STRIPED BASS: WHEN THE BOAT GOES DOWN, WE ALL GET WET

 

Last night, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission held a hearing on the Draft Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass for Public Comment at the headquarters of the Marine Division of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation which is in King’s Park, New York.

I would guess that somewhere between 60 and 75 people attended in person, with others attending via a webinar set up by the DEC.  Most of those in the hearing room represented the for-hire fleet, with the remainder split between commercial and recreational fishermen.  It was a congenial hearing as these things go, for although the people in attendance had widely differing views, no one cursed out the ASMFC rep or the hearing officer, no one engaged in personal attacks against other attendees, and no one invited anyone outside to settle their differences in the parking lot, which made it a lot better hearing than many that I’ve attended over the years.

There were a number of comments made, most sincere, a few fatuous, a few somewhat pointed and spiteful.  But of all the comments I heard last night, one will stand out in my mind:

“I struggle with any proposal that doesn’t put us all in the same goddamn boat…[because] when the boat goes down, we all get wet.”

I’ve never heard what may be the most basic truth in fisheries management expressed in such simple, commonsense terms.

No one benefits from a collapsing stock, and it’s in everyone’s interest to maintain fish stocks at healthy and sustainable levels.

Yet that is the one thing that I rarely hear people agree on, at any fisheries meeting.

Instead, everyone present tends to get into their particular corners, fight to hold on to what they have, and try to get more from everyone else in the room.  The commercial fishermen fight for more quota—or at least no quota reductions—in the face of a troubled stock.  Recreational fishermen—particularly in the case of striped bass—call for “gamefish status,” that would take the commercials off the water and leave all the fish for themselves.  For-hire boats stride somewhere in-between, seeking more fish for themselves, and often special privileges that elevate their customers above the rest of the angling hoi-polloi, but not always supporting the commercials’ efforts to maintain an undiminished quota.

Last night’s hearing was no exception in that regard, with most in the room primarily concerned with themselves, and a minority, at best, expressing their concern for the future—whether short- or long-term—or the striped bass stock, the resource that, for one reason or another, brought them into the room in the first place.

The case for Addendum III is both simple and compelling.

The striped bass stock has been overfished since at least 2017, and pursuant to the terms of the ASMFC’s management plan, it must be fully rebuilt by the close of 2029.  In order to have a 50 percent probability of rebuilding the stock, removals must be reduced by at least 12 percent.

In addition, the striped bass stock has been experiencing historically poor recruitment, with the Maryland juvenile abundance index, which has proven to be the single best predictor of future striped bass abundance, for the past six years indicating the worst recruitment for any six-year period in the 67-year history of the Maryland juvenile abundance survey.

So even though the striped bass biomass may increase somewhat over the next few years, it will begin declining again if recruitment doesn’t improve.

In other words, the boat is already low in the water, it’s starting to leak, and its prospects of staying afloat aren’t too good unless those leaks are plugged and everyone begins bailing.

But somehow, that message isn’t getting through to a lot of people.  They all seem to want to go for a boat ride, but expect someone else to do the bailing while they all sit on a cushion, soaking in the sun.  Some just choose to ignore the leaks, and believe that there’s no need to start bailing at all.  A few see the water pooling around their ankles, but deny that they boat’s leaking at all, and appear to expect the water to dry up on its own.

And all of those folks were sitting in last night’s hearing room.

There weren’t too many commercial fishermen attending the hearing, and only a couple spoke.  They didn’t in the room itself didn’t have too much problem with recreational removals being reduced by 12 percent, so long as the same reduction wasn’t applied to the commercial quotas.

Even though the Draft Addendum would reduce both commercial and recreational removals by 12 percent, Bonnie Brady, who heads up the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, complained that

“It’s the commercial fleet that takes the cut,”

argued that neither the commercial sector’s removals—10 percent of all striped bass fishing mortality in recent years, which increased to 15 percent in 2024—nor those of the party and charter boats were contributing to the striped bass’ distress, and blamed everything on recreational release mortality.  She argued that shore-based and private boat anglers should be required to reduce removals by 13 percent—increased from 12 so that the for-hire fleet could increase its landings—and bear all of the responsibility for striped bass rebuilding, because

“Commercial and for-hire fishermen did not cause this problem,”

which is a dubious statement at the best of times—the combined commercial and for-hire sectors were responsible for nearly 20 percent of all striped bass removals in 2024, and so certainly contributed to whatever problem exists—but is also somewhat irrelevant to the problems at hand.

When a boat starts taking on water, if all aboard spend their time arguing about who caused the leak, instead of helping each other get the holes patched, everyone is going to get very, very wet very, very soon.

One of the commercial speakers, Edwin Chiofolo, asked a question that deserves further thought.

He noted that New York’s commercial fishermen are currently governed by a 26- to 38-inch slot size limit, and asked whether, if New York increased its minimum commercial size, it might receive a larger quota. 

Because New York actually had to accept a somewhat smaller quota in exchange for reducing its minimum size from 28 to 26 inches a few years ago, as a result of lost spawning potential attributable to the size decrease, it might very well be able to regain some of that quota with a size increase, and so offset some of the 12 percent reduction.

But other than that, the commercial speakers seemed to have little intention of helping the bass stock rebuild.

Much the same was true of the for-hire industry, although that sector probably exhibited the greatest diversity of opinion. 

