STRIPED BASS ADDENDUM III NEARS COMPLETION

 

At 1:15 p.m., on Wednesday, August 6, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board will meet to discuss and, in all likelihood, finalize Draft Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass.  Once finalized, the Draft Addendum will be released for public comment, with the intention of adopting a final Addendum when the Management Board meets in October.

The Plan Development Team met yesterday to pull together a version of the draft that can be presented to the Management Board.  While it’s not completely finished, most of the language is finalized, and some of that language is a little different from the proposed draft that came out of the May Management Board meeting.

The biggest change is the size of the reduction in striped bass removals needed to fulfill the management plan’s mandate to rebuild the spawning stock biomass to its target by 2029.

Going into the May Management Board meeting, everyone believed that rebuilding might be accomplished with a modest seven percent reduction in removals, a reduction too small, from a statistical standpoint, to be distinguishable from the status quo.  The Plan Development Team considered a larger, 10 percent reduction—the smallest reduction that was statistically distinguishable—but included it in a memo to the Management Board rather in their proposed Draft Addendum, because the PDT felt that such larger reduction went beyond what the Management Board had asked them to do.

But things have changed in the past three months. 

Since the Plan Development Team drafted its proposed Draft Addendum last spring, the Marine Recreational Information Program’s striped bass effort, catch, and landings data has been revised and finalized.  The revised data revealed that 2024 recreational removals of striped bass were significantly higher than originally calculated, largely due to high levels of effort off New York during the last two months of the year.

As a result, the Technical Committee determined that it will take at least a 12 percent reduction in removals to rebuild the stock by 2029, and included a second, precautionary option for an 18 percent reduction.  But, as was the case in May, the question is who will do the reducing.

In a rational world, where managers recognize that a rebuilt stock benefits everyone, both the recreational (including for-hire) and the commercial sector would reduce their removals by the same amount.  Unfortunately, rationality doesn’t infect all of the people sitting around the table when the Management Board meets.

There are still a number of people who try to make fishery management a matter of “blame,” saying that since recreational fishermen are responsible for most of the removals, they should shoulder all of the burden for rebuilding the overfished striped bass stock.  Thus, the current version of the proposed Draft Addendum includes four possible reductions:  12 percent for recreational and commercial fishermen; 14 percent recreational reduction and no commercial reduction; 18 percent for recreational and commercial fishermen; and 21 percent recreational reduction and no commercial reduction.

And there are members of the Management Board who will unabashedly declare that placing all of the burden on the recreational sector is “fair,” because anglers, with their higher level of reductions, were the greater cause of the decline in striped bass abundance.

But, as I've mentioned before, that argument can be a double-edged sword.  For if anglers are the only sector that contributes to the successful rebuilding of the striped bass stock, wouldn’t it be reasonable to argue that anglers thus earned a liberalization of recreational regulations, but that the commercial sector, which contributed nothing to the final rebuilding, should not see its quota increase?

Yet, somehow, I feel safe to say that the same folks who would blame anglers for the decline of the bass population, and argue that the commercial sector shouldn’t have to contribute to the rebuilding, would be very quick to stand up and yell “Unfair!” if the commercial sector did not get to share in the benefits of a stock rebuilt solely through anglers’ efforts.

Because, as anyone who has had—or has been—a young child knows, “fairness” tends to be a one-way street.  A child might raise it when someone asks them to take out the garbage, or gives them the smaller piece of pie; if they get to sit in front of the TV while someone else deals with the trash, of if their dessert is larger than anyone else's, then all is right with the world.

Representatives of the commercial fishing industry can feel the same way.

But even the worst of the commercial options proposed for the Draft Addendum won’t increase the commercial quota.  That’s not the case with other options, that would create “mode splits” for the for-hire fleet; that is, at a time when private boat and shore-based anglers, and perhaps commercial fishermen, are going to be compelled to reduce their removals, such options would allow anglers on for-hire vessels to increase their landings, at least when compared to the rest of the recreational fishermen.

