FEDERAL COURT HEARS ARGUMENTS IN CASE CHALLENGING STRIPED BASS MANAGEMENT

 

On Tuesday, October 21, a federal district court in Washington, D.C. heard arguments in the matter of Cape Cod Charter Boat Association v. Burgum, an action brought to challenge Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass and, more generally, to challenge the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s authority to manage the striped bass resource.

The lawsuit is the spiritual successor to an earlier action, Delmarva Fisheries Association v. Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which was ignominiously tossed out of court by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which found that the plaintiffs, Delmarva Fisheries and the Maryland Charter Boat Association, lacked the standing to bring an action against the ASMFC, as the regulations that supposedly harmed their businesses were actually drafted by the State of Maryland, and not the ASMFC.

Last spring, having been thwarted by the Fourth Circuit, the two original plaintiffs returned with a handful of allies—the Cape Cod Charter Boat Association, the Connecticut Charter and Party Boat Association, and the Montauk Boatmen and Captains Association—to try again, this time naming not only the ASMFC, but all of its member jurisdictions, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Commerce, the Department of the Interior, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and many others—originally, 55 defendants in all—while making essentially the same arguments that were made in the Delmarva case.

The similarity of the two arguments is probably not surprising, given that the same attorney, James Butera, of the Washington, D.C. law firm of Meeks Butera & Israel, argued both matters.

Nor, given the outcome of the Delmarva case, is it surprising that the defendants again moved to dismiss the matter, with standing a paramount reason to do so.

So, on October 21, the plaintiffs were given an opportunity to convince the judge why the Cape Cod Charter Boat Association case should not be dismissed, as well.

It so happened that there was a telephone number that members of the public could call if they wanted to listen in, I had some free time that morning, and as an attorney, I was interested in hearing the arguments as they were made.  As usual, the proceeding began a few minutes late, but when the judge, Judge Trevor N. McFadden, began, things started to move pretty quickly, and in what seemed to be a promising direction.

After asking all of the attorneys to introduce themselves, he noted that Mr. Butera, plaintiff’s counsel, would make his arguments first, followed by any of defendants’ counsels who wished to speak, with counsel for Maryland (who was also representing all of the more northerly states, that stretched from Maine to Pennsylvania and Delaware) going first because, despite the new defendants, Maryland and Maryland’s striped bass regulations were still the focus of the lawsuit.  Plaintiffs’ attorney would then make his closing remarks.

Before plaintiffs’ counsel could begin his arguments, Judge McFadden noted that

“Defense has raised some serious dismissal issues,”

particularly with regard to plaintiffs’ standing to sue, which Mr. Butera ought to address.

Mr. Butera began by challenging the ASMFC’s authority to manage striped bass pursuant to the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act and the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act on Constitutional grounds, claiming that those laws illegally and unconstitutionally coerced the states

“into requiring or prohibiting acts within their own commerce powers”

and also claiming that the states’ and Congress’ failure to re-ratify the interstate compact creating the ASMFC after the passage of both the Striped Bass act and the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries act was an error of Constitutional proportions that invalidated the ASMFC’s presumed management authority.

At that point, Mr. Butera detoured away from his Constitutional arguments, to make some dubious factual claims, alleging that no scientist claims that there is any issue with the health of the striped bass stock—an argument easily rebutted with a simple reference to the 2024 stock assessment update—and quoting an unnamed former member of the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, who reputedly said that striped bass

“fishing has never been better.”

He also claimed that 50 Maryland charter boat operations went out of business as a result of Addendum II, which allegedly caused business to drop by 75%, and warned that Addendum III toAmendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass would be debated on October 29, implying that a ruling in his favor was needed to prevent Addendum III from further harming to his clients.

Judge McFadden quickly steered Mr. Butera back toward the pertinent legal issues, asking him who should, in his view, manage the striped bass fishery, a question that caused Mr. Butera to revert to his original assertion that striped bass management was

“illegally delegated to the states,”

and that bass management should be governed by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act which was where he alleged that all management authority resided, but since then,

“That is powers that has been given to the states.”

In making such statements, Mr. Butera evidenced his ignorance of how the state and federal fishery management systems worked, seemingly not realizing that the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act was passed in 1984 precisely because, prior to that, there was no federal law that allowed striped bass management to be coordinated on a coastwide basis because up until then, only the states had authority to manage the fishery.

He also ignored a provision in Magnuson-Stevens which reads,

“Except as provided in subsection (b) [which has no applicability to striped bass], nothing in this Act shall be construed as extending or diminishing the jurisdiction or authority of any State within its boundaries.”

That provision makes it clear that Magnuson-Stevens does not and may not give the federal government the authority to manage striped bass within state waters, which generally extend three miles out from the coast.

Judge McFadden quickly picked up on that fact and, although not quoting from Magnuson-Stevens, noted that there was a difference between state waters and the federal waters of the Exclusive Economic Zone, and observed that the states had the power to manage striped bass before the passage of the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act.  

He asked Mr. Butera whether, with the states managing bass cooperatively through the ASMFC, state management is

“just now done in a more coordinated process between the states?”

But again Mr. Butera doubled down on his position, saying that

‘[the states] have a role but it is illegally delegated.”

He claimed that the ASMFC prepares the striped bass regulations, despite the fact that regulations are, in reality, promulgated and adopted by the individual states, and further argued that the states have no role, or at least no legally acceptable role, in managing striped bass, and that the authority of the ASMFC is advisory only, as the original interstate compact provided.  

Judge McFadden tried to bring the debate closer to reality, saying

“Your colleagues are going to be telling me the states had this authority [to manage striped bass] before”

Magnuson-Stevens became law, but Mr. Butera, again demonstrating his unfamiliarity with the fishery management process, adamantly argued that there was no state authority to manage striped bass before the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act was passed, insisting that

“They never had that authority before”

1984.

At that point, Judge McFadden took the argument in a different direction, noting that the ASMFC, as an interstate compact, was a voluntary association of the states, and that if Maryland (again, the primary focus of the argument was the Maryland fishery and Addendum II’s impact on the Maryland fishing industry; although representatives of for-hire fishing operations in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York are also plaintiffs, they were not the primary drivers of the litigation) had a strong disagreement with the ASMFC, it was free to leave the compact and manage fish its own way.

Mr. Butera sort-of acknowledged the truth of that, but then responded by asserting that

“The federal government may not appoint states as their agents,”

thus suggesting that the federal laws granting binding management authority to the ASMFC were unconstitutional.

Judge McFadden then backed up just a bit, to focus on the defendants themselves.  He asked whether Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida were impacted by Addendum II, and Mr. Butera conceded that they were not, as the migratory striped bass population did not enter their waters and they did not have seats on the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board.

