BACK TO THE BASICS: ANGLERS AND SHARK DEPREDATION

 

Two United States Senators, Rick Scott (R-FL) and Brian Schatz (D-HI), recently announced their introduction of the “Supporting the Health of Aquatic Systems through Research, Knowledge, and Enhanced Dialogue Act”—better known as the SHARKED Act—to address the issue of shark depredation in commercial and recreational fisheries.

Similar legislation, introduced by Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA), was passed by the House of Representatives last January.

Shark depredation has become a bigger and bigger issue in a number of fisheries, and has given birth to all sorts of hyperbole, most calling for sharks populations to be reduced in order to minimize the competition between fishermen and the big ocean predators, and better suit fishermen’s convenience.  Fishermen complain that sharks “need to be controlled,” that there “is a small imbalance in the shark population,” and otherwise suggest that the shark population is too large.

Given that sort of talk, the purpose of the SHARKED Act, as described in the Tampa Free Press, is laudably moderate, and not immediately threatening to shark populations.  It merely seeks to establish

“a federal task force dedicated to addressing this complex issue.  The task force would bring together key stakeholders including federal agencies, regional fisheries councils, scientists, and various fishing and conservation organizations.  Their collective mission would be to research, manage, and mitigate shark interactions that are negatively affecting fisheries and potentially disrupting marine ecosystems.”

Of course, shark depredation is nothing new.  Sharks have been stealing fish from fishermen for a very long time, just because, like any predator, a feeding shark will always seek an easy kill that allows them to feed while expending a minimum of energy, and there are few easier kills than the fish tethered to an angler’s or commercial fisherman’s line, a fish that, by struggling, is advertising its vulnerability and availability to every and all predators in the vicinity.

For a while, people forgot what shark depredation was like, because shark populations were heavily fished, and populations driven down.  But now that some species are coming back, there aren’t too many people left who remember what a healthy shark population looked like.  One researcher has found that anglers less than 60 years old really can't conceive of the number and size of the sharks that once filled our oceans.  Given that loss of anglers' institutional memory, to many fishermen, a merely healthy shark population seems like a population that;s growing out of control.

So maybe its time that we look backward, to gain an understanding of what anglers did to address depredation before shark stocks declined.  

Ernest Hemingway, for example, understood depredation well.  Back in the 1930s, there was a spectacularly strong run of giant bluefin tuna off Bimini in the Bahamas—almost certainly fish leaving their Gulf of Mexico spawning grounds, and on their way to summer off New England and maritime Canada. 

The offshore anglers of the era repeatedly hooked up with the big fish, but no one ever landed one intact, because there were so many sharks that they would swarm the hooked tuna, and leave it resembling an apple core—an intact head and intact tail, but with everything in between eaten down to the bare backbone.

That changed on May 21, 1935, when Hemingway landed the first Bimini bluefin that had not even been touched by a shark.  He did it by the simple expedient—simple to explain, not necessarily to practice—of minimizing the time that the hooked fish was in the water, which also minimized the time the sharks had to find it.

Hemingway explained it this way:

“We tried to fight them fast, but never rough.  The secret is for the angler never to rest.  Any time he rests, the fish in resting.  That gives the fish a chance to get strong again…You don’t have to kill a horse to break him.  You have to convince him…To do this, you have to be in good condition.”

As explained in an article published in Anglers Journal a few years ago,

“[Hemingway] pioneered the technique of pumping fish—raising and lowering the rod tip and reeling in the slack, using his back and legs to pressure and defeat the fish—which in part gave rise to innovations such as the fighting chair with a footrest and bucket harness…”

which allowed anglers to bring their entire body to bear when fighting a big fish.

Such an active fighting technique contrasted sharply with some of the angling going on in those days when, using 72-thread (roughly 210-pound-test) line and two-handed reels,

“inexperienced anglers fought big fish by paying out yards of heavy line, the weight of which beat down the fish,”

but also gave the sharks plenty of time to claim their meal.

As Hemingway observed,

“There is tackle made now, and there are fishing guides expert in the ways of cheating with it, by which anybody who can walk up three flights of stairs, carrying a quart bottle of milk in each hand, can catch gamefish over 500 pounds without even having to sweat much.”

If we apply Hemingway’s comments and accomplishments to today, when people are again complaining about shark depredation of their hooked bluefin (and other species of) tuna, there are some very distinct parallels.

Fighting chairs, bucket harnesses, and heavy conventional rods and reels are nowhere near as popular today as they were when I first started fishing offshore in the late 1970s, but the need to beat big gamefish quickly, before the sharks show up, hasn’t changed.  So how are anglers fishing today?

A lot of us have gone to heavy “stand-up” rods, tackle that originated, and was perfected, in the California long-range fishing fleet, where anglers fish for triple-digit yellowfin tuna from the decks of what are essentially big party boats, carrying too many anglers, who all fish at once, for them to fight their fish from a chair.  

The problem that the long-ranmge ran into was that the traditional big-game rods—typically, about seven feet long, with a stiff tip and a longish butt section--gave the fish too much mechanical advantage.  The tuna were, pulling on the long end of a lever, and so multiplying the force exerted on the fishermen, who had difficulty staying in the fight.

To solve the problem, long-range fishermen developed the stand-up rod, which was significantly shorter than the “boat rods" used with fighting chairs, and usually measured about 5 ½ feet in length.  The stand-up rod featured a short but, and long foregrips, which allowed anglers to move the fulcrum of the lever closer to the tip, thus cutting down on the advangage enjoyed by the fish.  The rod's tip section tapered quickly, so that the rod bent sharply when a fish was being fought, again cutting down on the fish’s leverage.

When matched with a rod belt and a fighting harness that wrapped around the angler’s waist and lower back, the stand-up rod—while not quite as effective as a fighting chair and bucket harness—allows fishermen to fight a big fish with their entire body, and keeps fighting times short.  Just last week, a young woman fishing from my boat used such gear to beat a 300-pound-class thresher shark in about an hour, even though the fish weighed more than twice as much as she did.

Despite its limitations and specialized gear, stand-up fishing isn’t too different from traditional angling with a bucket harness and chair—except without the chair.  It still kills tuna pretty quickly, and mostly keeps the sharks from stealing a mea

The other recent approach to tuna fishing is “jig ‘n’ pop,” where anglers use (mostly) spinning gear to cast plugs or drop jigs to tuna, some of them well into the “giant” class.  The rods and reels used are technological marvels, with the rods wrought from carbon fibers, and precision-machined reels, loaded with 100-pound-tenst braided lines, that have evolved far beyond the reels used even a dozen years ago.

Such equipment can easily stand up to a big tuna’s abuse.

