THE ASMFC PUNTS ON ATLANTIC MENHADEN--AGAIN

 

Earlier this week, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board met on two separate afternoons, to set annual catch limits for 2027, 2028, and 2029.

There were a lot of people who hoped, and in many cases really expected, the Management Board to reduce menhaden landings by at least the 39% that was needed to have a 50% probability of achieving the fishing mortality target in 2027.

They should have known better.  That was never going to happen.  A motion to reduce the annual catch limit to 114,200 metric tons—the level that would have provided the 50% probability—was made by Matthew Gates, Connecticut’s Administrative Proxy, and seconded by Maryland’s Allison Colden, but never made it to a vote before being pushed aside by a substitute motion.

Going into the meeting, I figured that the best anyone could realistically hope for was a three-year phase-in of steadily declining catch limits that finally achieved the 50% probability goal in 2029.  A substitute motion made by Nichola Meserve, Massachusetts’ Administrative Proxy, and seconded by Capt. Rick Bellavance of Rhode Island would have gotten us partway there, reducing the ACL to 158,814 metric tons in 2027 and 134,992 metric tons in 2028, leaving the 2029 catch limit up to a future management board to decide, but it failed on a vote of 8 in favor, 10 opposed, which pretty well killed any chance of meaningful action being taken this year, and almost certainly next year as well.

The meeting boiled down to a standoff between the Virginia reduction fleet and the northern New England lobstermen digging in to protect their current income streams, and a host of advocates from various states, all seeking to cut menhaden landings in the name of conservation, who were undoubtedly well-meaning but, in many cases, were basing their arguments on false premises and overblown claims.

If one wanted to eulogize the meeting as a whole, the words of Martin Gary, director of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s Marine Division, spoken on the second day of the meeting, serve as well as any:

“I’m struggling like everyone else to say something meaningful…Both sides are so polarized that they’re intractable on both sides of the continuum…Somebody needs to step up, and make some concessions.”

Yet the unpleasant truth was that, particularly on the first day of the meeting, meaningful concessions were hard to find.  In the end, the Management Board largely followed the path that it forged in 2025, and settled on an action that was more form than substance, and would cause the least distress to all concerned—except, very possibly, to the menhaden themselves.

But it took them quite a while to get to decide on even that largely meaningless action.

The meeting began—at least, after the preliminaries of public comment and an overview of the Draft Addendum II to Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden, the document that the Management Board was seeking to adopt—with Mr. Gates aforementioned motion to reduce the annual catch limit to 114,200 metric tons.

Mr. Gates explained that he made the motion because it was based on the best available science, and because a higher total allowable catch might, he believed, leave too few menhaden in the water to fulfill their ecological role.  He also felt that it was important to achieve the target fishing mortality rate set in the 2025 ASMFC Atlantic Menhaden and Ecological Reference Points stock assessment, because

“the Board asked for [ecological reference points], and I think we should use them.”

Dr. Colden, in seconding the motion, also said that she believed that the Management Board should continue with the ecological reference points, which would mean adopting the 114,200 metric ton catch limit, and acknowledged that the Management Board had effectively just “kicked the can down the road” when it adopted the 20% catch limit reduction in 2025.

Mr. Gary quickly spoke in favor of the motion, also noting that the Management Board had wanted ecological reference points and that they were supported by “really good science.”  He went on to describe an unsettling trend, noted not only in New York, but also in Massachusetts and Maine, of menhaden demonstrating a decreasing size at age, then ended up pointing to the overwhelming public comment supporting a meaningful harvest reduction, saying that

“I’ve never seen as strong a signal from the public”

in his 40 years as a fisheries manager.  He added a sort of warning to his comments, saying that if anyone opposed Mr. Gates’ motion, they’d better let the public know why the best available science was ignored, because “When people care, it matters.”

Unfortunately, Mr. Gary, and everyone else attending or listening in on the meeting, was about to learn why the science would be ignored. 

Eric Reid, Rhode Island’s Legislative Proxy, rose to acknowledge that

“I’m not going to disagree with that methodology”

used to set the ecological reference points, but then subordinated science to socioeconomic considerations, asking how many communities would be endangered if the motion to reduce the annual catch limit passed, and noting that the fish meal produced by the reduction industry was widely used for animal feed.

That opened up the door for the Virginia delegation, and they were quick to follow up.