The judge then asked where the Maryland plaintiffs fished for striped bass, and Mr. Butera responded that they only fished in Maryland state waters.  But when Judge McFadden then pointed out that Magnuson-Stevens was thus irrelevant, because it only applied in the EEZ, Mr. Butera countered that while the judge’s statement might be true, the Constitution’s prohibition on the appointment of states as federal agents was not limited to federal waters, and applied in state waters, too.

Judge McFadden then asked Mr. Butera whether the intent of the lawsuit was to challenge Addendum II, and not the regulations of the various states, Mr. Butera replied,

“Yes, we are, because these regulations were adopted under the mandate of the ASMFC,”

but when the judge asked where, in the plaintiffs’ complaint, that was alleged, Mr. Butera conceded that such allegation had not been made.

And when Judge McFadden referenced the Fouth Circuit finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing in the Delmarva Fisheries Association case, because the regulations were promulgated by Maryland, and not the ASMFC, and asked Mr. Butera to discuss that decision, Mr. Butera responded that Robert Beale, the Executive Director of the ASMFC, testified in a Congressional hearing that Congress gave the ASMFC authority to “require” the states to adopt management measures, a requirement that was unconstitutional because a state

“cannot be compelled by the Congress to regulate its citizens.”

He tenaciously clung to his position that the ASMFC, in exercising the authority granted by Congress, was forcing the states to adopt striped bass regulations, ignoring the fact that the states were regulating that fishery long before the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act became law.

In an effort to further define the issues to be decided, the judge then asked Mr. Butera whether his clients were claiming any injuries that were not the result of Addendum II, which brought a reply that Addendum III would probably be adopted on October 29, leading to his clients being subject to further restrictions.  

When asked whether the primary injury the Maryland plaintiffs suffered was the adoption of a 1-fish bag limit, Mr. Butera stated that the bag limit caused the greatest problems, but that the altered size limit and shorter season impacted them, too.

He then tried to minimize the importance of the Maryland for-hire fishery, arguing that

“The boat captains in Maryland have removed 26,000 fish,”

a figure that he claimed was “negligible” when compared to the six million bass removed coastwide, and to the overall size of the striped bass population, a comment that Judge McFadden let pass without further question.

However, the judge did note that in order for an organization to have status to sue, there must be at least one party who has actually been injured by the challenged action.  He noted that there was only one affidavit on file, from Capt. Hardman, the head of the Maryland Charter Boat Association, alleging injury, and asked whether he was missing anyone else.  Mr. Butera responded that the Delmarva Fisheries Association also included injured parties.

He also responded by arguing that a recent case from the Third Circuit, involving appointments to a regional fishery management council, established the principle that

“The litigant need not show direct harm or injury.  Such injury is presumed”

when an unconstitutional action occurs.  

When Judge McFadden then suggested that, when establishing the requirements for standing, the standards for an appointment and the standards for the sort of challenge Mr. Butera was making were different, Mr. Butera asserted that both were Constitutional challenges, and that the standard for standing was thus the same.

Going back to an argument that Mr. Butera had made before, that the ASMFC was meant to be an advisory body with no management authority, the judge then noted that the regulations that Maryland had adopted after Addendum II had been finalized—the regulations that supposedly caused harm to the Maryland plaintiffs—were more restrictive than what Addendum II required, although still based on that addendum.  Thus, Judge McFadden asked, what if the ASMFC was still just an advisory body, and Maryland adopted regulations based on its advice?  Would Mr. Butera still find a Constitutional infirmity?  Mr. Butera dismissed that hypothetical as “different” from the matter being decided.

Judge McFadden then asked whether the fact that Maryland could walk away from the ASMFC at any time might make a difference, but Mr. Butera called the question “counterfactual,” because in the case at hand, Maryland either didn’t or couldn’t leave the ASMFC.

At that point, the judge turned to another of the plaintiff’s claims, that the ASMFC’s

“usage of such clearly defective methodology [to determine the need for the management measures included in Addendum II] fails to meet the most minimum due process requirements or any possible justifiable basis for destroying Plaintiffs’ businesses and thus represents a Regulatory Taking of their property in violation of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  [citations omitted]”

To remedy such alleged violation, plaintiffs were seeking

“An interim order and permanent judgment holding unlawful, enjoining, and setting aside in full the ASMFC 2024 Striped Bass Addendum approved on Jan. 24, 2024 and reauthorized on December 14, 2024.”

But Judge McFadden noted that, in the case of “takings” such as the one alleged in plaintiff’s complaint, money damages, not an injunction, were the most appropriate form of relief, and asked why that was not true in this case as well.  Once again, Mr. Butera insisted that Constitutional problems would still exist, and further explained that none of the defendants should be dismissed, because all might be required for an injunction to be issued. 

To that, the judge only responded,

“That’s certainly creative.  You’ve got a whole lot of plaintiffs here, sir,”

casting doubt on both the validity of Mr. Butera’s argument and the need to involve so many parties.  Yet once again, Mr. Butera insisted that

“The most important issue is the Constitutional question,”

and wouldn’t concede the point.

After a bit more back-and-forth, Mr. Butera sat down and Emilie Schwartz, counsel for the State of Maryland (and all of the states between Maine and Delaware), rose to make her points.

Her initial comments focused on standing, and the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Delmarva Fisheries Association.  In response to the judge’s questions, she affirmed that, even if the Court enjoined enforcement of Addendum II, there was “no chance” that Maryland would rescind its striped bass regulations.

She went on to explain that the program that allowed Maryland charter boats to retain two bass per person, in exchange for participating in a catch reporting program, was merely a pilot program that was initiated with the permission of the ASMFC, and that Maryland was not required to amend its regulations, in respect to the bag limit, in response to Addendum II, but merely terminated the pilot program.

She acknowledged that Maryland voted against Addendum II, but once it was adopted, Maryland put regulations in place that “far surpassed” Addendum II’s requirements

“to better protect the striped bass.”

Shortly thereafter, Judge McFadden made a comment which signaled that he understood what was at risk in the litigation:

“Remember ‘the Tragedy of the Commons’ from law school?..The ASMFC is to address ‘the Tragedy of the Commons.”

For those unfamiliar with the term,

“The tragedy of the commons is the concept that, if many people enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource, such as a pasture, they will tend to overuse it and may end up destroying its value altogether.  Even if some users exercised voluntary restraint, the other users would merely replace them, the predictferable result being a ‘tragedy’ for all.”

Thus, the judge’s reference to the concept may indicate that he is skeptical of the plaintiffs’ position, as did his subsequent suggestion that, if the ASMFC didn’t exist, the states might allocate the striped bass more generously among their own fishermen, to the overall detriment of the resource.

Ms. Schwartz disagreed with him there, noting that the states voluntarily came together to create the ASMFC, and to regulate striped bass and other fisheries, in the first place.

