many people, though concerned with the bass’ fate, keep their thoughts to themselves.