Joseph Grist, the Virginia fisheries manager, endorsed Mr. Reid’s comments, and said that he, too, had concerns about the motion’s socioeconomic impacts.  He took the opportunity to point out the hypocrisy of various recreational fishing groups—presumably groups such as the Coastal Conservation Association, American Sportfishing Association, and National Marine Manufacturers Association—that were perfectly willing to support harvest reductions for Atlantic menhaden, which are neither overfished nor experiencing overfishing, regardless of the cuts’ economic impact on the hundreds of people who work in the menhaden fishing industry, but opposed last year’s proposed 12% reduction in landings of the overfished striped bass, because the recreational fishing industry might suffer some economic harm as a result.

While many of the comments made by Mr. Grist over the course of the two-day meeting were of dubious validity, including his comment that

“We manage this [menhaden stock] very conservatively,”

his comment about the hypocrisy of the various recreational fishing industry groups hit pretty close to the mark.  It was a point that others also made at different times during the meeting, and one that didn’t help the credibility of those supporting significant harvest reductions. 

At that point, Adele McClure, Virginia’s Legislative Appointee, rose to made a substitute motion that would carry the 2026 catch limit of 186,400 metric tons forward for the next three years.  Her motion was seconded by Craig Pugh, Delaware’s Legislative Proxy, and set off a lengthy debate.

In making her motion, Ms. McClure argued that

“The status quo is not nothing,”

noting that there has already been a 20% catch limit reduction in 2026 (even though that was a paper reduction that didn’t impact actual landings at all) and asserting that the stock is “healthy, and not overfished,” despite the fact that, in 2025, menhaden fecundity was just 5% above the threshold that defines an overfished stock.  She expressed concern about a reduction’s impact on the bait fishery, and argued that more information was needed before action was taken, saying that managers

“need another assessment, not another knee-jerk precautionary measure.”

Mr. Pugh, the seconder, focused on a landings reduction’s impact on bait prices, saying that in 2012, when the harvest was cut by 20%, bait prices increased by 100%, and that another, similar increase would make it “unaffordable” to commercially target lobster, crabs, black sea bass, and other species.

Stephen Train, a commercial fisherman who serves as the Governor’s Appointee from Maine, also expressed support for the status quo, repeating the argument that the stock was neither overfished nor experiencing overfishing, and noting that a reduction in Atlantic herring landings, adopted earlier in the week, would already have a negative impact on bait costs and availability.

Similar comments were expressed by Doug Haymans, Georgia’s fisheries manager, who wanted to wait for information that was already being developed by researchers in Virginia, and who noted that Georgia fishermen had already experienced a tripling of bait prices, and could face additional expenses if the annual catch limit for menhaden was cut.

J. J. Minor, Virginia’s Governor’s Appointee, focused solely on economic issues, noting that there were some families who had seen six or seven generations work at the menhaden reduction plant in Reedville, Virginia.  He asserted,

“That plant is an economic engine.  It is the heartbeat of the Northern Neck [of Virginia].”

He argued, like his colleagues on the Virginia delegation, that menhaden were not overfished, and made the accusation that

“Folks fundraise off of lies,”

an accusation that, sadly, is in some cases true, and calls attention to some organizations that, through their overblown and sometimes completely false claims, further hurt the credibility of menhaden advocates as a whole.

Other Management Board members supported neither the original nor the substitute motion, but hoped to see something that fell somewhere between the two.

Douglas Abbott, New Hampshire’s Legislative Proxy, said that he was neither for nor against the motions, but that the Management Board needed to decide the issue based on science, and that while

“It’s always the case that we’re waiting for more science,”

decisions need to be made based on the science that is already available.  He said that he cares about the people at the Reedsville plant, noting that a decline in the menhaden population, and not just a decline in the annual catch limit, would hurt the Reedsville workers.  He also said that he cares about the lobstermen that need menhaden for bait, and that in making menhaden decisions, there comes a time when the Management Board will have to “cut the baby in half” in compromise.  He asked whether nearly 50,000 commenters can all be wrong, and warned against

“kicking the can down the road and making decisions that are leading us to bad places.”

Robert Lafrance, the Governor’s Appointee’s Proxy from Connecticut, made a similar comment, acknowledging the people who claimed that menhaden were not overfished by saying,

“and we want to keep it that way,”

by following the science.  He also noted that the declining size of menhaden at various ages was “not a good sign.”

After a bit more back-and-forth, a vote was finally taken.  Only Maine, Delaware, Virginia, Georgia, the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service—the most hard-core opponents of harvest reductions—supported the status quo.  Ms. McClure’s substitute motion failed on a vote of 7 in favor, 11 opposed.

And then, the folks seeking some sort of middle ground—that nonetheless favored their interests—emerged.

