SALTWATER FISHERIES MANAGEMENT: STILL BEHIND THE CURVE

 

I’ve said more than once that it often seems that saltwater fisheries managers are between 50 to 100 years behind their freshwater counterparts.

Perhaps because rivers, lakes, and streams are smaller water bodies than the ocean, and the effects of overfishing are easier to see, freshwater fisheries managers were much quicker to adopt management tools such as size limits, bag limits, and seasons—not to mention user funding of the management process, in the form of fishing licenses—than those who managed ocean fisheries.

They were also much quicker to realize that different fisheries require different approaches to management.

The first freshwater recreational fishing licenses were adopted by Oregon and Indiana in 1901.  Although other states adopted freshwater fishing licenses not too long after that, and most coastal states have adopted saltwater licenses too, few if any of the saltwater licenses were put in place before the 1980s; today, New York, as well as New Jersey, still resist the adoption of fee-based licenses for saltwater anglers.

Recreational bag and size limits, as well as seasons, were also adopted in the early 20^th Century, but for a very long time, few saltwater fish were given similar protections.  When I was growing up in Connecticut during the 1960s, the only saltwater regulation we had was a 16-inch (fork length) minimum size on striped bass, with no restrictions on how many we could kill and no closed season.  It wasn’t until the early 1980s that Connecticut adopted an 8-inch size limit for winter flounder—to the great consternation of some of the anglers that hung out at the local town dock, who lamented the new ban on harvesting “potato chips” and the “sweet little ones”—although, as fish stocks declined, the bag and/or size limits for most species were put in place.

But perhaps the biggest difference between freshwater and saltwater fisheries management is that, in freshwater, the notion of fishing primarily for recreation, and not for food, is widely embraced, while coastal fisheries managers are still tied tightly to the concept of maximum sustainable yield, and so of maximizing the number of dead fish put on the dock, whether by recreational or commercial fishermen.

You don’t see freshwater fishery managers suggesting that, if anglers’ landings of, say, yellow perch or walleye—both fish that are commercially sold in some states—were lower than a particular water body could sustain, the state ought to allow gillnetters to come in to harvest and sell whatever fish the recreational fishermen left behind, in order to achieve the optimum yield.  For in fresh water, abundance isn’t seen as a bad thing, so long as the forage base can sustain it. 

Anglers enjoy fishing more if there are more fish in the water.

Contrast that sort of thinking to the language in Amendment 2 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Bluefish, which permits the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Bluefish Management Board, acting in conjunction with the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, to transfer unused recreational quota to the commercial sector, rather than merely allowing that unused recreational quota to increase bluefish abundance and make more fish available to recreational fishermen in the following year (the provision also allows unused commercial quota to be transferred to the recreational sector although, in part because bluefish are still subject to a rebuilding plan, that has never yet happened, while transfers of recreational quotas to the commercial fishery have occurred multiple times under the old Amendment 1 to the management plan).

It almost seems that fisheries managers, both at the ASMFC and at the Mid-Atlantic Council, can’t understand the benefits of maintaining an abundance of fish in the water to the angling community, nor can they seem to get their arms around the concept of voluntary catch-and-release. 

I still recall listening to a joint meeting of those two management bodies while Amendment 2 was being debated, when someone—I think it was New York’s former Legislative Proxy to the ASMFC—raised the issue of managing bluefish for abundance rather than merely for yield, and another, long-time member of the Management Board conceded that he didn’t even know how they might go about doing such a thing.

The concept was just that alien to most of the people in the room.

Because, in saltwater management, the focus is still all about managing dead fish, not live ones, even though the bluefish fishery is overwhelmingly recreational.  The ASMFC notes that

“Bluefish are predominantly a recreational fishery, with recreational landings accounting for approximately 85% of total landings by weight in recent years.”

Yet even though anglers dominate bluefish landings, they still release the great majority of the bluefish they catch.  The ASMFC reports that

“Bluefish recreational releases have averaged approximately two-thirds of the total catch in numbers of fish since 1999.”

A fishery dominated by anglers, particularly anglers who voluntarily release the majority of their catch, seems to be one that should be managed for abundance, not yield.  Yet fishery managers have expressly rejected that approach, preferring one in which the fish released by recreational fishermen may be used, not to increase bluefish abundance and improve the angling experience, but to increase commercial landings instead.

Marine fishery managers seemingly can’t wrap their minds around the concept of managing a catch-and-release fishery.

We saw evidence of that again during the recent debate over Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, when some members of the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board were steadfastly focused on imposing so-called “no target” closures, which would prohibit intentionally catching and releasing striped bass during any closed season.