But the human body that employs such gear hasn't changed much in thousands of years, and from a human mechanics perspective, spinning gear isn’t particularly good for fighting fish.  There are few provisions for a harness, so anglers are forced to fight big tuna with their hands, arms, and shoulders; their backs might get a little play, but their legs are out of the fight.  

To make matters worse, the rods tend to have over-long butts and, in the case of rods intended for casting, very long tips, again giving the tuna a mechanical advantage.  Add 30 or more pounds of drag to match the 100-pound line, and the fight becomes physically daunting.  It takes a strong and conditioned angler to get the job done, and in many—probably most—cases, the initial fisherman breaks down, and multiple anglers end up fighting the same fish over an extended period. 

I know of one bluefin of somewhere over 80 inches—toward the low end of the “giant” category—that recently took multiple anglers roughly three hours to land on spinning gear.  They undoubtedly had a good time, and ended up with a fish untouched by sharks, but anyone fooling around with a bluefin for as long as three hours shouldn’t be surprised if they only get back the head.  A shark can only resist for so long.

The current use of spinning gear to catch big fish is arguably the mirror image of Hemingway’s angler who “who can walk up three flights of stairs, carrying a quart bottle of milk in each hand” beating a big fish “without having to sweat much.  For while catching a big tuna on spinning gear is a physically demanding activity that involves plenty of sweat, from the tuna’s perspective, it has the same end result—an extended fight that often ends in shark depredation.

If anyone wants to have a reasonable chance to beat the sharks while fighting big tuna, they need to bear down from the beginning, maximizing the pressure put on the fish, never relenting, and using adequate gear that allows them to bring the fish to the boat in the shortest possible time.

Do anything else, and the blame for any depredation falls not on the sharks, but on the angler.

And when you come right down to it, the same thing is true with respect to little fish, as well.

Not all that many years ago, if you looked at what the hard-core anglers were using to pull snapper and grouper off Florida reefs, you’d see broomstick-stiff rods and reels like the #6/0 Penn Senator—or maybe the similar-sized, but somewhat less expensive #67 and #68 “Long Beach” reels—loaded with 80-pound line, the sort of gear needed to haul a fish away from the reef and get it to the boat quickly.

Today, very similar to what’s happening with tuna, you see a lot of anglers using “slow-pitch” jigging gear, which employs very soft rods to subtly manipulate the lures, to catch snapper, grouper, amberjack, and other reef fish.  But while such slow-pitch rods may give the jigs a tantalizing action, they’re completely worthless for fighting fish.  They have no backbone at all and a noodly action, and completely collapse under the weight of a fish, forcing the angler to slowly crank their catch to the surface, providing all the opportunity in the world for a shark to come along and claim the prize.

Even anglers who aren’t using slow-pitch gear seem to have forgotten how to get a fish off the bottom and into the boat with any kind of alacrity.  Every now and then, I make the mistake of watching a video of some Internet expert fight a decent grouper, snapper, or amberjack.  More often than not, the video will portray the self-proclaimed “expert” putting his foot on the rail of the boat, so he can rest his rod on his knee while he holds the whole thing by the reel’s sideplate, the way Bubba typically holds a reel meant for cranking in two-pound largemouth bass.  Thus twisted up like a pretzel, tenuously hanging on to his rod, the Internet angler then slowly cranks the reel handle, making appropriate noises all the while.

I’m embarrassed to say that, watching such exhibitions, I’ve been known to yell at the computer, “Fight the goddamned fish!  Stick the rod in your gut, get hold of the foregrip, and pump that thing up to the boat.  Stop jerking around!”

But, of course, the guy in the video can’t hear a word that I’m saying, and wouldn’t care if he could.  Instead, he just goes on slowly cranking.  Sometimes he gets the fish, sometimes a shark wins the race.  And in the latter case, of course, the shark always gets blamed, not the anglers who, through his dawdling, called the shark in.

I’m not going to argue that anglers going back to heavier tackle, and boating their fish more quickly, is going to end all shark depredation.  As I noted at the start, depredation has gone on for a very long time, and has multiple causes.  Maybe the biggest one isn’t more sharks, but more anglers, which often bunch up over the most popular reefs and wrecks, and condition the sharks to associate fishing boats with food.  Combine more anglers with fewer fish on the reefs, and human/shark competition is bound to increase.  And an increasing number of some species of shark will make encounters more likely.

Still, the easiest way to minimize shark depredation is to minimize the time that a hooked fish is in the water and vulnerable.  And the way to do that isn’t much changed from Hemingway’s day.

Use adequate tackle.  Fight the fish hard.  Put the fish in the boat as soon as you can.

Doing so certainly won’t prevent all shark depredation.  But it will help keep it under control.

Without bothering the sharks at all.

 

 

 

 

 

"THERE ARE MORE FISH THAN EVER BEFORE..."

 

When you get involved in the fisheries management process, and attend the meetings and read what’s in the press, it doesn’t take long to realize that, regardless of the species, there are a few common themes:

“The scientists just don’t know where to find the fish, there are plenty of them around.”

“There are lots of fish, they just went somewhere else.”

“The fishermen aren’t the reason that the fish are disappearing, it’s the seals (or the sharks, or the bluefish, or the cormorants, or…)”

And then there is the most common theme of all, used mostly when a stock is in decline and restrictions are needed, but also when folks want to see landings increase: 

“There are more fish than ever before!”

The nice thing about most of those assertions—from the point of view of the person making the claim—is that they pretty well stand on their own, without the need for any supporting facts.  After all, unless you fit a few hundred bluefish with satellite tags—an economically impractical project—you can’t prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that most of the bluefish on the East Coast didn’t suddenly decide to set off across the Atlantic to visit North Africa, as a New York party boat captain suggested at a hearing a few years ago, and that the population wasn’t really overfished, as the stock assessment advised.  It might seem very unlikely, but…

In the same way, fishermen can claim that the loss of winter flounder wasn’t due to overharvest, but from cormorants eating the juvenile fish, while Maryland waterman can argue that the decline in blue crab abundance was due to striped bass, and not to themselves.

But when it comes down to the “more fish than ever before” claims, things get a little trickier, because there are historical records.  But that never stops such claims from being made.

I was reminded of that a few days ago, when I was reading a press release issued by Rep. John H. Rutherford (R-FL), in which Rep. Rutherford stated that

“Every local angler I talk to says that there are more red snapper in the South Atlantic than they’ve ever seen before.”

We can take that statement at face value, and accept that it accurately reflects what anglers are telling Rep. Rutherford.  But beyond that, what does it really mean?  

In the context of the press release, Rep. Rutherford was using it as an argument to liberalize recreational red snapper regulations, and extend what he called the “measly” two-day season.  Yet, even if every angler “says that there are more red snapper…than they’ve ever seen before,” does that mean that the stock is truly healty?