Some implicitly or explicitly challenged the data underlying the stock assessments and so the need for any reduction at all.  For example, Capt. James Schneider, a party boat operator from the North Shore of New York’s Long Island, kept trying to argue that striped bass experienced senescence, and that they weren’t as fecund as younger fish.  He cracked that

“You’re putting Betty White and Angela Lansbury out to spawn,”

trying to compare striped bass fertility to that of humans and other mammals, even as Emilie Franke, the ASMFC’s Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, tried to tell him that studies found the older, larger bass to be the most valuable spawners.

Another speaker, who introduced himself only as “Rick” from the Captree charter boat Capt. Whittaker, said that he was disappointed in the data collection because state biologists always go to the same places to conduct their surveys (which, in fact, is how you create statistically valid data sets that create an index of relative abundance that can be compared from year to year—changing the sampling sites to chase local abundance would render the data useless), and that he wouldn’t support any landings reductions

“until there’s an improvement in data collection and science gathering.”

Most of the for-hire fleet opposed any harvest reductions, often without saying why, although a few expressed concerns not about the reductions themselves, but about the timing of the closed seasons needed to achieve them.  

New York’s striped bass fishery peaks at different times in different places.  New York Harbor and most of the South Shore of Long Island could tolerate a midsummer closure fairly well, but vessels operating there would be hurt very badly by one put in place during October and early November.  On the other hand, Montauk and other East End ports would be hurt badly by a midsummer close, but would hardly feel the impact if November and December were shut down.  To some, then, making no changes until the details of a closure could be figured out seemed like the best course.

And, of course, there were those who actively blamed the shore-based and private boat fishermen for the fact that reductions were being considered at all.  One Captree boat captain blamed “special interests”—meaning anglers concerned with conservation, who often released their fish—for the Draft Addendum, while another Captree boatman referred to

“The holier than thou crowd that is here.”

Yet none of the for-hires opposed the option known as O2, which would gift them with a broader, 28- to 33-inch slot, and allow their customers to land more bass than they currently can, while at the same time forcing shore-based and private boat anglers to pay for that boon by extending their reduction from 12 to 13 percent. 

Even though New York’s for-hire fleet accounted for only 0.94 percent of all directed striped bass trips in 2024, the fact that they were probably the most special of all special interests, and were seeking special harvesting privileges denied to everyone else, seemingly never entered their minds, as they tacked the "special interests" tag on others.

Far more nuanced comments were made by Capt. Jill Maganza-Ruiz, the President of the Montauk Boatmen and Captains Association, and a captain of the November Rain charter boat.  

She understood that not reducing striped bass removals could have bad long-term implications, including even larger reductions in landings in the future, and so opposed the status quo.  At the same time, she supported giving the for-hire fleet a special, wider slot size limit that would increase its landings while everyone else was cutting back—even as she argued that the for-hire fleet “should be held to the same standards” as everyone else.  But she was clearly concerned that for-hire bookings were down, allegedly by 20 percent, and did her best to advocate for her association’s members.

While the for-hire industry seemed to be have the widest representation of any user group, the fishing tackle industry had few people in attendance.  One was Nuna DeCosta, representing Tyalure Tackle of Rye, New York, who had relatively little to say about the striped bass itself, but rather made general complaints about overregulation threatening the fishing industry and impacting people’s lives, and so opposed harvest reductions on those grounds.

The other industry rep who spoke was Michael Wayne, a representative of the American Sportfishing Association, the big fishing tackle industry trade association, who attended the webinar.  He noted that the recreational striped bass catch for March through June 2025 was about 50 percent below that of 2024, and based on that figure, questioned whether any reductions needed to be imposed on the recreational fishery to achieve rebuilding by the 2029 deadline.  His question was laced with irony, as the American Sportfishing Association recently made a public announcement asking anglers to oppose the harvest reductions.  In the announcement, it complained that

“ASMFC is reacting to short-term swings in recreational catch estimates from the Marine Recreational Information Program,  [emphasis added]”

yet Waine, in basing his comments on a mere four months of MRIP data, engaged in an even more extreme form of the same sort of conduct that his employer had recently condemned.

Finally, there were the recreational fishermen, who made up the largest minority of the groups represented at the hearing.  With the exception of one woman who fished from the surf and preferred status quo, the anglers expressed real concern with the health of the striped bass stock, and unanimously supported the status quo.

I know a lot of the people involved, and so know that their concern for the resource is legitimate.  Nonetheless, they have been criticized for their opposition to no-target closures, with members of the for-hire fleet, in particular, suggesting that their opposition arises from a selfish desire to have the bass to themselves.  As I said before, I know these folks, and also know that their opposition comes largely from the fact that no-target closures are unenforceable, but I have to admit that they probably like the idea of catching and releasing fish during the closure, too.

Yet I have a hard time criticizing them if that’s the case, because, out of all the stakeholder groups, the anglers are the only ones who have come out in force to do what’s right for the resource, and not just themselves.  The fact that they want everyone to do the same does not diminish their intent to do right by the bass.

The bottom line is that, commercial or recreational fisherman, and shore-based, private boat, or for-hire angler, we’re all in the striped bass boat together, and if we can’t find a way to work together, and keep the boat afloat, it’s going to take us all down with it when it goes under.

The only difference—and it’s somewhat ironic—is that if the boat sinks, the anglers, who have been trying the hardest to keep it afloat, might become wet and unhappy, but they’ll survive.

It’s the businesses, which have been doing so little to plug up the leaks, that are going to drown.