STRIIPED BASS: "SUCH A SOLID FALL RUN"

For last Thursday’s edition of this blog, I put up a post describing the issues that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board will be considering when it meets on December 16, and suggested some themes for comments that stakeholders might wish to submit to the Management Board ahead of next Tuesday’s deadline.

The post drew a few comments, the majority of which seemed to question whether any further management action was needed, because from what the commenters saw, the bass stock appeared to be healthy.  One commenter wrote

“The past fall run has proved to me that the fishery is strong and robust…Countless bass gorging on sand eels and bunkers.  Acres and acres of fish.  Last year I did not land one school nor one slot fish.  Something is going right.”

Another wrote,

“I as many on LongIsland [sic] have experienced a very strong fall run of striped bass…I am a true believer that the slot law is working.”

A third noted that

“It was a terrific year for striped bass fishing.  Contrary to the last couple of years, I was able to land more than my share of slot sized fish this year, with leads me to believe that the limits that have been imposed have worked to help revive the striped bass population,”

while a fourth simply said,

“Such a solid fall run…It was a great fishing run with my family.  What a great season.”

The truth is that those anglers are right:  There was a great fall run of striped bass off western Long Island this year.  And the truth is that those anglers are wrong, when they try to extrapolate from their very successful fall season off Long Island, to reach the conclusion that there were plenty of bass everywhere.

That’s just not the case.  The striped bass stock remains overfished, and is facing some serious challenges.

It turned out that one of the anglers who commented on the post is a friend, who runs his boat out of Fire Island Inlet, New York, just as I do.  He had a great fall season, and is having a hard time believing that the striped bass stock is not doing well.  

In response to his comments, I referenced an old fable that I had learned as a child, which spoke of six elderly blind men who were extremely curious about elephants, but were never able to see one because of their blindness.

According to the fable, the blind men were eventually led to the palace of the Rajah, where they would be able to approach an elephant and, because they could not see the creature, touch it to determine its nature.  When the opportunity finally arose,

“The first blind man reached out and touched the side of the huge animal.  ‘An elephant is smooth and solid like a wall,’ he declared.  ‘It must be very powerful.’

“The second blind man put his hand on the elephant’s limber trunk.  ‘An elephant is like a giant snake,’ he announced.

“The third blind man felt the elephant’s pointed tusk.  ‘I was right,’ he decided.  ‘This creature is as sharp and deadly as a spear.’

“The fourth blind man touched one of the elephant’s four legs.  ‘What we have here,’ he said, ‘is an extremely large cow.’

“The fifth blind man felt the elephant’s giant ear.  ‘I believe an elephant is like a huge fan or maybe a magic carpet that can fly over mountains and treetops,’ he said.

“The sixth blind man gave a tug on the elephant’s coarse tail.  ‘Why, this is nothing more than a piece of old rope.  Dangerous, indeed,’ he scoffed.”

Each of the blind men having perceived one part of the elephant, and certain that their perception disclosed the elephant’s true nature, they each began to argue about what an elephant was really like, rejecting the views of the others.  Their argument grew quite clamorous, until finally,

“’Stop shouting!’ came a very angry voice.

“It was the Rajah, awakened from his nap by the noisy argument.

“’How can each of you be so certain that you are right?’ asked the ruler.

“The six blind men considered the question.  And then, knowing the Rajah to be a very wise man, they decided to say nothing at all.

“’The elephant is a very large animal,’ said the Rajah kindly.  ‘Each man touched only one part.  Perhaps if you put the parts together, you will see the truth.  Now, let me finish my nap in peace.’”

That fable’s teachings are applicable to many situations, including perceptions of the striped bass stock, which is very large—even overfished, its spawning stock biomass at the end of 2023 was estimated to be 86,536 metric tons, or slightly over 190 million pounds—and ranges from North Carolina to Maine, with a handful of fish even straggling up into Canadian waters.

So while fishermen off Long Island undoubtedly experienced very good fishing this fall, their perceptions were very limited in time and place.  The popular striped bass website Stripers Online hosts a series of chat boards, including one dedicated to Connecticut anglers which features a thread titled “stripers in CT this year….” which sees Connecticut anglers reporting their very different perceptions of the fishery.  The leadoff post reads,

“this was without question the worst season I’ve ever had fishing for bass…talking to others seems to reinforce my experience.”

I grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, and still go back to my old home waters to fish with a friend every year.  One of my favorite times is late summer, which typically sees a short but intense pencil popper bite occur right at first light.  But this year, that bite didn’t happen, and it really wasn’t worth my time to drive up to Connecticut at all.  Thus, I wasn’t surprised to see others who fish there make comments such as

“Same here.  Bass fishing sucked for me this year,”

“I wish this were a fluke but the steady deterioration is in its 5^th yr at least.  Each yr is a little worse,”

“It has been the worst year I’ve had in several years…The fall was the Nail in the coffin for me with only one good week in early October…Since then it has been skunk city with a few rats under the birds here and there,”

and

“The locations that I would normally fish this time of year that would be stacked up thick with schoolies are empty…It has been going downhill for years and this year is worse.”

Clearly, those Connecticut anglers didn’t touch the same part of the elephant as folks fishing off western Long Island, even though the two areas are not all that far away from one another.  Anglers fishing other areas of the coast also have divergent perceptions of the health of the striped bass stock.

So how do we—all “blind men” in that we only see a piece of the overall whole—gain a full picture of the striped bass stock?

The answer, of course, is by using science and analyzing data, to create a factually unbiased view of the entire striped bass population, throughout its various peregrinations between nursery grounds and summering areas, and between coastal rivers and the waters of the continental shelf. 

When it comes to the health of the striped bass stock, the primary scientific documents are the benchmark stock assessment and the periodic updates thereto.  In preparing the assessment, biologists employ no less than 15 different state surveys and monitoring programs, which gather data from coastal and estuarine waters between New England and Virginia.  All are fishery-independent, meaning that they are not derived from catch or landings by either commercial or recreational fishermen, although fishery-dependent data, such as that developed through the Marine Recreational Information Program and commercial landings data, are also used to inform the stock assessments.

Because of the wide array of data included in a stock assessment, gathered over most of the striper coast, a benchmark stock assessment or subsequent update necessarily provides a far more comprehensive and far more accurate picture of the striped bass stock than do the limited experiences of anglers fishing along a small section of coast.

To assess the future, as well as the current status, of the striped bass stock, biologists can rely on juvenile abundance indices, which provide an estimate of spawning success in the four most important spawning regions, the Maryland and Virginia sections of the Chesapeake Bay, the Delaware River, and the Hudson River.  

The Chesapeake Bay is, by far, the most important spawning area, providing about eighty percent of the migratory striped bass found along the Atlantic Coast, and Maryland Is the most important portion of the Chesapeake Bay, producing about two-thirds of the Bay’s juvenile bass

Thus, to learn that the 2024 Maryland striped bass juvenile abundance index revealed that the bass experienced recruitment failure for the sixth consecutive year, and that the Virginia index signaled the fourth straight year of recruitment failure was particularly bad news.  2024 data is not yet available for the Delaware and Hudson rivers, but the fact that the New Jersey juvenile abundance index, marking the success of the Delaware River spawn, was below the 25^th percentile of the juvenile survey’s time series in 2021 through 2023, and that the Hudson River index for 2023 was the worst since 1985 provides reason to worry about the bass’ immediate future.

Contrary to some Long Island anglers’ beliefs, the conclusions of the stock assessment and assessment updates, combined with the recent juvenile abundance surveys, provide no objective evidence that “the stock is strong and robust,” nor that “something is going right.”

Good fishing that occurs within a limited area, particularly good fishing for bass that fit within the recreational slot limit, can give the impression that the stock is healthier than it actually is.  But a simple test can reveal whether abundance is improving, or whether the health of the stock is getting worse:  calculating the number of bass caught on an average trip.  When striped bass abundance is increasing coastwide, the average number of bass caught per trip will increase; when abundance declines, the number of bass caught per trip declines, too.

And over the past few years, the number of bass caught per trip has steadily headed in the wrong direction, with the rate of decline increasing in recent years.  In 2019, the average trip taken in New England/mid-Atlantic region, primarily targeting striped bass, saw 1.960 bass caught.  That number ticked up slightly, to 2.032 fish per trip, in 2020, then declined, at an ever-increasing rate, to 1.947 bass/trip in 2021, 1.814 bass/trip in 2022, and 1.611 bass/trip in 2023.  

For the first eight months of 2024, the average number of bass caught per trip was just 1.059, although that figure might be deceiving, as it leaves out the last four months of the year, when bass fishermen are often very active.  Still, it's not  unreasonable to expect the 2024 average to fall below that of 2023.

A vast preponderance of the objective evidence indicates that the coastwide health of the striped bass stock is not good, which again illustrates why relying on personal experience to gauge stock status, instead of depending on objective information, can easily lead someone astray.

I wish that wasn’t the case.  I wish that the fishing we saw off Long Island this fall accurately represented the health of the stock.

But when it comes to striped bass, subjective impressions must yield to objective fact, and the fact is that the immediate prospects of the striped bass stock are worrying.

Hopefully, when it meets on December 16, the Management Board will have the courage, wisdom, and collective will to put the stock back on the track to long-term health and sustainability.