Not according to the last stock assessment, which was released in 2023.  That assessment states that

“the stock remains overfished SSB/SSB_30%=0.44, and…overfishing is occurring F/F_30%=2.20, though at a lower rate than in terminal years of previous red snapper assessments…This assessment estimated that, since 2010, total abundance and spawning stock have been increasing at a relatively rapid rate, showing substantial progress toward rebuilding.  Despite overfishing, this increase in abundance has been stimulated by higher than average recruitment.  [emphasis added]”

Thus, we seem to be faced with two contradictory statements.  On one hand, the stock assessment finds that South Atlantic red snapper remain overfished.  On the other, anglers are “seeing more red snapper…than they’ve ever seen before.”

How can both statements be true?

To answer that question, it’s necessary to look at an earlier stock assessment, completed in 1960, which stated that

“The assessment indicates that the stock has been overfished since 1960,”

and includes a graph depicting a spawning stock that fell to very low levels in the early 1970s, bottomed out in 1980, and remained at or near historic low levels through at least 2006.

The same assessment notes that

“overfishing has been occurring since 1960 at about 14 times the sustainable level, with the 2006 estimate of F/F_40% at 12.021…  [note that the fishing mortality target has changed since the 2008 assessment, and now contemplates F_30%, a higher level of fishing mortality]

”Estimated abundance-at-age shows truncation of the oldest ages from the 1950s into the 1960s; the age structure continues to be in a truncated condition.  Fish of age 10 and above are practically non-existent in the population.

“…Total biomass and spawning biomass show nearly identical trends—sharp decline during the 1950s and 1960s, continued decline during the 1970s, and stable but low levels since 1980.”

Thus, for an angler to have seen—to have fished on and experienced—a South Atlantic red snapper stock that was not overfished, that angler would probably have to be at least 75 years old, old enough to have been catching red snapper in the late 1950s.  And even then, that angler would not be old enough to have fished on a truly healthy red snapper stock, but merely one which was already declining toward overfished levels.

It is very possible that no one fishing today has ever fished on a completely healthy red snapper stock, with both adequate biomass and a wide range of age and size classes.  Instead, most of today’s red snapper anglers probably began fishing after 1980, when spawning stock biomass was at or near its nadir—somewhere around, or below, three percent of an unfished stock. 

To such anglers, the current spawning stock biomass, which has been increasing in recent years, really does represent “more red snapper than they’ve ever seen before,” because their fishing experience only included years when the spawning stock biomass was dismally low.  Now, spawning stock biomass is the highest it’s been since 1980, and there are some older and larger fish being caught.

To a starving man, a burger can seem like a banquet, and that’s what the South Atlantic red snapper fishermen are experiencing today.  They are seeing more red snapper than they’ve ever seen before, and because they never experienced true abundance, they believe that current abundance reflects a healthy stock.

They are wrong.

And that’s why saying that anglers are seeing “more red snapper…than they’ve ever seen before,” is an all but meaningless statement, for it says nothing about how many red snapper the same anglers might see if managers only brought overfishing under control, and fully rebuilt the stock.

Such meaningless comments aren’t limited to South Atlantic red snapper.

Down in North Carolina, where the southern flounder stock has declined to the point that the state’s salt water fisheries managers never opened the recreational season last year, we see an angler still insisting that

“I’ve been fishing for 50 years, so I should know a little about it.  The [flounder fishing this year] was the best I’ve seen.”

And up in New England, after a stock assessment found that cod stocks had crashed, perhaps to just four percent of their potential, fishermen still made comments like

“Cod are everywhere, we can’t avoid them.”

At least in the case of South Atlantic red snapper, some anglers, used to a stock near historically low levels, might be misled by the ongoing recovery of such long-overfished stock, and actually believe that the stock is fully rebuilt.  But in the case of southern flounder and cod—and of other species that I haven’t bothered to include here, including striped bass—the stock is clearly in truly bad shape, yet people still try to play the “most ever” card.

Everyone, including themselves, know that it’s not true, yet they say it all the same.

 

 

 

 

 

SCIENTISTS TAKE A SECOND LOOK AT STRIPED BASS

 

As the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Summer Meeting approaches, a lot of anglers are thinking about the declining striped bass stock, and wondering whether the Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board will take any meaningful action to improve the fish’s prospects in the medium and long term.

The debate among anglers has, at times, been hot and heavy, and has not always been fully informed by the facts.  Thus, as the Summer Meeting draws near, we would all probably do well to look at some updated information recently provided by the scientists of the Striped Bass Technical Committee, which will be germane to the upcoming debate.

What happened in 2024?

When the Technical Committee finally had an opportunity to review final 2024 Marine Recreational Information Program data in May, they discovered that 2024 recreational effort was greater than previously thought.  That doesn’t mean that overall effort was high.  In fact, the number of directed striped bass trips taken in 2024 declined by 14 percent compared to the previous year, which is exactly what one would expect to see in a declining fishery that is providing fewer opportunities for anglers to encounter striped bass, since effort in the recreational striped bass fishery has always been driven by abundance.

Most of the increase in the effort estimate came from a revision of the Wave 6 (November/December) estimate for private boat trips in New York.  The preliminary estimate suggested that New York anglers took 442,911 directed striped bass trips during the last two months of 2024, an estimate that seemed surprisingly low, particularly given the good fishing that occurred off western Long Island and New York City during those months.  

The revised MRIP data indicates that the actual number of trips during November and December by New York anglers was closer to 845,711, a figure that seems in accord with observed fishing activity, and also in line with New York’s Wave 6 effort estimates for 2022 and 2023—1,090,000 trips and 867,384 trips, respectively.

The increase in New York’s Wave 6 private boat trips resulted in the landings estimate increasing by 29 percent, or 88,771 fish, and the release estiomate to increase by 34 percent, or 916,579 fish, out of which 82,492—9 percent—would be expected to succumb to release mortality

Despite their continuing complaints about the 1-fish bag limit in the Chesapeake Bay, and their alleged inability to book charters as a result, Maryland’s charter boats also saw an upward revision in their final effort, catch, and landings estimates for 2024. 

The revised effort numbers reveal that Maryland anglers took 48,645 directed for hire striped bass trips during Wave 3 (May/June), 28.4 percent more than originally believed.  That revised Wave 3 figure falls just slightly below the 2019-2023 range of 50,887-72,948 trips.  The final estimate of Maryland’s Wave 4 (July/August) 2024 for-hire trips increased by 64.1 percent over the preliminary number; at 56,560 directed striped bass trips, the revised Wave 4 effort fell well within the range of 47,356-69,316 trips taken during the years 2019-2023.  The same held true for Wave 5 (September/October), which saw the final estimate of directed for-hire striped bass trips increase by 43.3 percent, to 31,564, a number which fell neatly within the 20,900-50,845 trips taken between 2019 and 2023.