Megan Ware, the Maine fisheries manager, put a new substitute motion on the table, which would reduce the 2027 total allowable catch to 170,000 metric tons, about a 9% cut, and then cut the 2028 TAC by another 9%, to 155,000 mt.  That motion, which would result in an aggregate reduction of about 17%, compared to 2026 levels, was seconded by New Hampshire fisheries manager Renee Zobel.

That 17% reduction might sound like some sort of progress, until one recalls that coastwide Atlantic menhaden landings in 2025 were approximately 147,000 metric tons, well below the new annual catch limits for 2027 and 2028.  Thus, as was the case for the 2026 catch limit, the limits established at this week’s meeting appear to be more theoretical than real, and will not reduce actual menhaden landings at all.  (Note that the menhaden industry contests this allocation, and argues that 2025 landings were as low as they were because of unusually poor weather that began in August and ran through the end of the year, which created safety hazards and prevented the reduction fleet from fishing as much as they typically would.  Weather data appears to support those claims, so it will be interesting to see whether landings are significantly higher in 2026, when the weather, although occasionally stormy, appears to be less hostile than it was during the previous year.

Joseph Cimino, New Jersey’s fisheries manager, expressed support for the supposed compromise motion.  He noted that rebuilding the menhaden stock to the target level was not a “silver bullet” that would solve all of the current fisheries problems, and that comments to the effect that rebuilding would end the “plight” of species such as weakfish, bluefish, and striped bass were “not really accurate.”  To that end, he noted that the ecological reference points were tied to the size of the striped bass stock, and that the menhaden biomass target assumed that the striped bass stock was also at its target level, and not in its current, overfished state.

A few other managers also supported the idea of a phased-in reduction, although they believed that Ms. Ware’s motion did not go far enough.  But when the vote was finally taken, Ms. Ware’s motion passed with 14 votes in favor, and only 4—Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, and Florida—voting against.

At that point Ms. Meserve rose to offer the substitute motion described earlier in this essay, which would reduce the annual catch limit by 15% in each of the next two years, but as stated above, that motion failed by a two-vote margin.

At that point, Ms. Ware’s substitute motion became the main motion, which was approved on an 11 to 7 vote. 

In the end, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, North Carolina, and Florida were defeated by a coalition of convenience, made up of Virginia and New Jersey protecting their industrial-level purse seine fleets, Maine and New Hampshire seeking to protect their lobstermen’s bait supply, the National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife carrying out Trump’s executive order to deregulate commercial fisheries, and a handful of other states seeking to keep bait costs low for their trap fishermen.

It was an unusual but largely predictable (except, perhaps, for South Carolina and Georgia), temporary alliance of jurisdictions that have little in common other than a desire to protect their local fishermen’s cash flows—at least in the short term.

And their vote doomed any possibility of meaningful action being taken at this year’s Management Board meeting.  The coastal catch limit was the single most important issue to be decided at this week’s meeting, and it was clearly decided in the wrong way.

Still, having said that, the outcome of the second day of the meeting wasn’t quite as dismal, and the menhaden within the Chesapeake Bay made out a little bit better than the overall coastal stock.

Once the preliminary portion of the meeting was done, the debate began with Dr. Colden moving to replace the current 51,000 metric ton cap on the amount of menhaden that the reduction fleet could remove from the Chesapeake Bay each year with a cap equal to 13.6% of the coastwide annual catch limit.  Mr. Lafrance seconded the motion, and to no one’s surprise, Mr. Grist immediately rose to oppose it and offer a substitute motion that would, similar to the motion that passed the previous day, reduce the Bay cap by 9% in 2027 and by another 9% in 2028.  His motion was seconded, once again, by Mr. Pugh.

He argued that Dr. Coldren’s motion, should it pass, would reduce the annual Bay cap so far that it could threaten the research already being done on Virginia’s menhaden and its menhaden fishery, but that a 9% reduction in each of the next two years probably wouldn’t be disruptive.  However, he made it clear that he would prefer to see the status quo remain in place until at least 2028, by which point some preliminary information from the current research should be available.

Ms. McClure also asked the Management Board to “please be patient” and adopt the status quo.  She then attempted to play on the Management Board’s emotions, reading comments made by members of the Reedville community that emphasized that community’s dependence on the menhaden fishery, and were clearly intended to make Board members feel guilt for supporting conservation measures.  The third member of the delegation, Mr. Minor, also asked for patience and supported the status quo.

Michael Luisi, the Maryland fisheries manager, said that he wanted something “in between” Dr. Coldren’s motion and Mr. Grist’s, saying that while the 51,000 metric ton cap worked during the previous decade, it was now time to shift the focus to the needs of the Chesapeake Bay, and reduce the Bay cap to something less than 20% of the coastwide annual catch limit.