All of the mode split options for the “ocean” fishery—which encompasses all coastal waters other than the Chesapeake Bay, including various bays, estuaries, and sounds—would increase the slot size limit for the for-hire fleet, from the current 28 to 31 inches to 28 to 33.  As that would increase overall recreational landings by about one percent, any closed season would have to be extended to offset the impact of the wider slot.  Thus, all recreational striped bass fishermen would have to sacrifice fishing opportunities, just so anglers on the for-hire fleet could take home a somewhat larger fish—even though those for-hire anglers only account for two percent, or less, of all striped bass fishing trips taken coastwide, and thus account for only a small proportion of the economic value of the fishery.

In the Chesapeake, some mode split options would operate a little differently, as it is possible to achieve the entire 12 percent reduction—and even the 18 percent reduction—through changes to size limits alone.  

The current Chesapeake Bay size limit is a 19- to 24-inch slot.  So managers could either reduce the Bay-wide slot for everyone to 20 to 23 inches, or it could just impose that narrower slot on private-boat and shore-based anglers, leave the for-hires at status quo, and still achieve the 12 percent cut.  Or, it could leave the for-hires at status quo and impose a 19- to 22-inch slot on everyone else and achieve the same reduction.  

If the Management Board chose to combine size limits with a closed season, it could leave private boats and shore-based anglers at status quo, and expand the for-hire slot to 19 to 25 inches, and extend the length of the season and so, as in the ocean fishery, make all anglers pay for the for-hire anglers’ larger fish.

To achieve an 18 percent reduction without resorting to seasons, everyone would have to abandon the slot limit, and instead abide by a 23-inch minimum size.  Or, the private-boat and shore-based anglers could fish under a 23-inch minimum, while for-hire anglers might keep fish as small as 21 inches.

Because the Chesapeake can, if the Management Board chooses, achieve its mandated reductions without the need for seasons, and because there are many combinations of seasons and size limits that would achieve the needed cuts—including the larger recreational cuts that would result if the commercial sector took no cuts at all—it would be too cumbersome to list all of them here.  But the examples provided provide some idea of what the private anglers would have to give up to provide the for-hire anglers a better chance to bring a bass home.

The question of what seasons might be needed is extremely complex, and depends on whether the seasons are “no target,” in which anglers aren’t permitted to intentionally catch and release bass, or “no-harvest,” in which catch-and-release is allowed.  

No-target closures are also broken down based on predicted angler behavior:  If anglers who would otherwise have fished for bass decide to stop fishing during the closure and take up golf or pickleball to fill their spare hours, the closure would be shorter than it would need to be if the anglers kept fishing, but merely targeted other species, in which case they would probably have some unintended, incidental catch of striped bass with the resultant release mortality.  (No one calculated the impact of a no-target closure that saw anglers continue to fish for striped bass, but merely told law enforcement that they were fishing for bluefish, weakfish, red drum, white perch, catfish, false albacore, summer flounder, or the like.)  

If the former circumstances proved true, the closure could be shorter than if the latter situation prevailed.  Of course, if the scenario described in the parenthetical proved true, as seems likely, no-target closures would have no benefit over a no-harvest closure, and would do some degree of harm, as they create the illusion that a shorter closure period was really accomplishing something.

In any event, if the closures occurred at the right time of year, there wouldn’t be much difference between either no-target or no-harvest closures.  For example, if the ocean fishery in states between Connecticut and North Carolina was closed in Wave 3 (May-June) and/or Wave 6, a no-target closure with no effort switch to other species would have to last 15 days to achieve a 12 percent reduction, a no-target closure with effort switch would have to last 18 days, and a no-harvest closure that allowed catch-and-release—and so allowed bait shops, fuel docks, and charter boats to continue to do business during the closed season—would only need to last 25 days, which is certainly tolerable.

Given the impossibility of enforcing a no-target closure, and the general economic benefits accruing from a catch-and-release fishery, adopting such a no-harvest closure would seem to make sense—except to a few diehard guardians of the for-hire fleet, who call such a season “unfair” because it would allow catch-and-release anglers to continue to fish, and charter boats who offer catch-and-release trips to continue to fish, but would shut down the fishery to the for-hire boats who make filling coolers with dead bass their top priority, and refuse to even consider adopting a more conservative approach.