Instead of just seeking to reduce recreational fishing mortality, which included both landings and the  fish that died after release, they insisted on separating the harvest fishery from the catch-and-release fishery and imposing restrictions on both, out of some sense of “fairness” and “equity.”   Even though anglers release about 90% of all striped bass that they catch, and have since about 1990, it never occurred to such people that it might make more sense, from both a biological and from a socioeconomic perspective, to maintain a fishery that treads more lightly on the resource, imposing a mere 9% mortality rate while still generating significant economic and social returns, while placing greater constraints on a fishery that generates a 100% mortality rate on the fish retained along with a 9% mortality rate on those released.

To them, it’s still all about maintaining yield.

You don’t see that emphasis on yield in freshwater fisheries.  Here in New York, we see many recreational regulations that emphasize creating a quality recreational fishery rather than maintaining a large recreational harvest.  Such regulations range from no-kill sections of trout streams to extra-large size limits for muskellunge to no-harvest waters for largemouth bass, because managers have learned that, in many cases, maintaining yield is not anglers’ primary concern.

And that brings us to what might be one of the most important differences between freshwater and saltwater fisheries management:  The recognition that some fish, although edible, are pursued mainly for sport, while others are pursued primarily for their food value—and  that “gamefish” and “panfish” ought to be managed differently to get the best outcomes for both.

I should probably note that when I use the word “gamefish,” I’m not using it in the same sense that some angling groups do, to denote a species that may not be commercially harvested, although in most freshwater fisheries, that is the case.  Instead, I’m using it to denote a species that is pursued primarily for sport, and which, although edible, is often released.

And when I use the word “panfish,” I’m not referring to fish that can usually fit within the confines of a skillet, but instead to fish that, while perhaps fun to catch, are typically pursued in a harvest, rather than in a catch-and-release, fishery.

Thus, freshwater bass, muskellunge, striped bass, and bluefish might all be considered “gamefish,” while bluegills, bullheads, black sea bass, and red snapper all fall within the description of “panfish.”

If we look at New York’s freshwater fishing regulations, we see how that works out in the real world.  

Largemouth and smallmouth bass are gamefish.  There is a 5 ½-month-long season when they can be harvested, with a modest bag limit of 5 fish and a 12-inch minimum size, and for the rest of the year (with exceptions on certain waters), the season is closed, but bass may nonetheless be intentionally caught and released, provided the angler only employs artificial lures, and not live bait.  Except for the live-bait prohibition, such regulation is similar to the sort of no-harvest closed season that the “no-targeting” advocates opposed during the recent striped bass debate, because it was supposedly “inequitable” to the people who wanted to kill their fish. 

On the other hand, yellow perch, crappie, and the various sunfish are panfish, and are managed as such, with no closed seasons, a bag limit of 50 for perch and 25 for crappie and sunfish, and a 10-inch minimum size for crappie, with no minimum for sunfish or perch.  Catfish are another classic panfish, and for those—whether they are channel cats, white cats, or bullheads—there are no recreational regulations at all.

Muskellunge are arguably the ultimate freshwater gamefish, and for them, New York maintains a general 1-fish bag limit, 40-inch minimum size, and a season that protects spawning fish.  But for places like Lake Erie, which are known to produce trophy fish, the size limit is increased to 54 inches to improve the angling experience.

Because having a good fishing trip, particularly for gamefish, often isn’t about filling a cooler.

Saltwater managers still haven’t figured that out.

We’ve already seen how, in the case of bluefish, if anglers aren’t expected to kill their entire quota, Amendment 2 allows fishery managers to hand up to 10% of the recreational quota over to the commercial sector, to make sure that those fish are killed by someone.

And we’ve seen how, in the striped bass debate, the idea of allowing a catch-and-release fishery to continue while the season is closed to harvest is anathema to some, who call it “unfair” to catch-and-kill anglers.

While those two species are probably the paramount gamefish of the New England and mid-Atlantic coasts, in fisheries dominated by catch-and-release anglers, managers continue to treat them as panfish, with harvest given priority over pure recreation.

It’s not completely clear why that’s so, although the existence of commercial fisheries, that compete for quota with the recreational sector, and are usually more than willing to harvest whatever fish anglers don’t choose to kill, probably clouds managers’ thinking somewhat.  Judging them by their actions, many managers still fail to understand that managing a fishery primarily for sport, with most of the fishing mortality coming from fish that die after being released, is just as valid a “use” of the resource as managing them primarily for human consumption, and may even yield the greatest economic returns.

It is well past time for saltwater fisheries managers to remove their blinders, and be willing to take a lesson from their inland counterparts.  When managing panfish—perhaps tautog, or summer flounder, spot, or croaker—maximizing yield is a worthwhile goal.

But when managing gamefish, abundance, and a quality fishing experience, ought to be the primary concern.