Thus, it appears that the charter boat operators’ claim that the 1-fish bag limit is leading to a marked decline in business is not supported by the effort numbers, and seems to be patently untrue.

But what is true is that the Maryland charter boats caught considerably more fish than previously believed, with the final landings estimate higher by 8,288 bass in Wave 3, 10,479 in Wave 4, and 9,480 in Wave 5—a total of 28,247 more dead bass than previously believed, while the final estimate of releases increased by 3,537 in Wave 3, 6,080 in Wave 4, and 11,168 in Wave 5, a total increase of 20,785 striped bass, of which about 1,870 would theoretically be lost to release mortality.

The increase in the New York and Maryland estimates, when combined with smaller (generally, less than 3 percent) revisions to the preliminary estimates in other states, resulted in 2024 striped bass removals being 7 percent greater than originally believed.  That increase in removals had a decided impact on the proposed Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which will now have to include measures that will reduce fishing mortality by 12 percent, rather than 7 percent, in order to achieve a 50 percent probability of rebuilding the striped bass stock by 2029, as required by the management plan, or reduce fishing mortality by 18 percent, in order to achieve a 60 percent probability that timely rebuilding takes place.

Less-optimistic scenarios

The analysis which determined the reductions needed to timely rebuild the stock, at both the 50 percent and 60 percent probability levels, relied on assumptions that might or might not reflect future conditions, and ended with the stock probably being rebuilt in 2029, but with little thought to what happens after that.

However, the Management Board also asked the Technical Committee to consider a few other scenarios, even though they aren’t directly reflected in the proposed Addendum III.  Such scenarios include

·        1)  Analyzing what will happen after the 2029 rebuilding deadline, by constructing a stock trajectory going out to 2025;

·        2)  Assuming that future recruitment will resemble the last six years, when recruitment was the lowest on record, rather than merely the “low-recruitment scenario” that employs 2008-2023 recruitment values; and

·        3)  Assuming that fishing mortality for the period 2026-2029 will be somewhat higher than the low mortality of 2024.

The Technical Committee went out of its way to note that the last two scenarios slanted to the pessimistic side, saying that

“The [Technical Committee-Stock Assessment Subcommittee] noted that these Board-requested sensitivity runs are more pessimistic scenarios compared to the base run and do not encompass the possibility of more optimistic future scenarios.”

But that is as it should be.

There is always uncertainty in any stock assessment, rebuilding plan, or similar document, and the greatest risk is always on the downside.  That is, if an already overfished stock’s biomass is smaller than scientists believe, if recruitment is lower, or if fishing (or natural) mortality is higher, and managers set fishery management measures assuming that such factors are more favorable than they actually are, the overly liberal measures can push a depleted stock into future decline. 

It’s easy to argue that is what happened in 2014, when the explicit language of Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass required the Management Board to initiate a 10-year rebuilding plan, yet Michael Waine, then the ASMFC’s Fishery Management Plan coordinator for the species, advised that

“The Board is acting to reduce [fishing mortality].  Through that action we see the projection showing that [spawning stock biomass] will start increasing towards its target, but we’re uncomfortable about projecting out far enough to tell you when it will reach its target because the further on the projections we go the more uncertainty that is involved.  Therefore, I think the trend is to get back towards the target, but we can’t tell you exactly how quickly that will happen.”

Even with the acknowledged uncertainty, the Management Board moved forward with Addendum IV to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan, a document with slightly less than a 50 percent probability of reducing fishing mortality to target within one year, as required by the management plan.  Even with all of the future uncertainty surrounding rebuilding, the Board seemed comfortable that such less-than-bare-minimum measure would be sufficient to rebuild the spawning stock biomass to target, and so made it unnecessary to develop the required 10-year rebuilding plan.

Of course, we now know to our sorrow that the assumptions underlying Addendum VI were far too optimistic, and that the stock not only failed to rebuild, but declined farther.  

Thus, the argument can be made that inserting a strong dose of pessimism into the assumptions underlying management is a wise thing to do.  At worst, should such pessimism prove unjustified, the bass population should recover more quickly or become more abundant than it technically needs be, which are hardly dire problems.

Some might argue that undue pessimism, leading to unnecessarily strict regulations, might cause unnecessary economic distress to fishing-related businesses, but given the relative economic harm caused by each of the two possible alternatives—a brief decline in earnings caused by unnecessarily harsh regulations that lead to a healthy stock, or the long-term decline in profits caused by an overfished stock, depressed angler satisfaction, and perhaps even a stock collapse—taking a somewhat pessimistic stance would seem the wiser management approach.

At any rate, when the Technical Committee considered the three alternate scenarios, it recognized that they were all intimately interconnected, and so provided its analysis in a paragraph that included all three:

“The general findings of these sensitivity runs remain the same.  In the base run, [spawning stock biomass] continues to increase after 2029.  In the scenarios where recruitment is drawn from the very low recruitment regime, spawning stock biomass (SSB) will begin to decline after 2030 as the 2015 and 2018 year-classes continue to die off due to natural and fishing mortality and are replaced by the weak 2019-2024 year-classes.  In the moderate [fishing mortality] scenario (i.e., slightly increased [fishing mortality] from the base run), the probability of being at or above the SSB target in 2029 decreases, and the trajectory of SSB after 2029 depends on the recruitment scenario, with SSB continuing to increase after 2029 under the 2008-2023 recruitment regime and SSB declining after 2029 in the very low recruitment scenario.”

Thus, it quickly becomes clear that recruitment is the key to the striped bass’ future.  If recruitment improves a little bit, to 2008-2023 levels, the striped bass stock will probably remain at healthy biomass levels for a while.  On the other hand, should recruitment remain at current levels—and even a somewhat higher blip now and then such as, say, a Maryland juvenile abundance index of 6 or 8 every half-dozen years—we can expect the striped bass stock to decline, very possibly to the levels that we last experienced in the early 1980s.

Fishing mortality will probably only be a minor player in the outcome, perhaps delaying rebuilding if fishing mortality sees a modest increase over current levels.  Yet even if that happens, should recruitment improve, the stock will continue to rebuild.  But if very low recruitment remains chronic, higher fishing mortality will only accelerate the eventual crash.

So what should managers make of such advice?

The wisest course would be to embrace caution, and a big dose of pessimism.  The Board shouldn’t assume 2008-2023 recruitment levels until they see recruitment improve to such a “low recruitment” scenario.  Instead, the Board would be well advised to assume that current, very low recruitment levels will continue well into the future, and to change that assumption only after recruitment improves.

To assume anything else, particularly given the revised estimates of 2024 fishing mortality, can only put the bass’ future at risk.