Judge McFadden then asked whether, if the ASMFC went away tomorrow, the states would continue to regulate striped bass, to which Ms. Schwartz replied yes, because

“The states always had the authority over the waters of the states,”

a fact that Mr. Butera still doesn’t seem to grasp.

Still, the judge admitted to being somewhat “perplexed” by the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act, and its grant of regulatory authority.  Ms. Schwartz explained that it only applied to states belonging to the ASMFC, and that states were free to leave the ASMFC at any time; the law was only intended to keep ASMFC members compliant with the ASMFC’s decisions.  Similarly, when asked whether states “must” comply with ASMFC decisions, Ms. Schwartz again pointed out that was the case only if states voluntarily became and remained members of the ASMFC.

At that point, I had to get off the call to participate in another, but I was assured by someone who remained until the proceeding was adjourned that nothing more of significant importance occurred.

So what does it all mean?

If plaintiffs prevailed in the lawsuit, the ASMFC would lose its authority to compel states to comply with its management plans, both for the striped bass and for other species.  If that occurred, management would fall back on the shoulders of the individual states, which demonstrated in the past—most particularly in the early 1980s, when the striped bass stock had collapsed and the states were unable and/or unwilling to mount a coordinated response—that without both the carrot of healthy and rebuilt fish stocks and the stick of noncompliance sanctions being ailable to the ASMFC, effective fishery management measures were unlikely to be adopted.

That’s why the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act was made law in the first place.

Lawsuits can take unexpected turns, and it’s impossible to predict with complete certainty how a judge will rule.  However, given the questions asked of both plaintiffs’ and defendants’ counsel, it seems likely that Judge McFadden is very skeptical of plaintiffs’ arguments, understands the value of the ASMFC’s role in striped bass management, and believes that the plaintiffs’ standing to bring suit is in doubt.

Whether that translates into a dismissal of all or part of the legal action is something that we should learn fairly soon.

 

STRIPED BASS: GRASPING AT STRAWS

 

By now, anyone who follows striped bass management issues knows that there has been another bad spawn in the Chesapeake Bay, with the Maryland juvenile abundance index coming in at 4.0, and the Virginia JAI at 5.12.  Both are well below the long-term JAI averages for the two states, which are 11 and 7.77, respectively.

While neither of those numbers fall into recruitment failure territory, which is defined as three consecutive years of JAIs that fall within the 25^th percentile of all JAIs for the region’s time series (1957-2009 for Maryland, 1980-2009 for Virginia), both are low enough, when combined with the previous two years’ JAIs, to trip the recruitment trigger contained in Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which is three consecutive years of JAIs that fall within the 25^th percentile of JAIs for the period 1992-2006.

Once the recruitment trigger in Amendment 7 is tripped,

“an interim [fishing mortality] target and interim [fishing mortality] threshold calculated using the low recruitment assumption will be implemented, and the [fishing mortality]-based management triggers [that require management action to be taken under certain circumstances] will be reevaluated using those interim reference points.  In [a fishing mortality] reference point is tripped upon reevaluation, the striped bass management program must be adjusted to reduce [fishing mortality] to the interim [fishing mortality] target within one year.”

Of course, that's almost irrelevant now, since low recruitment in Maryland, Virginia, and the Delaware River already tripped that management trigger a while ago.

So it’s clear that the two JAIs, and the Maryland JAI in particular, were pretty bad news.

However, there are always people who try to deny reality, either because the have a financial incentive for doing so, or because they just can’t bring themselves to accept that the striped bass stock is quickly sailing into dire straits.  I didn’t realize how delusional such people could be, until I happened to look at the Facebook page of Fisherman’s Headquarters, a New Jersey tackle shop.  The store got the story and the context right, saying

“4.0…better than the last two years but another poor year (7^th consecutive) of striped bass recruitment from the Chesapeake Bay.”

But then I noticed the comment,

“By the percentage, it looks like 25 was 100% better than 24, which was 75% better than 23.  I wouldn’t call that a failure.”

A second comment read,

“100% increase,non top [sic] of 100% increase.

Good news doesn’t sell.”

I’ve since seen similar comments on the Facebook page of a regional magazine and on a website dedicated to striped bass angling.

And then there are the conspiracy theorists, with one commenting,

“Can we really believe these numbers? Are bass still spawning in the same estuaries as ten, twenty and thirty years ago?  Is the entire biomass shifting northward as temps rise, making Chesapeake YOY less predictive?  We see more bass of NJ now than in the past 15 years and more in the past 15 then [sic] the past 50.  Bureaucrats can make numbers say whatever they want to justify their actions.”

I’ve heard those comments elsewhere,

 too, often at striped bass hearings when people, usually connected to the for-hire fishing industry, are trying to impeach the data underlying fisheries management actions, in order to maintain current regulations and current harvest levels.

It’s startling just how many people try to deny the reality that poor recruitment is putting the striped bass stock at risk of serious future decline, and how many others try to concoct stories in an effort to convince themselves that things aren’t really too bad, either because they found some hope in the data or because they are certain that conservation efforts are all part of some nefarious government plot.

To be fair to the first comment that I quoted, the last three Maryland JAIs were steadily increasing, and this year’s JAI of 4.0 was the highest since 2018.  But reaching a high of 4.0 over the course of seven years of poor recruitment isn’t something to be cheered.

If we look at the last time recruitment dropped to low levels for an extended period of time, the years 1975 through 1988—in other words, the years leading up to the last stock collapse, and the years extending through the collapse itself—we can find two different occasions when the JAI rose as high as 8.45, the first in 1978, the second in 1982.  

In the first instance, the 1978 JAI increased from 4.85 to 8.45, before falling back to 4.24 in the next year.  While none of the JAIs in the decade prior to 1978 were as low as all of the JAIs in the last seven years, the stock collapsed a few years later anyway.

In fact, no seven-year period, including periods immediately prior to the last stock collapse or during the collapse itself, resulted in an average JAI as low as the average for the period 2019-2025.  It isn’t even close, with the average JAI for the past seven years a mere 2.81, while the second-lowest seven year average was substantially higher, at 3.41.  And that one occurred during the years 1980-1986, in the heart of the last stock collapse, which puts the current low recruitment levels in an uncomfortable context.

Thus, the fact that the Maryland JAIs increased from 1.02 to 1.98 to 4.0 shouldn’t give anyone comfort, for those numbers are all still dismally low, and the last stock collapse occurred despite being preceded by JAIs that were substantially higher.

The 1982 JAI of 8.45 was bracketed by JAIs of 1.22 and 1.37, so taking heart because the JAI is trending somewhat higher in the near term is probably a mistake; the index can trend downward just as quickly as it can rise.    