After a few more comments, a vote was taken, and the substitute motion failed on a vote of 6 to 11, with one state, Pennsylvania, casting a null vote after a majority of its delegation could not agree on a position.  Once again, it was the hard-core defenders of the status quo—Maine, Virginia, Georgia, the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—who supported the consecutive 9% cuts.

At that point, Mr. Luisi placed a new substitute motion before the Board, which would set the Bay cap at 21.8% of the coastwide catch limit.  He noted that was about the same proportion that the 51,000 metric ton cap had to the annual catch limit from 2023 through 2025, a proportion that everyone seemed to be able to live with, and that while he would have liked to have set the percentage below 20%, he thought that, for the reasons he stated, 21.8% might be “more achievable.”  Ms. Meserve seconded the motion.

There wasn’t much comment on Mr. Luisi’s motion, although Mr. Grist complained that, by saying that 2027 Bay harvest was still “in range” of what was caught in 2025, Mr. Luisi was comparing potential 2027 landings with the landings that occurred in a bad-weather—“the worst possible”—year.

Despite such objections, Mr. Luisi’s substitute motion passed by a wide, 15 to 3 margin, with only Virginia, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in opposition.  The substitute motion then became the main motion, and was adopted 14 in favor, 2 (Virginia and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission) opposed, and 2 (NMFS and USF&W) abstaining.

Mr. Luisi then moved to put bounds around the Bay cap, setting an upper limit at the current 51,000 metric tons and a lower limit of -0-.  Mr. Gates seconded.  There was little comment, although Mr. Grist didn’t like the idea that if the science suggested that the cap could be higher than 51,000 metric tons, it would take a new addendum to the management plan to put that higher cap in place.  When the vote was taken, the motion passed easily, with 13 in favor, 2 (Virginia and Delaware) opposed, and 3 (Maine, NMFS, and USF&W) abstaining.

And with that, all of the important votes had been taken.  Some other items were subsequently discussed, but the fate of the menhaden—both in the Chesapeake Bay and along the entire coast—had been sealed for the next two years.

So, we’re now at that point where we ought to ask whether we learned anything from the exercise, and how it turned out.

I hope the answer is yes, but I hoped that would be the case after last year’s debacle, and it turned out back than that the answer was no.  When I look at all of the groups who advocated for substantially lower annual catch limits—at all of the knowledge and experience of their leadership, at their public relations expertise, at the money invested in their campaigns—it still shocks me that they learn so little from the past, and do so many things wrong.

One of their biggest problems is that they are still playing to the wrong audience.  Just about one year ago, I wrote,

“they are going to have to shift their campaign from an emotional appeal to the general public to something that makes biological and—yes, I have to say it—economic sense to the Management Board.”

But I suppose, as the old cliché goes, a leopard doesn’t change its spots, so for the past several months we have been seeing the same old organizations, along with a new one or two, playing to the same old audience, trying to get them enraged with videos of reduction fleets sailing out of the Bay, or setting seines around menhaden schools, apparently never figuring out that while such scenes may get the public aroused and maybe even a little hysterical, the Management Board \was impressed with neither the videos themselves nor the 43,000-plus form letters that the videos inspired. 

In fact, I was having a conversation with one state’s (not New York’s) fishery manager a while ago, when he asked me whether I thought that most of the people commenting on the issue had any real idea what they were talking about.  In all honesty, I had to tell him no, that while a few took the time to read some of the relevant documents, most of them were whipped up by all the propaganda, just repeated what they had read, and had less than a clue about the actual facts.

After all, while “the most important fish in the sea” as a catchy slogan, we have to remember that it was created by a writer who had no formal training in biology, but was instead a cultural historian and social activist with a decidedly leftward lean, who was no more qualified to comment on menhaden ecology than RFK, Jr. is qualified to speak on the efficacy of vaccines.  So using that slogan to incite the public is probably not a winning tactic.

Yet even now, in the wake of the Management Board meeting, we see advocacy groups lashing out at the Management Board, calling its judgment into question, rather than questioning whether their tactics and their tendency to make overblown and even patently false arguments might have contributed to the meeting’s outcome. 

And so they set themselves up to fail again.

 

2026 STRIPED BASS RECRUITMENT BETTER, BUT STILL FAR FROM GOOD

 

On October 19, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources released the results of its 2026 juvenile striped bass abundance survey. The 2026 survey recorded a juvenile abundance index value (JAI) of 5.5, the highest since 2018, but still barely half the long-term average of 10.8.

