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.