NMFS MAY STILL REQUIRE HERRING BOATS TO CARRY OBSERVERS, DESPITE LOPER-BRIGHT

 

Thirteen months ago, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in Loper-Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, a decision that abolished the so-called “Chevron Doctrine,” created by Court in 1984, which had given agencies the ability to make reasonable interpretations of law related to such agencies’ core expertise, and required the courts to give deference to such interpretations.  In its Loper-Bright decision, the Supreme Court found that, while agencies may set policies and decide issues of fact, deciding issues of law is a duty that the federal Administrative Procedures Act assigned solely to the courts, as that law clearly states

“To the extent necessary to decision and when presented, the reviewing court shall decide all relevant questions of law, interpret constitutional and statutory provisions, and determine the meaning and applicability of the terms of an agency action.”

That language seems clear and unambiguous, raising the question of how the Chevron Doctrine, which allowed agencies to interpret some questions of law, was ever created in the first place. 

But created it was, and over the past 40 years, agencies, attorneys, and various advocacy groups became very comfortable depending on Chevron.  That was particularly true among conservation and environmental advocates, which often deal in areas that require the sort of detailed technical knowledge that is found far more often in administrative agencies and rarely, if ever, on the bench.  Thus, such advocates bewailed the demise of the Chevron Doctrine, with one group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, writing that the decision

“dealt a severe blow to the ability of federal agencies to do their jobs by ending the 40-year old precedent of ‘Chevron deference.”  Instead of deferring to the expertise of agencies on how to interpret ambiguous language in laws pertaining to their work, federal judges now have the power to decide what a law means for themselves.  As a result, despite not being accountable to the people, judges will not be able to expand their role into the realm of policymaking.”

The League of Conservation Voters’ Senior Director of Judiciary and Democracy, Doug Lindner, lamented that

“Today’s decision is yet another relentless power grab by MAGA Supreme Court justices trying to make it harder for public agencies to protect our communities, our democracy, health, clean air, and clean water.  The Chevron Doctrine is one of the most fundamental principles in American law, and overturning this precedent shifts power away from the public agency experts who understand the science and the issues, and from the voters who elect the Congress and the President responsible for protecting us.”

While such comment is appropriately partisan and properly vehement, it seems pretty simple to rebut by asking just one pointed question:  If a critical legal issue related to the Clean Air Act or Clean Water Act was being considered, who would you rather see decide it:  A federal district court judge, who might lack subject matter expertise and so focused on the law of the case, or the current Environmental Protection Agency head, Lee Zeldin?

From that perspective, maybe the demise of Loper-Bright was not such a bad thing…

Yet more than a few hyperventilated once the Court’s decision came out, with an opinion piece in the Tampa Bay Times declaring that

“U.S. fisheries could be devastated by Supreme Court’s ending the Chevron doctrine.”

Now, a little over a year later, we can get some perspective on how things have changed, and perhaps the best way to do that is to go back to the original matters that gave rise to the decision.  One was, as we know, Loper-Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, but there was also a second, companion case, Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, which was decided at the same time.

Both matters arose from similar fact patterns—fishing operations challenged the National Marine Fisheries’ Service ability to require vessels trawling for Atlantic herring to carry industry-funded observers.  The cost of such observers was over $700 per observer, per day, and the plaintiffs argued that the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which governs all fishing in the federal waters of the United States, did not authorize NMFS to require that fishermen pay for observer coverage.

The lower courts in the original case, citing Chevron, found against the plaintiffs, but the Supreme Court reversed, abolishing the Chevron Doctrine.  However, abolishing the Chevron Doctrine was all that it did—the Supreme Court did not find for the fishermen on the underlying issue, but rather remanded the matters back to the trial courts which, with the Chevron Doctrine no longer in play, would have to do what judges have done for a very long time—look at the language of Magnuson-Stevens, and figure out what Congress really said when it wrote that law.

And we now have an answer, at least from the court that decided Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce.

Magnuson-Stevens does, in fact, allow NMFS to require fishermen to pay for their on-board observers. 

On July 15, 2025, the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island found that the general language found in Magnuson-Stevens, which requires fishery management plans to

“contain the conservation and management measures…which are necessary and appropriate for the conservation and management of the fishery, to prevent overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks, and to protect, restore, and promote the long-term health and stability of the fishery,”

which allows such plans to

“prescribe such other measures, requirements, or conditions and restrictions that are determined to be necessary and appropriate for the conservation and management of the fishery,”

and which authorizes regional fishery management councils to adopt regulations that such council

“deems necessary or appropriate,”

is sufficient to allow NMFS to require paid fisheries observers aboard vessels trawling for Atlantic herring.

The court’s explains that language in Magnuson-Stevens

“permits plans to ‘require that one or more observers be carried on board a vessel of the United States engaged in fishing for species that are subject to the plan, for the purpose of collecting data necessary for the conservation and management of the fishery[.]’  To the extent that the Final Rule does this, Plaintiffs do not contest its legality; they oppose the Final Rule only insofar as it sometimes places the associated costs on them.  But as the First Circuit noted, ‘[t]his argument faces an uphill textual climb.’  This is so because ‘the ‘default norm’ as manifest without express statement in literally hundreds of regulations, is that the government does not reimburse regulated entities for the cost of complying with properly enacted regulations, at least short of a taking.’  [citations omitted]”

The decision continued:

“Next, the Court considers Section Subsection (b)(14), which allows fishery management plans to ‘prescribe such other measures, requirements, or conditions and restrictions that are determined to be necessary and appropriate for the conservation and management of the fishery.’  This provision, in no uncertain terms, delegates to NMFS a large degree of discretionary authority.  Such delegation is not uncommon…This Court and the Relentless I court have already reviewed the Final Rule and found it reflects reasoned decisionmaking and does not cross the boundaries specified by MSA…”

The court rejected the plaintiffs arguments, and concluded,

“To interpret the MSA, the Court ‘must exercise [its] independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, as the [Administrative Procedures Act] requires.  In doing so, the Court concludes that the MSA authorizes the Final Rule.  For this reason, the Court DENIES Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment, and GRANTS Defendants’ Cross Motion for Summary Judgment.  [citations omitted]”

So at this point, plaintiff Relentless, Inc. finds itself exactly where it was when this years-long legal odyssey began—required to pay for fisheries observers if NMFS deems that it must do so.  While the Loper-Bright decision may be a new landmark of federal administrative law, for Relentless, Inc., it might as well never have happened.

But that doesn’t mean that the debate is over.  There will undoubtedly be a new round of appeals, this one focusing on whether the trial court’s interpretation of the Magnuson-Stevens language was correct.  And the Loper-Bright/Relentless decision still has a lot of symbolic meaning for that terminally nostalgic group of folks who want to take the United States, including its judicial and administrative systems, back to the good old days of the late 18^th Century.