Maryland’s juvenile abundance survey data provides a time series dating back to 1957; no other juvenile abundance survey dates back as far. Each year, Maryland biologists sample a total of 22 sites located in the upper Chesapeake Bay, and in the Choptank, Potomac, and Nanticoke Rivers, with each spot sampled on three separate occasions during the late spring and summer. Samples are taken with a 100-foot seine, and only striped bass less than three inches in length are counted.

In 2026, the Maryland survey captured 723 juvenile striped bass. Although it found striped bass to be more widely distributed in 2026 than they were in immediately preceding years, the highest concentrations of juvenile bass were found in the upper bay and in the Choptank River, with lesser concentrations found elsewhere. A strong striped bass year class would typically see high concentrations of juveniles throughout the bay.

The average annual JAI for the eight-year period that began in 2019 is 3.15, the lowest ever recorded in the 70-year history of the survey. The next-lowest average for a comparable period, 3.57, was recorded during the years 1979-1986, a period defined by the collapse of the striped bass stock. The record-low 2019-2026 average is bad news for both the striped bass and for striped bass fishermen, whether recreational or commercial, for as Allison Colden, Maryland executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation has observed, “What happens in the Chesapeake Bay is a prediction for striped bass’ future up and down the Atlantic Coast. Roughly 80 percent of the coastwide striped bass population spawn here in the Bay.”

Two-thirds of the juvenile striped bass produced in the Chesapeake Bay come from Maryland waters. The rest are produced in the Virginia portion of the bay, which also saw an improved juvenile abundance index in 2026.

While Virginia’s 2026 JAI, at 9.52, is being slightly above the state’s long-term average of 7.77, it’s important to note that the calculation of the long-term average includes the period from the mid-1960s through 1986, when recruitment was generally dismal. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), trying to avoid the distortions caused by those early years, uses the years 1992 through 2006 to gauge recruitment success. Should the JAI in any of the four major spawning areas (Hudson River, New York; Delaware River, New Jersey; Chesapeake Bay, Maryland; and Chesapeake Bay, Virginia) fall below the 25th percentile of all year classes produced in a spawning area during that period, which in Virginia’s case is 8.22, for three consecutive years (recruitment trigger), the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board (Management Board) is required to take remedial action.

2026 marks the first time since 2020 that the Virginia juvenile abundance index did not fall below 8.22.

The 2026 year class, made up of bass spawned in the Maryland and Virginia portions of the Chesapeake Bay, as well as in the Delaware and Hudson Rivers, will be the last year class produced prior to the completion of the 2027 benchmark assessment of the striped bass stock. However, because the 2027 benchmark assessment will only include data through 2025, the 2026 year class will not be considered.

However, that doesn’t mean that the 2026 year class won’t have any near-term impact on the management process. Already, we’re seeing some people try to spin the Maryland JAI as some sort of victory, with one Connecticut charter boat captain, commenting on someone else’s Facebook post, announcing that “5.5 is excellent!!!”>, perhaps out of hopes that managers will not adopt more restrictive fishing regulations for the 2027 season.

Those hopes will probably be fulfilled, as it is highly unlikely that the Management Board will consider any changes to striped bass regulations before the 2027 benchmark assessment is released. The big question is what will happen after that release occurs.

The Management Board’s obligation to rebuild the spawning stock biomass to its target level by 2029 remains. But even if they accomplish that task, the poor year classes produced over the past eight years are likely to lead to another population decline. Recreational fishermen on the coast will begin to feel that decline in 2027, when the last successful year class, spawned in 2018, grows out of the 28- to 31-inch slot size limit, and few bass from the 2019 and 2020 year classes will be available to take their place.

Although individual striped bass grow at somewhat different rates, as a general rule, it takes seven years for a given year class to grow into the slot limit, although a small proportion of each year class will enter the slot as six-year-olds, and roughly half of the eight-year-olds remain under the slot’s 31-inch maximum size. So, assuming that the size limit remains unchanged, even if the striped bass manage to produce a strong year class in 2027, something that is not at all guaranteed, coastal anglers would have to wait until 3034 before those fish were widely available for harvest.

In fact, it’s impossible to predict when the next strong year class will be produced. The Maryland Department of Natural Resource has noted that

Multiple factors affect striped bass spawning in the Chesapeake Bay. Cold winters and wet springs tend to be beneficial for spawning, and while Maryland experienced a cold winter, the prolonged regional drought and resulting low river flows may have led to unfavorable conditions for striped bass eggs and larvae. High river flows increase spawning habitat, allow eggs to remain suspended in the water column, and bring larvae closer to food sources. Other variables, including a shortened spawning period, could also influence spawning success.