That being said, the 1982 year class, with its index of 8.45, was the year class that managers relied on to rebuild the striped bass stock.  But that rebuilding didn’t occur because managers said, “Hooray, this year class is bigger than the last one!” and then clung to the status quo, hoping that the bass population would heal itself, but instead because managers built Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass around the idea of protecting that year class, and every year class that followed, with a steadily increasing size limit, and of limiting fishing-related removals to no more than five percent of the spawning stock biomass until the spawning stock biomass was well on its way to being rebuilt.  

The regulations needed to accomplish that goal were far more restrictive than any adopted, or even proposed, in recent years.

Amendment 3 seemingly worked, as the 1989 JAI was 25.20, a year class that was considered “dominant” then, and would be considered the same today.  Yet the JAIs for 1988 and 1990 were Just 2.65 and 2.14, respectively.

Thus, anyone who believes that they can predict good news from three poor, but increasing JAIs, or who believes they can predict future JAI trends from past patterns, are going to be disappointed.  JAI patterns can no more predict future JAIs, than the patterns in tea leaves or in the entrails of a ram can herald future events, and we would foolish to believe otherwise.

And, speaking of foolish, why do the conspiracy theorists of the fishery world so often believe that managers are manipulating the numbers to show fewer fish in advancement of some secret government agenda?  

More particularly, why do they believe that “the government” wants to place additional restrictions on fisheries, and so cooks the data to further such goal, as the comment quoted above suggests?

There’s just no upside to any government agency doing that.

Anyone who spends any time around fisheries meetings know how much flak the various agencies receive any time that restrictions are mentioned, and anyone who knows any fisheries managers, and has spent any time speaking with them, also knows how much more flak they catch in letters, emails, and phone calls made outside of the public eye.

And anyone who takes the time to think for maybe four seconds will realize that commercial and recreational fisheries generate sales tax revenues, fuel tax revenues, and eventually income tax revenues, that are, to some degree, lost when fishing is further restricted.

So exactly what government interest would justify distorting the data in order to cause fisheries managers additional stress while also reducing the stream of tax revenues from the fishing industry?

Wouldn’t it make more sense for the government to only do what is necessary, based on the most accurate data available, to rebuild fish stocks, so that regulations could be eased, government employees receive fewer complaints, and more tax revenues might be generated?

That certainly makes sense to me, but the conspiracy theorists might know something that I don’t, because they’re always complaining that fisheries managers are using bad data to adopt unnecessary rules, all to, as the quote above suggests, “justify their actions,” although just what those actions might be, and why those allegedly unneeded actions might be, is never made completely clear.

And that’s because folks are grasping at straws.

Instead of accepting the fact that the striped bass stock is facing real problems, and that, regardless of whether the stock rebuilds by 2029, we’re looking at an almost inevitable decline after that, and instead of resigning themselves to the truth that tough remedial measures are going to be needed to turn things around, fishermen try to find solace in bad news, and if they can’t do that, try to convince themselves that talk of incipient problems are all part of some sort of government con.

In a few years, it’s likely that the truth is going to hit them between the eyes, and it’s going to hurt.  Very badly.

And then they’ll ask how it all happened, when everything was going so well.

                                                                                                                          .

 

WILL YOUR GRANDKIDS EVER SEE A STRIPED BASS?

 

A few years ago, I was on one of my sporadic trips down to Washington, D.C., wandering around some House office building and talking to folks about fish.  I had just come out of a meeting with the staff of a member who represented a district in the New York City Borough of Queens, which is geographically, if not politically, a part of Long Island, shares the same geology and same species of saltwater fish.

Most of the staffers were the typical, just-out-of-college-or-law-school twentysomethings who are getting their start in the political arena.  It turned out that one of the staff was a pretty serious recreational fisherman, who spent much of his free time on the waters of Jamaica Bay and western Long Island Sound.

After the meeting ended, that stafffer and I were having a casual conversation about fishing out in the hall when I happened to mention winter flounder.  He gave me a funny sort of look, then, and admitted that he not only had never caught one, but that he had never even seen one alive.

Remember, this was someone who was probably in his late 20s and an active angler, who regularly fished places such as Jamaica, Manhasset, and Little Neck bays, which were once fertile flounder grounds.  So many flounder used to inhabit waters like those, all along New York’s coastline, that in 1984, New York anglers harvested nearly 14.5 million of them, and released many more.

Granted, that was the highest harvest ever recorded, but was not unusual for the time.  Nearly 12.5 million were harvested in 1981, and close to 12 million in 1985.  After that, a decline did set in, but flounder harvest remained above 1,000,000 fish through 1993, and didn’t sink below 500,000 until a decade later.

But by 2022, when that conversation in Washington took place, New York’s winter flounder landings had fallen to something like a mere 120 fish—although, by then, winter flounder landings were so rare that the folks doing the catch surveys almost never came across one, making the recent landing estimates little more than a wild-ass guess.

So, it’s understandable that the Congressional staffer whom I spoke with never came across a flounder, either.

It’s also sad, for throughout the first four decades of my life, winter flounder were one of the most abundant, most pursued, and arguably most important recreational fish in New York’s waters.  But as they began to decline, fishery managers were very slow to react, and very hesitant to adopt the management measures needed to stabilize the stock.  The opposition of the recreational fishing industry, and particularly the for-hire industry, to any sort of meaningful regulation created a political barrier that managers were, in the end, unwilling to scale.

Environmental factors, in the form of warming waters, the resultant hypoxia, and other, related factors certainly also played a role in the flounder’s decline, but it is difficult to argue that fishing, and in particular recreational fishing, didn’t play the dominant role in the flounder’s demise (for those who would rather blame the commercial fishery for the flounder’s ills, I would note that in 1984, the year that saw New York anglers land nearly 14 million pounds of flounder, the commercial landings were under 1.4 million pounds; the same comparison holds true in other years, as commercial landings in 1981 were just 2.1 million pounds, compared to a 12.5 million pound recreational harvest, while in 1985, commercial landings were under 1.3 million pounds, while recreational landings exceeded 12 million).

Today, anglers in New York just don’t see winter flounder anymore, although one will occasionally be caught while fishing for something else.

The striped bass has taken the flounder's place as the most frequently-targeted marine fish in New York, with somewhere between 30 and 35 percent of all fishing trips primarily targeting them.

And now, the striped bass is also in decline.

The stock remains overfished, although as of the 2024 stockassessment update, spawning stock biomass was approaching the threshold, andbiologists were predicting that SSB might finally exceed the threshold thisyear.  However, even if it does, there is a bigger problem on the horizon.

The last seven years have seen very few young bass recruiting into the population.  The Maryland juvenile abundance index has been the most reliable indicator of future striped bass abundance, and its average for those seven years, 2.81, is the lowest seven-year average in a time series that dates back to 1957.  The next-lowest 7-year average was 3.47, for the period 1980-1986, the heart of the last stock collapse, which gives some idea of just how bad recent recruitment has been.