So we recently saw a columnist in the conservative National Review observe that

“As I reported last month, even while Pam Bondi’s Justice Department has been treating Loper-Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo as a victory for conservative and MAGA critics of the administrative state, career lawyers at the DOJ were continuing to defend the very Commerce Department fishing-monitor regulation at issue in Loper-Bright and its companion case, Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce.  On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled in favor of the government in Relentless…Never mind that this isn’t a matter of the boats bearing the costs of their own compliance with the rules, but of paying a regulatory agent for the government…

That columnist, too, recognizes that there will be appellate battles ahead, although he holds out one bit of hope for his, and his publication’s, anti-regulatory agenda:

“But it seems that attention to the anomalous position taken by the DOJ and Commerce may be paying off:  The government has entered into talks with the Loper-Bright plaintiffs to settle the case, and any such settlement would necessarily entail at least some retreat from the original regulations.”

Which means that there are still a lot of different ways that this matter might end.

The most likely might be that the plaintiffs just decide to give up and move on with their lives.  So far, their cases have been championed by a right-wing, anti-regulatory legal entity known as the New Civil Liberties Alliance.  Although we don’t know what the fee arrangements are, there’s a pretty good chance that the plaintiffs aren’t paying anything close to typical legal fees—if, in fact, they’re paying anything at all—because their role in the larger game has been to provide a vehicle to challenge the Chevron Doctrine, and not really to challenge specific provisions of Magnuson-Stevens.  

Now that plaintiffs’ counsel have scored their big win against the administrative state, the case will probably look far less attractive to them—although they can’t ethically just walk away.

I suspect that we will see an appeal of the Relentless decision to the First Circuit, but I doubt it will go any farther.  While it’s possible that the Supreme Court might accept a case interpreting fisheries law, the odds are probably stacked against that occurring.

What happens at the administrative level is harder to predict.  Someone in Commerce or Justice may well decide to settle the case, perhaps by dropping any penalties accrued in the past, just to make it go away.  They might question the policy of requiring fisheries observers, considering it burdensome to fishermen and contrary to the April 17 Executive Order.  They might even insist on enforcing the terms of the management plan, although that’s probably the least likely outcome.

Right now, uncertainty reigns.

About the only thing that seems to be certain is that the Supreme Court’s Loper-Bright decision won’t prevent NMFS from enforcing the terms if its management plans.

Provided that it chooses to do so.

STRIPED BASS ADDENDUM III NEARS COMPLETION

 

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

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

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

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

But things have changed in the past three months. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

SOUTH ATLANTIC RED SNAPPER: THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN

 

I don’t know what it is about red snapper.  

I’ve fished for them on multiple occasions, and they’re nothing particularly special.  Just another bottom fish that’s common enough to provide reliable action for the for-hire fleet, and easy enough for the average private boat angler to catch without trying too hard, although finding the bigger fish on a regular basis can take some real skill.

They’re shaped something like the porgies we catch here in the northeast, and fight much the same way, although they can grow an order of magnitude larger and pull quite a bit harder as a result.  But when you compare them to some of the other fish available to boats fishing out of the same ports, species like amberjack, yellowfin tuna, cobia, or wahoo—not to mention pure gamefish like tarpon, billfish, and even swords—snapper are clear also-rans, lacking the strength, speed, size and/or pure athleticism to .make the first team.

Yet I’ll argue that no other single species—not Atlantic cod, not any of the Pacific salmons, nor bluefin tuna, striped bass, red drum, summer flounder, swordfish, nor any other fish one might think of—has done as much to disrupt the fishery management system as the red snapper has.

The fight over red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico spanned three decades or more, and it’s not over yet.  It saw federal fishery managers rebuild a very badly overfished stock—spawning stock biomass had fallen below five percent of its unfished level—to something not very far below its biomass target , despite the efforts of recreational fishing organizations and the recreational fishing industry, organized under the banners of groups such as the Coastal Conservation Association, American Sportfishing Association, and Center for Sportfishing Policy which, to perpetuate anglers’ overharvest, did everything in their power to obstruct and delay federal fishery managers’ rebuilding efforts.

As we see more and more troubling reports suggesting that Gulf red snapper stocks may be suffering from too much recreational fishing pressure, the same recreational advocacy groups are calling for more state autonomy in managing the red snapper resource, and arguing that state estimates of recreational red snapper landings, which are generally lower than those produced by the National Marine Fisheries Service and so allow longer seasons in which more fish can be killed, should replace the federal data.

Now, the same circus that has beset the Gulf of Mexico red snapper fishery for so many years is pulling up stakes and moving, tent, showmen, clowns, and all, into the South Atlantic, where another recreational red snapper fishery will inspire it to put on a brand new show.

In truth, it’s not precisely accurate to say that the red snapper show in the South Atlantic is “brand new.”  A case could be made that it was actually South Atlantic red snapper, and not those in the Gulf, created the impetus for formerly conservation-oriented individuals and organizations, who had previously had a very good record of working with federal fisheries managers and for rebuilt fisheries, to take an “anglers’ rights” tack that would eventually lead them to make federal fisheries managers their prime boogeyman, and exchange their commitment to future abundance for one that emphasized full coolers now.

The South Atlantic's problems started in early 2008, after SEDAR—the South Atlantic Data, Assessment, and Review process—released SEDAR 15, which included an assessment of the South Atlantic red snapper stock,  It declared

“The assessment indicates that the stock has been overfished since 1960 and overfishing is currently occurring…

“The fishing mortality (F) is compared to what the fishing mortality would be if the fishery was operating at the proxy level for maximum fishing (F_40%).  The ratio of F/F_40% suggests a generally increasing trend from the 1950s through the mid-1980s, and since 1985 has fluctuated around a mean near 14.  This indicates that overfishing has been occurring since 1960 at about 14 times the sustainable level, with the 2006 estimate of F/F_40% at 12.021.  [emphasis added]”

Spawning stock biomass had been fished down to just 3 percent of its unfished level.

It was pretty clear that such level of overfishing could not continue for long, particularly with the spawning stock biomass so low, and in 2009 the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed shutting down the commercial and recreational red snapper fisheries for 180 days, with the possibility that the closure might be extended for another 186 days after that.

The recreational fishing industry, and many recreational fishermen, did not like that idea.  They were also concerned that the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council was contemplating a further step, completely shutting down a large section of ocean bottom to all fishing, because so many red snapper were being killed by anglers targeting other species that regulations restricting red snapper landings alone would not be enough to end the overfishing.  On October 23, 2009, an article appeared in the Florida Times-Union/jacksonville.com that described the recreational position this way.

“Because fishermen catch a lot of snappers accidentally while targeting other species, the management council is considering four different plans for shutting down any fishing that might lead to those accidental catches, called bycatch.  The plans affect different sections of the ocean, but they all apply to nearly every one of about 70 fish the council lumps together as the ‘snapper grouper management complex’ because they’re found in similar locations.