It’s difficult to predict when favorable spawning conditions will return, although long-range weather forecasts for the Maryland region for the three-month period beginning on December 1, 2026 and running through February 28, 2027 predict a mixed bag of conditions. Above-normal precipitation is expected, which should end drought conditions and benefit the juvenile striped bass, but at the same time, temperatures are also expected to be above normal, which could cause water temperatures to rise too high, too soon and impair juvenile survival.

At least one Maryland biologist, Carrie Kennedy, who serves as the director of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ Tidal and Coastal Monitoring and Assessment Division, has suggested that favorable conditions for producing a strong striped bass year class might never return.

In response to the below-average 2026 JAI, she said, “The important piece of information is that it is still below average, and it is now the eighth year of low abundance.” She raised the possibility that the current poor spawning conditions, and the current low JAIs, may constitute “the new normal,” and opined, “Maybe we need to have a conversation about new reference points and new expectations. I don’t think that we should expect the population to be where it was in the early 2000s. We have a different Chesapeake Bay. We have a different planet than we had in the early 2000s.”

But she may be giving up on striped bass too soon. The last time the striped bass stock collapsed, spawning success began to decline in 1975, and it took until 1989 before another strong year class was produced. Measured against that 14-year span, the current eight years of below-average JAIs does not seem quite as dire.

That would be particularly true if similar environmental conditions contributed to both the last stock collapse and the current decline in the Maryland JAI. A paper, “Perspective comes with time: What do long-term egg and juvenile indices say about Chesapeake Bay Striped Bass productivity?,” authored by James Uphoff and published in the October 20, 2023 edition of the journal Marine and Coastal Fisheries, suggests that may have been the case.

After comparing the bay-wide abundance and distribution of striped bass eggs appearing in plankton net tows with the JAI time series, the author came to the conclusion that

The shift to lower [JAIs] in the early 1970s was followed by a strong decline in baywide [egg abundance] a decade later. The hypothesis that the collapse [of the striped bass stock] was initially driven by recruitment overfishing was not supported by trends in [egg abundance and distribution], but low [egg abundance and distribution] during 1982-1988 indicated that overfishing contributed to poor recruitment later. Poor habitat conditions leading into overfishing explained the decline of Chesapeake Bay Striped Bass in the 1970s and 1980s based on [egg abundance and distribution] and [JAIs]. Recovery, based on higher [egg production and broader egg distribution] was accompanied by and complemented by the recovery of egg-larval survival…in the early 1990s.

Based on that conclusion, it would seem premature to declare that the past eight years’ poor JAIs represent “the new normal,” and that such JAIs justify a revision of the reference points used to gauge the health of the striped bass stock.

Instead, the research would seem to suggest that the best course forward would be to do just what the ASMFC did in 1985: Impose very conservative management measures designed to maintain the spawning stock biomass at the highest practicable level, so that when favorable spawning conditions return, the stock will have sufficient spawning potential to take full advantage of the opportunity.

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This essay first appeared in  “From the Waterfront,” the blog of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, which can be found at http://conservefish.org/blog/

 

"FLOATER MONTH" IN THE NEW YORK BIGHT

 

Twenty-five or so years ago, striped bass anglers around New York Harbor used to talk about “floater week.”  That was the week, sometime in April, when the water temperatures rose high enough that the bodies of all of the people who ended up in the harbor—voluntarily or involuntarily—over the winter began to decay and produce enough gasses to rise off the bottom at begin floating around the harbor.

It so happened that the same rising water temperatures triggered the spring striped bass bite in the Harbor, so the human “floaters” were a sign that a new fishing season was getting underway.

We don’t hear many people talking about floater week anymore.

But perhaps we should be hearing a lot more talk about what, for lack of a better name, I’ll call “floater month,” that time between late October and maybe Thanksgiving, when anglers fishing in the New York Bight frequently sight the bodies of big striped bass floating across the water’s surface and washing up on the beach.

Sometimes, you see it written up in social media, accompanied by photos of dead striped bass in all conditions from freshly deceased to gull-picked and decaying.  Often, the photos are accompanied by the narrative that the fish washed ashore by gill netters, or maybe by trawlers that caught them as bycatch while fishing for something else, and then dumped them, dead, into the sea.

And, sometimes, that might be what happened.

But what anglers often refuse to admit is how many of those dead bass are killed by recreational fishermen.