Yesterday, the Maryland juvenile abundance index for 2025 was announced.  It was 4.0, a slight improvement over recent years and the highest since 2018, but nonetheless less than half of the long-term average of 11.  Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources Fishing and Boating Services Director Lynn Fegley tried to put a positive spin on the news, saying that

“Management actions taken over the last decade have resulted in a healthy population of spawning-age striped bass,”

a dubious assertion given that spawning stock biomass is currently hovering somewhere near—below, as of the last stock assessment—the threshold that defines an overfished stock, but also admits that

“continued low numbers of striped bass entering the population is a threat to this progress as there are fewer juveniles growing into spawning adults.”

There is just no way that a JAI of 4.0, following six previous years of record-low recruitment, can be seen as good news.

The Virginia JAI for 2025 was also released, and the news there is little better although, once again, there were efforts to put a positive spin on the numbers.  The value was 5.12, which was better than the last couple of years, but still below the long-term average of 7.77.  The press release called it an “average” year class, apparently because the upper confidence interval—the allowance for possible error in the calculation—of the 2025 JAI slightly overlapped the lower confidence interval for the long-term average.

However, that designation is deceiving, as the long-term average is calculated based on all years from 1967 through 2025, including the many years of poor recruitment that occurred during the stock collapse of the late 1970s and much of the 1980s, while the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass provides that

“If any of the four JAIs used in the stock assessment model to estimate recruitment (NY, NJ, MD, VA) shows an index value that is below 75% of all values…in the respective JAI from 1992-2006…for three consecutive years, then an interim [fishing mortality] target and interim [fishing mortality] threshold calculated using the low recruitment assumption will be implemented, and the [fishing mortality]-based management triggers…will be reevaluated using those interim reference points.”

Using that standard, Virginia’s 2025 JAI of 5.12 fell below the 25^th percentile value of 8.22, and thus is considered “low” pursuant to the provisions of Amendment 7,  It was the fifth consecutive year of low Virginia JAIs.

Yet, just as occurred with winter flounder nearly 40 years ago, the recreational fishing industry is ignoring the threats that both fishing mortality and changing environmental conditions pose to the striped bass stock, and is fighting against needed management action.

On September 9, the American Sportfishing Association, the largest fishing tackle trade organization, announced its opposition to any reductions in recreational fishing mortality, and encouraged anglers to send in comments to the ASMFC opposing the proposed 12% reduction included in Draft Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass for Public Comment.

And the summary of comments made at hearings held by the ASMFC to obtain input on Addendum III reveals that members of the for-hire industry, appearing at multiple venues between Maine and Virginia, were nearly unanimous in their opposition to the same 12% reduction.

So, the question is, when the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board meets on October 29, will it take action to conserve what remains of the striped bass stock, in an effort to preserve the spawning stock biomass so that, when environmental conditions allow, it will be able to produce the strong year classes needed to rebuild the bass population?

Or will it heed the calls to maintain status quo, and put the stock at increased risk of eventual collapse. . 

And, if the Management Board opts for inaction, just how far might the striped bass population decline?

After all, the last seven years of recruitment has already fallen below all previous marks, and set a new record low.  If no management action is taken, might the spawning stock biomass also enter a long and unprecedented freefall, dropping to levels never before recorded? 

When the grandchildren of today’s anglers are in their mid-20s, perhaps 40 years from now, will they still be catching stripers?  Or will the twentysomething anglers of 2065 say “Striped bass?  I never caught one.  I’ve never even seen one alive?”

That might seem improbable now.

But folks would have said the same thing about winter flounder in 1985.

 

 

 

 

NEW MENHADEN ASSESSMENT CORRECTS ERROR, CHANGES STOCK STATUS

 

A benchmark stock assessment, released in 2020, found that

“[The fishing mortality rate] in 2017 [the terminal year of the stock assessment] (0.11) was below the F_threshold (0.60) and F_target (0.22).  In addition, the stock is above the current fecundity target.  The Atlantic menhaden stock is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring.  [emphasis in original]”

A stock assessment update, released in 2022, found that stock status had not changed, stating that

“The fishing mortality for the terminal year of 2021 was below the [Ecological Reference Point] target ant threshold and the fecundity was above the [Environmental Reference Point] target and threshold.  Therefore, overfishing is not occurring and the stock in not considered overfished.”

Unfortunately, in coming to those conclusions, the authors of both stock assessments used an estimate of natural mortality (the fish that die from causes that are not fishing-related) that was too high, which resulted in an overestimate of population size and an overly optimistic evaluation of the population’s status.

A new update to the single-species stock assessment was recently completed (so recently that I received a copy in pdf form, as it has not yet been posted to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s website).  It addresses the overestimate of natural mortality, and the steps used to correct it, reporting that

“The only new change for this update assessment is the inclusion of a new vector of natural mortality based on a revised analysis of the historical tagging data that was completed by the M Working Group.  The 2020 benchmark used the estimate of [natural mortality] from Liljestrand et al.’s (2019) analysis of the tagging data to scale the Lorenzen (1996) curve of [natural mortality]-at-age, assuming that the [natural mortality] estimated from the tagging data represented the [natural mortality]  for age 1.5 menhaden, based on the size of the tagged fish.  During the 2025 benchmark assessment process, Ault et al. (2023) submitted a working paper to the Atlantic menhaden [stock assessment subcommittee] and the Ecological Reference Points Work Group (ERP WG) that re-analyzed the historical tagging data and produced an estimate of M=0.56, significantly lower that the M=1.17 reported by Liljestrand et al. (2019).

“However, Ault had used a different subset of the data and a different approach to handling key parameters, which made direct comparisons with Liljestrand et al. (2019) difficult.  The [stock assessment subcommittee] formed a working group to review the datasets and methods in consultation with the primary authors to determine the best estimate of [natural mortality] for use in the Atlantic menhaden stock assessment.  The [M Working Group] and [stock assessment subcommittee] determined that the main cause of the difference in [natural mortality] estimates was the handling of the magnet efficiency parameter [related to the detection of magnetic tags], which was equivalent to the tag reporting rate in conventional tagging models.  The [M Working Group] and [stock assessment subcommittee] found that Liljestrand et al. (2019) had overestimated the magnet efficiency rate in their analysis, but did not agree with the stepwise estimation approach proposed by Ault et al. (2023) to estimate this parameter.  In the end, the [M Working Group] and [stock assessment subcommittee] recommended a revised estimate of M=0.92 from the tagging study, based on the corrected magnet efficiency rate and updated effort and landings datasets, which was lower than the value used in the 2020 benchmark, but higher than the value estimated by Ault et al.’s (2023) method…”

To put that in simpler terms, the 2020 benchmark assessment assumed that about 69% of the adult menhaden are removed from the population by natural causes each year, while the 2025 assessment update assumes a natural mortality rate of about 60% (while rejecting the conclusion of another team of scientists that only 43% of the population succumbs to natural mortality each year).