“That last step has people in the fishing industry stunned and alarmed…

“Calling the potential rules ‘unprecedented in their depth and scope,’ an executive of the nonprofit Coastal Conservation Association asked federal officials in July to revisit the idea.

“The association, started decades ago by recreational anglers, has a long history of championing fishing regulations, including a net ban Florida voters approved in 1994.  But it has balked at the snapper proposal, questioning whether it’s based on good science.

“’In this special instance where the potential economic ramifications are so severe, we believe there must be another review,’ the association’s government relations chairman, Chester Brewer, wrote to a regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

“Florida Sportsman magazine founder Karl Wickstrom, a leading advocate for Florida’s net ban in the 1990s, joined the new debate by writing in his magazine’s November issue that federal scientists are ‘cherry picking’ data to support drastic solutions.  Two scientists also critique the management council’s study of snapper populations in the same issue.”

Which is sort of what happened, although the article leaves a few important things out.

I was a very active member of the Coastal Conservation Association back then, and sat on its National Executive Board.  The South Atlantic red snapper issue spawned a sort of crisis of conscience for the organization, that forced everyone to take a look at whether the values they and the organization espoused were honestly held, or were merely something they gave lip service to, but didn’t truly believe.

Prior to that time, CCA unabashedly declared that it “put the fish first,” and had a strong record of supporting management measures that would help to conserve fish stocks.  But when you started to look at the measures that it supported, it didn’t take long to note that most of those conservation measures restricted the commercial, rather than the recreational, fishery, or impacted anglers who fished for things such as summer flounder or striped bass, rather than anglers in the Gulf States or South Atlantic, where the overwhelming majority of the Association’s anglers were located.

The South Atlantic red snapper issue was the first one that could have resulted in severe restrictions being imposed on recreational fishermen in CCA’s core membership states, and while it’s always easy to conserve someone else’s fish, conserving your own is a much harder thing to do.

And it wasn't at all clear that CCA members were willing to accept the hardships and do it.

In addition, the aforementioned Karl Wickstrom had a lot of clout among Florida’s anglers in those days, due to the influence of his Florida Sportsman magazine, and while he was all for restricting the commercial fleet, his advertising revenues came from the recreational industry, which perhaps influenced him to vehemently oppose the proposed red snapper rules.

So, while there was divided opinion among the leadership of CCA’s Florida chapter, with some supporting the NMFS proposal and others, including some of the founding members and the executive director, opposed to such restrictions, it was generally recognized that if CCA Florida supported NMFS on the issue, they would probably suffer Wickstrom’s wrath, which would have a dire negative impact on the organization's membership and fundraising efforts.

I was driving to dinner with the aforementioned Chester Brewer one night, and asked why CCA Florida wasn't willing to do the right thing and support meaningful restrictions on the red snapper fishery, regardless of what Florida Sportsman might say.  Brewer looked back at me wide-eyed and said something like "B..but it's KARL WICKSTROM!" as if I was suggesting he insult the reborn Messiah, and I understood that there was no point continuing that particular line of conversation.

Thus, conscience and principle yielded to inside politics and organizational economics, and CCA became an ever more aggressive opponent of federal red snapper management, both in the South Atlantic and in the Gulf.  That loss of principle eventually led me to walk away from the organization, although I wasted a few more years before I left, trying to make an appeal to an organizational conscience that had died long before.

Now, after honing its skills at opposing federal red snapper conservation efforts in the Gulf of Mexico, CCA and various other fishing industry groups have returned to the South Atlantic, hoping to frustrate federal conservation efforts there.

Much has changed since the 2008 stock assessment found the South Atlantic red snapper stock at a dangerous low.  Federal management measures have helped to rebuild the stock, which is no longer overfished, thanks in part of a very sharply reduced recreational red snapper season—this year’s season lasted only two days—and a very small commercial quota.  But overfishing continues, and it is still largely due to recreational red snapper bycatch when the season is closed.

And NMFS keeps getting sued for not getting that recreational overfishing under control.

A little over a year ago, Tilman Gray, a commercial fish buyer in North Carolina, and Slash Creek Waterworks, a commercial fishing operation in the same state, sued the federal government over its failure to end recreational overfishing of the South Atlantic red snapper stock.  Knowing that it was in the wrong, NMFS didn’t try to fight the action, but instead agreed to publish a rule ending such overfishing by June 6, 2025.

Pursuant to that agreement, NMFS proposed a draft Amendment 59 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Snapper/Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic, which recognized what managers already knew in 2009—that it is impossible to end recreational overfishing of South Atlantic red snapper without addressing the problem of recreational bycatch in the closed season.  So the proposed Amendment 59 would have closed an expanse of ocean off Georgia and northern Florida to all bottom fishing for three months each year, in return for a longer recreational red snapper season and a near-tripling of the recreational and commercial red snapper quotas, as fish previously wasted as bycatch would be converted into landings that people could take home and use.

As might be expected, the same crowd that fought federal red snapper management in the Gulf of Mexico had no use for the proposed Amendment 59.  The American Sportfishing Association, concerned that the Amendment might cause its members to lose some income (and completely unconcerned about the recreational overfishing, since it generates tackle sales), said that

“The ASA is deeply disappointed to see NOAA Fisheries propose this drastic action, which may cause irreparable economic damage to the coastal communities and businesses that rely on recreational fishing, as well as recreational fishing manufacturers and suppliers across the country”

while the Coastal Conservation Association, true to its new mission of advocating for “anglers’ rights” and undercutting the federal fishery management system whenever the opportunity arises, whined

“the proposal ‘drops [a] solution in search of a problem’ and is proof that the federal management system is broken.”

And, of course, between the time that NMFS agreed to settle the Tilman Gray lawsuit and end overfishing, and the time that Amendment 59 was released, a new administration took over the White House, which had implications for the nation’s fisheries policy, too.  With the monetization of the nation’s natural resources now trumping conservation considerations, the current leadership at the Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NMFS has different priorities than did the people whom they replaced.  Thus, when Amendment 59 was finally released, it did not impose any closures on the recreational or commercial fisheries.  Instead, the final Amendment 59 increased the annual catch limit of South Atlantic red snapper, while making small reduction in both the commercial and recreational quotas.  The final Amendment also moves the goal posts for what's deemed "sustainable," increasing the overfishing limit for South Atlantic red snapper to the average level of landings for the years 2021-2023, which is probably a pretty good strategy for keeping landings somewhere close to the overfishing limit, even if it might not be the best way to conserve the stock.  And, by the same sort of impeccable logic, the final Amendment will give anglers two days, instead of one, to catch their reduced quota, even though they managed to overfish last year with only a one-day season in place.