Intellectually, we know that, according to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and the stock assessments that they regularly produce, about 9% of all released striped bass die soon after being returned to the water (although recent research suggests that the 9% figure may be too high).  And we know that, in a typical year, the number of bass that succumb to release mortality is supposedly about the same as the number of bass that are intentionally landed.

But knowing and accepting are two different things, so we often tend to be surprised when the evidence of release mortality floats right in front of our eyes.  In November, in the New York Bight, that happens quite often.

The reason for those floaters isn’t hard to understand.

Big schools of menhaden, and sometimes other species of baitfish, migrate south and west along the coast in he fall, and sort of stall when they reach New York Harbor, where the shoreline, which had been running mostly east/west, makes a 90 degree turn and begins to run in a north/south direction.

Typically, the schools of bait extend east for a few miles, often as far as Fire Island Inlet, and extend south along the northern New Jersey shore as well.  The menhaden attract predators, and the entire area can become a sort of National Geographic show, with bass blitzing on bunker, gannets dropping out of the sky, humpback whales lunge-feeding, thresher sharks attracted to the packed baitfish, and the occasional giant bluefin tuna making a cameo appearance.

And there are plenty of those other predators, too, the ones that arrive in boats and add to the confusion, running all over the ocean chasing the bass, and sometimes bumping into some of the other species as well.  On any given day, particularly on the weekends, there can be fleets of boats stretching for miles, all of them fishing for, and often catching, striped bass, and many of those bass will be large.

Larger than 31 inches, which is the top end of the recreational slot size limit. 

Thus, we see a high percentage of those bass—this year, a substantial majority of them—being released.  Not all of those released fish survive, but we know that there are ways to increase the survival rate. 

Anglers should be using circle hooks when they fish with live bait—it’s legally required—to  lessen the number of striped bass that are fatally hooked in their gills or gut.  

Replacing treble hooks on lures with in-line single hooks will also help, so much so that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has created the “Trade A Treble Program,” which invites anglers to present a surf plug to DEC representatives at certain scheduled events, and have the lure’s tail treble replaced with either a single hook or a hookless bucktail “flag,” to reduce the number of potentially injurious hook points on the lure.

And it’s important to minimize the time that a bass spends out of the water.  The Maryland Department of Natural Resources advises that

“Fisheries managers urge anglers to be prepared to remove the hook and if they want a picture, take it quickly—in less than a minute—before releasing the fish.  However, the best option is to not remove striped bass from the water at all.

“That’s because another major risk factor for caught-and-released fish is simply the exposure to the air.  When a fish—which may be exhausted from fighting the line—is pulled into the air, it’s a shock to their system that can cause shock and respiratory distress.

“A 2025 University of Massachusetts Amherst study that analyzed the post-release activity of hundreds of striped bass caught off the coast of Massachusetts found the amount of air exposure was the most significant influence on the recovery of striped bass.  The scientists recommended limiting fight time to less than 2 minutes, handling time to less than 2 minutes, and air exposure to less than 1 minute.

“In that study, all 521 fish survived within 20 minutes of release…although the scientists did not monitor the fish after that time and biologists note that fish may suffer from effects in hours or days after a catch.  The fish removed from the water for two minutes or longer in the study did not fully recover during the monitoring time.  These negative effects were worsened for larger fish and higher water temperatures.  [emphasis added]”

Unfortunately, a lot of anglers—I hate to say “most,” although that’s how it too often seems—don’t really follow those rules in the Bight during the fall run.

Take circle hooks. 

Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan, which required the use of circle hooks when fishing for striped bass with bait, was adopted on October 30, 2019, and went into effect for the 2020 season.  It led to a fair bit of whining from some striped bass anglers, although the folks who fish bait from the beach, for the most part, bit the bullet and complied with the law.

That wasn’t the case for boat fishermen in the Bight, who had long favored a technique called “snag-and-drop,” which involved casting a large, weighted treble hook into a school of menhaden, snagging one of the baitfish, and then allowing it to sink beneath the school, where striped bass were often waiting to pick off injured prey.  The technique was an effective way to catch big striped bass, but under Addendum VI, anglers were required to immediately reel in any menhaden that they snagged, and re-hook them on a circle hook before allowing them to swim back into the school.

Unfortunately, most anglers simply ignored that new rule.  An article written by Capt. John McMurray, who frequently pursues fall striped bass in the New York Bight, described fishing there during the 2023 season this way:

“While sure there were guys throwing plugs or dropping flutter-spoons, it was pretty clear that most of the fleet were ‘snag-and-drop’ fishing.  In other words, ripping a weighted treble hook through a menhaden school, sticking one, letting it swim and waiting for a striped bass to eat it.  What do I mean by most?  I dunno, I guess about 80-90%?