The difference between 60% and 69% might not seem very large, but it is large enough to cause the estimate of the Atlantic menhaden population to drop substantially.  A memorandum prepared by the Atlantic Menhaden Technical Committee and Ecological Reference Point Workgroup, addressed to the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board and dated October 9, 2025 (which was attached to the copy of the 2025 stock assessment update that I received), notes that

“the lower [natural mortality rate] used in 2025 resulted in a lower biomass compared to the 2022 update.  The time-series average of age-1+ biomass for the 2025 update with the lower [natural mortality rate] was 37% lower than the time-series average in the 2022 update.  In addition, the 2022 update showed a large increase at the end of the time-series that not present at the end of the 2025 update.”

That 37% reduction, plus the absence of a large biomass increase near the end of the time series, was enough to change the status of the stock from one with a fishing mortality rate below the target level and a fecundity level above the target to one with a fishing mortality rate and a fecundity level that sits between target and threshold.  

That’s a big change, but not catastrophic, for while managers should always attempt to maintain both fishing mortality and biomass/fecundity at or near target levels, the fact is that for most species, most of the time, fishing mortality will often stray above target while biomass often remains below.  Things only get truly serious if a stock becomes overfished or overfishing occurs.

So far, that is not the case for Atlantic menhaden, and the 2025 assessment update noted that

“Short-term projections at the current Total Allowable Catch (TAC) of 233,550 [metric tons] were provided.  Under a constant TAC of 233,550 mt, [fishing mortality] will be between [the fishing mortality target] and [the fishing mortality threshold], with a 4% probability that [fishing mortality] will be above the [Ecological Reference Points’ fishing mortality threshold] and a 100% probability that it will be above the [fishing mortality target] in 2028.”

While that might not seem too dire, there are some important facts that it leaves unsaid.  One is that, as noted in the October 9 memo,

“the 2021 biomass that was projected forward to inform the 2023-2025 TAC options was approximately 60% higher than the 2023 biomass, which is informing the 2026-2028 TAC.”

So the Management Board is going to have far fewer fish to work with when setting the overall TAC, as well as individual state quotas, this time around.

As a result of the corrected, smaller population size, the 2025 assessment update found that 2023 fecundity was just 71% percent of the target level and, more significantly, just 105% of the fecundity threshold.  So while the Atlantic menhaden stock might not have been overfished in 2023, fecundity needs only fall a few more percentage points, to anywhere below 100% of the threshold, for menhaden to become overfished.

That should be setting off alarms at the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board, and making it clear that maintaining status quo—in the form of a 233,440 mt Total Allowable Catch—is neither a prudent nor a viable option. 

For while the current TAC might not lead to overfishing, it could very well lead to an overfished stock, which is not an acceptable outcome.

Thus, if the Management Board is to be a responsible steward of the menhaden resource, it must make a substantial reduction in the menhaden TAC for the years 2026-2028.

How large should that reduction be?

If we want to get fishing mortality back down to its target level, the TAC must be cut by more than 50%.  The October 9 memo presents a number of options, built around the likelihood of exceeding the TAC in the upcoming years.  The most liberal of the options presented, a 110,000 mt TAC for the entire 2026-2028 period, that would carry a 60% probability of exceeding the fishing mortality target, represents about a 52.5% reduction in TAC compared to the TAC currently in place (although the reduction compared to 2024 landings would be less, as such landings were about 20% below the existing TAC).

A more prudent TAC, that would have just a 50% probability of exceeding the target—and so represent a sort of mirror image to the usual process of setting harvest at a level with a 50% probability of not exceeding the mortality level needed to achieve management success—would cut landings back to 108,450 mt, nearly a 54.5% reduction from the current level.

As a practical matter, the difference between a 54.5% reduction and a 52.5% reduction is trivial, and hardly worth arguing about.  But we can be sure that the findings of the 2025 stock assessment update, and the recommendations in the October 5 memo, are going to set off an intense debate between the menhaden industry and the folks who want to shut most of that industry down.

It is extremely likely--it is a virtual certainty--that the menhaden industry will howl and complain that it can’t absorb a 50%-plus cut in harvest, and that the Management Board should adopt a new TAC that is very close to the one now in place.  It might—or might not—be willing to accept a 20% TAC reduction, given that the menhaden fishery only landed about 80% of its quota last year, and a TAC of around 187,000 metric tons would be larger than the TAC for 2013-2014, and about equal to the 187,880 mt TAC that was in place for 2015-2016.

But that level of landings would almost certainly mean that the fishing mortality target would be exceeded, and when managers go to the trouble of setting a target—essentially saying that, ideally, “fishing mortality ought to go no higher than this,”—they do have an obligation to the public to at least try to achieve that goal.  Each person might have a different definition of “try,” but it’s probably fair to say that if you adopt management measures that, more likely than not, will lead to a fishing mortality target from being exceeded, you’re not really trying at all.

The menhaden fishing industry will be on shaky ground if they argue for keeping the menhaden TAC at or near its current level, or at or near current landings.  Throughout the debate over the proper level of, and methods used for, menhaden harvest, the industry has regularly called for following the science, rather than giving in to emotional arguments.  Now that we have the science telling us that menhaden fecundity was hovering just above the threshold that denotes an overfished stock in 2023—it could conceivably have slipped below that threshold since, although we lack the data to know if it has—and telling us that we need to cut the TAC by more than 50% to achieve the target fishing mortality level, the industry has the choice of staying true to its previous messaging, and going along with what the science appears to demand—even if that means taking a serious economic hit—or suddenly saying that the science isn’t the only consideration, and looking like hypocrites.

We can’t know for certain which course they’ll choose, although “follow the money” is usually dependable advice.

On the other side of the table, we’ll undoubtedly see the folks who worship at the menhaden's altar, and have regularly made irrational and scientifically unsustainable calls for the elimination of the menhaden reduction fishery, increase the volume of their yowling, and use the 2025 assessment update as an excuse to redouble their efforts, never seeming to realize that a menhaden that dies in a pound net is just as dead, and has the same impact on the stock as one that dies in a purse seine.

By focusing on eliminating a gear type instead of on reducing the TAC, such persons will make it easier for the industry to prevail, as they open the door to equally emotional arguments that the reduction industry is unjustly targeted, that ending the reduction fishery would kill an economically important business in a generally depressed area of the coast, and that closing that fishery would deny employment for people—including many people of color—in a region that offers few viable alternatives.

And it will be easy for the industry to argue that, even with the population size revised downward, the menhaden stock is not in anywhere near as bad condition as the industry's opponents maintain.

The October 9 memo shows that menhaden landings—and, in particular, menhaden reduction landings, have been relatively stable since 2000.  During that time, overall landings ranged between a low of 169.4 metric tons in 2013 to a high of 270.05 metric tons in 2001, with landings in 2023, the last year in the time series, coming in closer to the low end, at 181.75 metric tons.  