As I noted earlier in this essay, rationality hasn’t infected all of the members of the Management Board…

But if the Management Board moves forward with Addendum III—and given the new data showing the need for a minimum 12 percent reduction in removals, it seems nearly certain that they will—we’re going to be looking at some sort of season, and it only makes sense to opt for a season that will provide the most benefit to the bass without crippling fishing-related businesses.

Three other items make up the rest of the proposed Draft Addendum.  One would standardize the way striped bass are measured, requiring the fish to be placed on top of a measuring board, tape, or other measuring device, to obtain a straight-line measurement, rather than measuring the fish over the curve of its body, which provides a longer measurement and allows under-slot fish to be taken.  The proposal makes sense, but is running into some resistance from surfcasters, many of whom fish from jetties, submerged boulders, rocky headlands, and similar places where it is difficult, if not impossible, to find a flat place to measure a fish in the ideal manner.

Another proposal would require commercial fishermen to tag their catch at the time of capture rather than at the time of sale.  The theory behind the proposal is that, in states where fish are tagged at the point of first sale, there are too many opportunities for fishermen to sell fish on a sort of black market, so that the bass are never tagged and never counted against the state’s quota.  The notion is being pushed hard by Delaware, which is always conniving for ways to kill a few more striped bass, and would probably only have an impact in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, as all other states with commercial fisheries require bass to be tagged when caught or shortly thereafter.

The final proposal is Maryland’s effort to “reset” its recreational regulations, and so climb out of the regulatory hole that it dug for itself over the years.  

For some reason, in recent years the state has put private-boat and shore-based anglers at the bottom of the striped bass pecking order.  That became particularly notable after Addendum VI to Amendment 6 was adopted, when the state adopted “conservation equivalent” regulations that achieved its required 18% landings reduction by reducing its commercial quota by just 1.8%, while cutting recreational landings by 20.6%, and adopting “no-target” closed seasons for recreational fishermen, in order to allow anglers on for-hire vessels to keep two striped bass per day, while private-boat and shore-based anglers were only allowed to retain a single fish.

Subsequent changes to the striped bass management plan built on the existing regulatory structure, and Maryland’s recreational regulations, suffering from all of the state-specific restrictions on the recreational fishery that had accrued over the years, proved to be a very difficult base to build upon.  So Maryland is asking the Management Board, using the mechanism of Addendum III, to allow it to create a more workable recreational fishing season.

The state seems to have devised a new season structure that will not increase recreational removals, and which will make it easier to apply any new seasons adopted in Addendum III.  The only questions are 1) Whether Maryland should be allowed to implement such new seasons, and 2) If it is allowed to revise its season structure, whether it should be required to adopt a 10 percent buffer, as would be required for any conservation equivalency proposal, to account for any uncertainty in the calculations.

The proposed Maryland season structure would again allow catch-and-release fishing during the early season, when pre-spawn fish are preparing to enter the spawning reaches of Maryland’s coastal rivers, while extending the summer no-targeting closure in an effort to reduce release mortality connected to high water and air temperatures.  There are some questions about the accuracy of the numbers used to support the conclusion that the proposed new season structure won’t cause removals to increase, enough questions that allowing the new seasons to be put in place might look like a bad idea.  However, if the 10 percent uncertainty buffer is added to the package, then rationalizing Maryland’s recreational season might well be a good idea.

And that’s where Addendum III stands at the moment.  There is still a little bit of time for Plan Development Team members to request additional changes.  But we should expect to see a completed, proposed Draft Addendum in the meeting materials for the August ASMFC meeting, when the agenda and meeting materials are released on July 23.

After that, Addendum III’s fate will lie in the hands of the Management Board.  So if anyone out there has any questions or concerns about the proposed Draft Addendum, they would do well to contact their state fishery manager, Legislative Appointee or his/her permanent proxy, and Governor’s Appointee and let them know.

Once Addendum III is completed, it will be the last management document to be released by the Management Board until after the 2027 benchmark stock assessment, so if Addendum III proves flawed, it will be too late to adopt meaningful changes that might allow the stock to reach its rebuilding target by 2029.

The time for mistakes has run out.  Addendum III is the Management Board’s last chance to get rebuilding right.