There’s probably good reason to believe that the final Amendment 59, even with its newly inflated overfishing limit, probably won’t end recreational overfishing of the South Atlantic red snapper stock.  At least, enough people seem to believe that, that NMFS is getting sued once again.  Commercial fishermen are asking a court to compel NMFS to end recreational overfishing and put South Atlantic red snapper on a path to sustainability.  With respect to Amendment 59, the plaintiffs note that

“The red snapper annual catch limits established in the Amendment 59 Final Rule only serve to limit landings,”

but do nothing to limit the number of fish killed and wasted due to recreational bycatch.

Of course, CCA and the rest of the recreational fishing groups don’t want to take any responsibility for their own actions, so they have a different solution for the red snapper problem:  Move management responsibility from NMFS, which has a legal obligation to end overfishing, to the states, which have no such obligation, and may allow anglers to overfish the stock down to the very last snapper.  Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina have already put laws in place leaving them ready to take over red snapper management should the possibility ever arise.  And as a recent article in Sport Fishing magazine notes,

“With state seasons passed into law, South Carolina’s Department of Natural Resources must now come up with the mechanisms to collect recreational data on these species, which is crucial, according to Ted Venker with the Coastal Conservation Association.

“Venker says Florida, Georgia and South Carolina are now on a path to actively manage these resources.  The Georgia Legislature set aside budget in its 2026 budget to establish a reef/migratory fish data collection program.  Florida obtained exempted fishing permits and is currently using them to conduct extensive studies of red snapper on its Atlantic coast.

“’It may seem like it doesn’t do much now, but it is an important domino that has to fall first,’ said Venker.  ‘There is a lot going on to wrest control from the feds beyond this bill.  This is just one piece of the puzzle, and in that regard this is a lot like how it went in the Gulf—lots of little steps finally got us where we wanted to go.’”

Of course, what the CCA and other angling groups never admit is that they didn’t “wrest control [of red snapper management] from the feds.”  NMFS still sets the annual recreational and commercial catch limits for Gulf of Mexico red snapper, and the Gulf [formerly, the Gulf of Mexico] Fishery Management Council is still solely responsible for the red snapper management plan and any amendments thereto.  

All that the states can do, pursuant to Amendment 50 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Reef Fish Resources in the Gulf of Mexico is, in the words of the Gulf Council, is exercise

“some management authority for recreational fishing of red snapper by private anglers in federal waters to the Gulf states.  Each state is allocated a portion of the red snapper private angling quota and has authority to set the private angling fishing season, bag limit, and minimum size limit (between 14 and 18 inches).  If the landings of a state exceed that state’s quota, the state’s quota will be reduced by the amount of the overage in the following year.”

That’s hardly wresting control from the feds, but rather merely allows the states some flexibility to carry out the federal management plan.

But we’re nonetheless seeing the recreational advocacy groups going through the same political machinations in the South Atlantic that we saw years ago in the Gulf, trying to put pressure on NMFS and essentially extort it into making concessions.  Thus, we see the governors of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida writing a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, seeking the same sort of exempted fishing permits that ultimately led to the states’ being given some limited management flexibility in the Gulf.  In a letter, clearly worded to appeal to the current administration, the governors complain that

“Unfortunately, decades of inaction by career bureaucrats within the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), combined with actions in the waning hours of the Biden Administration to cut-off public access to the fishery, have hampered access for our recreational angling communities from exercising their God-given right to fish and support their local economies and way of life.”

And, of course, federal legislators also had to be a part of the show, with more than 20 Florida Senators and Representatives sending their own letter to Secretary Lutnick, in which, according to the Tampa Free Press,

“the delegation expressed their gratitude for [the Secretary’s] collaboration with President Trump in prioritizing American interests, specifically commending the rejection of proposed ‘bottom closures’ that would have severely impacted Florida’s fishing industry…The delegation argues that while the federal government has struggled with reliable data collection, Florida and other South Atlantic states possess the capability to gather accurate information, leading to better fishing o opportunities and continued conservation.”

And so the circus plays on, with the magicians doing their best to create illusions of federal incompetence while the dancing bears write their fawning letters to the Administration, seeking to charm someone into granting a boon.

But in the end, the finale of this story may well belong to the clowns, who seek to capture their audience’s attention with inane acts that mock reality. 

The same clowns who pretend that the South Atlantic, with its high levels of recreational discard mortality, is just like the Gulf, where discard mortality remains fairly low.

The clowns who pretend that the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act isn't still the law of the land.

The clowns who pretend that recreational bycatch, discard mortality, and the resultant recreational waste of South Atlantic red snapper will just go away because some wizard in Washington agreed to wave his or her wand and let states set the red snapper seasons.

Let’s assume that the recreational groups get what they want, and state managers in the South Atlantic are allowed to set the seasons, bag limits and, within set parameters, size limits for South Atlantic red snapper, as state managers currently set some aspects of red snapper management in the Gulf. 

Should that be allowed, NMFS will still have the responsibility of setting the overfishing limit, acceptable biological catch, annual catch limit, and commercial and recreational quotas for South Atlantic red snapper.

NMFS will still have to allocate portions of the recreational catch limit to the four South Atlantic states, and the states will presumably be required to pay back any overage should they exceed their annual allocation.

And Magnuson-Stevens will still require that

“Conservation and management measures shall prevent overfishing while achieving, on a continuing basis, the optimum yield from each fishery for the United States fishing industry,”

that, within two years after being notified that a fishery is overfished, the relevant fishery management council

“shall prepare a fishery management plan, plan amendment, or proposed regulation for the fishery to which the identification or notice applies, to end overfishing immediately in the fishery and to rebuild affected stocks of fish, [formatting omitted]”

and that the time for rebuilding such overfished fishery shall

“be as short as possible…and not exceed 10 years, except in cases where the biology of the stock of fish, other environmental considerations, or management measures under an international agreement in which the United States participates dictates otherwise.  [formatting omitted]”

So even if the states get their way, and are allowed manage aspects of the South Atlantic recreational red snapper fishery, the strictures of Magnuson-Stevens will not go away.  The recreational waste, in the form of dead discards from bycatch in other fisheries, is still going to be deducted from the acceptable biological catch to determine the annual recreational catch limit, and without the states taking some sort of action to reduce the current high bycatch level, the annual catch limit will remain very small, and the recreational season will remain very, very short.

Yes, the states can try to lengthen their seasons, in an effort to convert dead discards into landings, but since not every red snapper released dies, trying to turn releases into landings will only serve to increase the overall harvest.  Given the need to prevent overfishing, anglers will never be allowed to take more red snapper home, unless they first get their waste under control.

But whether or not that ever happens, the circus will, of course, go on.

The bears will dance, and the magicians will try to create their illusions.  But be sure to keep watching the clowns, because they’re really the key to the show.