Similarly, reduction landings ranged from a low of 124.60 in 2020 (and 131.02 in 2013, the lowest non-COVID year) to a high of 233.56 in 2001, with landings in the last three years of the time series, 2021, 2022, and 2023, coming in near time-series lows, at 136.69, 136.70, and 131.80 metric tons, respectively, even though the ,menhaden TAC has been increasing in recent years.

At the same time, the 2025 assessment update revealed that current spawning stock biomass is higher than it has been for most of this century, that the current fishing mortality rate is near the middle of its range for the past 30 years, and that current recruitment is better than it has been in most years since 1990.  However, it also indicates that both age-1+ biomass and fecundity are either at, or not far from 30-year lows.

So, after discounting the demands from both stakeholder extremes, what should the Management Board do when it meets on October 28?

The need to cut the TAC—sharply—is clear.  Ideally, the 2026-2028 TAC should be reduced to no more than 108,450 metric tons, although its unlikely the Management Board will have the appetite to get that done over the course of a single year.  In the real world, some sort of phase-in is likely, but so long as there is a fixed schedule to get the TAC down to that level over the course of a few years—ideally by 2028—no one will have too much reason to complain.

Of course, the industry almost certainly will complain anyway.  They’ll argue that a cut of more than 50%, even if phased in over the course of three years, is too sudden and extreme for them to bear.  But the fact is that the TAC should never have reached 233,550 metric tons.  It got that high only because the biologists made a mistake, and adopted a natural mortality rate that was too high, and so skewed previous stock assessments.

No one was really to blame for that error—not the scientists doing the stock assessment, who relied on what they thought was accurate data; not the Management Board, who relied on the assessment when setting the TAC; and not the fishermen who relied on the Management Board to set the TAC at the proper level..  But blame isn’t the issue.

The simple fact is that the menhaden industry was killing more menhaden than they should have been, and now that we know that to be true, the Management Board needs to get landings down to a more sustainable level.

One might borrow a concept from civil law, and argue that the menhaden fishery was “unjustly enriched” by the error in the stock assessment and received a benefit, in the form of far more fish, than they were entitled to.  If that had happened in a financial context—if, for example, someone’s bank made an error and credited their account with $100,000. instead of $1,000.00 because someone put a decimal point in the wrong place—the party who was unjustly enriched would have to return all of the assets that they weren’t entitled to.

But no one is suggesting that the menhaden industry make pound-for-pound paybacks of the extra fish that they harvested as a result of the earlier stock assessments’ error.  

No one is suggesting that they make any sort of restitution at all.

But now that we know that the earlier natural mortality estimate was wrong, it’s neither unreasonable nor unfair that the Management Board reduce the TAC to what it should have been all along.

THE PROBLEM WITH THE STRIPED BASS HEARINGS

 

What a field day for the heat

A thousand people in the street

Singing songs and a-carrying signs

Mostly saying hooray for our side.

                              From “For What It’s Worth”

                              by Buffalo Springfield, 1966

 

When the song “For What It’s Worth” was recorded back in the latter half of the 1960s, I was still very young, growing up in a nation riven by internal conflicts over the Viet Nam War, civil rights, and the first stirrings of feminism and the environmental movement.  Traditional values were being challenged by a public growing ever less willing to accept the status quo. 

Although the song was originally a response to a curfew imposed by the City of Los Angeles, California, intended to reduce late-night crowds patronizing various music venues, the lyrics became, and still are, an anthem and--if you listen closely enough, also a caution--for advocates who challenge the established governing system and work toward some sort of reform.

As I’ve grown older and more cynical, I’ve also noted to myself that some of its lyrics could apply as much to a fisheries hearing—and particularly, in my part of the world, a striped bass hearing—as to a debate over other, more broadly applicable policy matters that raise the public’s ire.

Certainly, the current debate over the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Draft Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass for Public Comment seems to fit.

At its heart, Addendum III is a simple document, born out of a simple need:  The last benchmark striped bass stock assessment, which the ASMFC accepted in early 2019, found that the striped bass stock was overfished.  Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which was still in effect at that time, required the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board to rebuild the overfished stock within 10 years, thus establishing a 2029 rebuilding deadline (Amendment 7 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, adopted in 2022, includes the same requirement).  Last October, a 2024 update to the stock assessment was released, which informed biologists and fishery managers that the stock was unlikely to meet the rebuilding deadline unless removals (the combination of landings and release/discard mortality) were reduced.  At the August 2025 Management Board meeting, the ASMFC’s Striped Bass Technical Committee informed the Board that, in order to have a 50% probability of meeting the rebuilding deadline, striped bass removals would have to be reduced by 12%.

Although it also addresses some ancillary issues, the primary purpose of Addendum III was to implement that 12% reduction.

Efforts to reduce removals, regardless of the species involved, are always controversial, but Addendum III’s relatively modest harvest cuts drew particular rancor because, for the first time, they called for a closed recreational fishing season in the ocean fishery (which includes all recreational striped bass fisheries outside of the Chesapeake Bay).  

With the bag limit already reduced to a single fish, and a narrow, 28- to 31-inch slot limit already in place, such closed season represented the only practical way to achieve the necessary reduction.  But that didn’t mean that anglers were going to accept the closure easily, particularly when it might shut down fishing at the most productive times of the year.

Commercial fishermen rejected any quota reduction outright, and disclaimed any responsibility for the striped bass’ current depleted condition.  They adamantly insisted that they were only responsible for 10% of all removals—rarely mentioning that their share of the removals increased to 16% in 2024. 

New York’s Bonnie Brady, the head of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, whined that

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

even though the same 12% reduction would be applied to the commercial and recreational fisheries, and claimed that

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

even though, in 2024, the combined commercial and for-hire fisheries accounted for more than 20% of all striped bass removals.

Instead, Brady blamed the shore-based and private boat anglers, and particularly those who practiced catch-and-release, for any woes that might be besetting the striped bass stock.

Her comments were in line with those made by the rest of the commercial fishing community, some of whom even said things like

“Why haven’t you considered giving us 12 percent back instead of taking?”

and

“I’ve been doing this for 60-plus years.  You come in for one day, trying to run this industry…Had a 12,000-pound quota when this all started.  When you’re done with this one, I’ll have seven.  Take a 50 percent cut in your salary, see how long you sit there.”

The for-hire fleet, for the most part, also sought to evade any responsibility for rebuilding the striped bass stock, even though, on a per-trip basis, they harvest more striped bass than any other segment of the recreational community (an analysis of data made available by the National Marine Fisheries Service indicates that shore-based anglers harvest, on average, 0.025 striped bass per directed striped bass trip, private boat anglers harvest 0.185 striped bass per directed trip, and anglers fishing from for-hire vessels harvest 0.777 striped bass per directed trip).

By and large, the party boat fleet and the traditional “six-pack” charters opposed any landings reductions, and actually sought to increase their harvest by widening the ocean slot limit to 28 to 33 inches, with an equivalent adjustment made to the recreational slot in the Chesapeake Bay, for anglers fishing from their vessels.  

The fact that adopting the wider for-hire slot would force shore-based and private boat anglers to cut back their removals even more, and face a longer closed season, did not seem to bother most of the for-hires at all.  (It should be noted that the smaller light-tackle boats, often colloquially referred to as “guide boats” rather than “charters,” generally supported the 12% reduction and opposed the special for-hire slot, with the American Saltwater Guides Association recommending that the Management Board adopt the former while rejecting the latter.)

The fishing tackle industry also opposed the reduction in removals proposed in the draft addendum, apparently afraid that both shops and manufacturers would lose sales if a closed season was imposed.  The American Sportfishing Association tried to rally anglers in opposition to the proposed reductions, arguing, in part, that

“The recreational striped bass fishery drives billions of dollars in economic activity, supports tens of thousands of jobs, and sustains countless small businesses up and down the Atlantic coast.  An additional 12% reduction would devastate the recreational fishing economy while doing very little to improve the health of the fishery.”

In an exhibition of unintended irony, the American Sportfishing Association alleged that

“ASMFC is reacting to short-term swings in the recreational catch estimates,”

only to have Michael Waine, its spokesman on East Coast fishery matters, call in to an Addendum III hearing held in Kings Park, New York, and argue in favor of maintaining the status quo, because recreational striped bass catch appeared to be off by 50% in the first half of 2024—an argument that could only be called a reaction to a short-term swing in recreational catch estimates.  

A big on-line New Jersey tackle shop also asked its customers to support status quo.

And some Garden State anglers clearly did, as the New Jersey angling press reported that many recreational fishermen attending New Jersey hearings also opposed any reduction in landings.  In other places, the majority of anglers seemed to support Addendum III’s conservation measures.

But in most instances, whether comments were made by recreational fishermen, commercial fishermen, for-hire operators, or members of the fishing tackle industry, most of those comments seemed to focus on how the proposed harvest reductions would impact the person making the comments, or that person’s industry or sector.

Outside of many—but far from all—of the recreational fishermen, the comments were strictly partisan, and didn’t focus on the most important factor of all—the health of the striped bass stock.

In the end, things could be summed up with another set of lyrics:

There’s battle lines being drawn

Nobody’s right, if everybody’s wrong

And in the Amendment III debate, just about everyone has been wrong to a greater or lesser degree.

There are the folks involved in the various businesses—commercial fishermen, for-hire operators, and the tackle industry—who can’t seem to shift their focus from their short-term profits and possible losses onto their likely long-term gains if the bass stock can be rebuilt and maintained at a higher level of abundance.

They seem to lack the ability to contemplate what might happen to their businesses should the bass stock, instead of being rebuilt, go into a further decline and, perhaps, even a collapse.

Given the last six years of historically low levels of recruitment, such decline and collapse are not impossible outcomes.

Yet the businesses' wrongheaded focus on the short term continues.

The many anglers who want to see the bass stock rebuilt often criticize the commercials and for-hires for their resistance to needed management measures, but the recreational sector is also far from blame in that regard.  That has been painfully obvious in their reaction—and their opposition—to the proposed closed seasons.

Since the idea of closed seasons was originally broached, many anglers, most particularly those in states between Maine and New Jersey, complained that the proposed closures would unfairly hamper their ability to fish for striped bass.  

While, to some extent, I could sympathize with the folks from northern New England—they kill relatively few bass, compared to states farther south, and nature has already allowed them the shortest fishing season of any states within the striped bass’ range—the fact remains that everyone has contributed to the species’ decline, and everyone should expect to contribute to its recovery.

So Maine anglers complain about midsummer closures, which hit them at their peak season, while New Jersey fishermen whine that, even though they may catch bass for ten months of the year, closures that impact Wave 3 (May/June) and Wave 6 (November/December) would cause them unacceptable harm.

Here in New York, anglers complain about different possible seasons, depending upon where they fish.  Those who fish on the East End of Long Island abhor the idea of a midsummer closure, but would accept closed seasons in the spring and late fall, while anglers on the western half of Long Island, in Westchester and in New York City share the concerns of New Jersey fishermen, and might grudgingly accept a midseason closure, but don’t want their activities impaired in the spring and the fall.

The need to rebuild the striped bass seems to take second place to anglers’ desires to catch them.

That fact becomes even more clear in the debate between “no-harvest” and “no-target” seasons.

A “no-harvest” season would prohibit anglers from taking fish home, but would not prevent them from practicing catch-and-release; New York’s current striped bass season operates in just that way.  A “no-target” season would prohibit anglers from even trying to catch a striped bass during the closure, regardless of whether or not the fish was released.

Because catch-and-release fishing results in some striped bass dying after being returned to the water, a no-target closure would be shorter than a no-harvest closed season.  However, as a practical matter, no-target seasons are not enforceable, as it is extremely difficult to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that an angler was actually trying to catch a striped bass and not a bluefish, weakfish, or other species that might be caught at the same time in the same waters using the same angling technique, so the mortality savings attributed to such no-target seasons are largely illusory.

In addition, no-target seasons would unnecessarily deny anglers the social and recreational benefits offered by a catch-and-release fishery, while denying angling-related businesses the economic benefits that accrue from anglers catching and releasing striped bass.

Thus, most recreational striped bass fishermen rightfully argue for no-harvest closures and against a no-target season.

However, far too many anglers are opposing no-target seasons so intensely that they are forgetting that the most important issue being considered isn’t the nature of the closed season, but instead the need to reduce striped bass removals by at least 12%, so that the stock can have a reasonable probability of rebuilding by 2029.  

By de-emphasizing the need for such reduction, those anglers are implying that avoiding a no-target closure—something that could be accomplished merely by taking no management action at all, and so maintaining the current status quo—is more important than rebuilding the stock.

They don’t understand that even ae partial reduction, dependent on a flawed and unenforceable no-target closure, is better than no reduction at all.

And that, too, is wrong.

It is time for everyone involved in the fishery—recreational, commercial, for-hire, and related businesses—to understand that there is nothing more important to all of them than the long-term health of the striped bass stock, and that even if it comes at some temporary cost to business and/or to recreational opportunity, a rebuilt stock will, in the end, benefit everyone.

It is time for everyone to understand that, in the long run, drawing battle lines, and cheering on their own side, rather than coming together for the good of the striped bass resource, only makes it more likely that, in the end, we—and the striped bass—are all going to lose.

Yet it seems that, for far too many, that understanding will never come.