“If you’re up on your regs, which you should be, that’s illegal in New York, and, well, everywhere else.  In fact, fishing any live or dead bait on a treble is prohibited.  The only thing you can use is an in-line circle hook, meaning the point of the hook is not only bent in, it’s in line with the shank.  Which I suppose makes sense, as it’s more likely that you’re going to gut-hook a striper on a treble than if your were using an in-line circle hook.  A solid regulation intended to reduce dead discards.  IF…it were at all enforceable.

“The problem is, it’s efficient, and unless there are repercussions, there’s no reason for anglers NOT to do it…”

It is extremely unlikely that anyone is going to get caught, and ultimately cited, for engaging in snag-and-drop, and even if they were, the excuses that they could provide to the court—that they were fishing for bluefish, and not striped bass; that they intended to reel in the bait and put it on a circle hook, but the bass hit the menhaden on its way to the boat; etc.—make it even more unlikely that they would face any penalty for breaking the law.

Thus, although snag-and-drop was illegal, it was widely practiced in 2023 and, as Capt. McMurray observed,

“In case you haven’t already drawn the conclusion on your own, there were a LOT of dead discards this October.  Every day we’d see several floaters, plus a LOT of fish that came over boats’ gunnels pretty darn bloody.”

Snag-and-drop appears to be just about as popular today as it was three years ago, and so the tradition of floater month continues.

Yes, it’s possible that dead bass floating past your boat died in a gill net or in a trawl, but it’s far more likely that a recreational fisherman caused its demise.

And treble-hooked plugs only add to the problem.

It’s not usually a matter of the bass taking the plugs deep, although I’ve seen plenty of cases where a bass will take a big lure—in one case a bunker spoon bigger than my shoe—so deep into its mouth that it can’t even be seen, with only the leader stretching out past the fish’s jaws.  The real problem is that bass usually strike toward the head of a lure, so the forward treble gets hooked in their jaw, while the rear treble whips around during the fight and not infrequently impales an eye, gets under the gill plate, or otherwise causes serious harm to be fish.

Sometimes, that harm is bad enough that the fish dies, even if the angler swears that “it swam away strong.”  A couple of seasons ago, a friend, who happens to be a very experienced and very capable surfcaster, came across a bass of about 30 pounds dead in the wash.  He described the fish as “pristine,” and said that it must have been unintentionally killed by an angler just minutes before, since it was in too good a condition to have floated in from one of the boats fishing farther offshore.  My friend was so offended by the sight that he picked the bass off the wet sand and took it home, knowing that it was illegal to do so, but also saying that if the DEC wanted to ticket him for it they could, but he wasn’t going to let the fish go to waste.

And then there’s the big killer—probably the biggest killer of all—that far too many anglers are guilty of, bad, or overly delayed, release.

The sad fact is that cameras kill—or, at least, the delay too often involved when striped bass are photographed prior to release proves fatal. 

It’s a particular problem with large bass, which have already been fought for an extended period—very likely longer than the two minutes that scientists recommend as a maximum fight time—and are then kept out of water while someone digs out a camera and takes multiple shots before the bass is finally returned to the sea.,

Often, the angler makes no effort to revive the fish after it is released, even though it is clearly showing signs of distress.  One day last season, a couple of friends were fishing in the Bight when they saw that sort of scenario play out, with a good-sized striped bass dropped back into the water to just float away, exhausted but clearly still alive. 

While one of them told the irresponsible anglers, loudly and at length, just what he thought about their approach to catch-and-release, the other—who, formally trained as a biologist, regularly revives and releases striped bass as a part of his job—managed to get hold of the floating fish and began to revive it, a process that took close to half and hour.  Whether the fish ultimately survived is difficult to say, but it certainly had a better chance than the multitude of bass that are dropped back over the side without any revival efforts at all.

And how far those fish are dropped might also make a difference. 

One of the things we’ve seen in the Bight in recent years is an expansion of catch-and-release fishing for oversize (that is, longer than the 28- to 31-inch recreational slot size limit) striped bass from party boats.  While such boats used to primarily target legal-sized fish that their customers could take home and eat, the relative dearth of smaller bass, and the preponderance of large ones, has led to the boats targeting “overs” when slot-sized fish aren’t around. 

As a practical matter, a party boat’s deck is too far off the water to allow anyone on the boat to even try to revive it.  Add in the facts that, when the bite is hot, a fish might be languishing in the water, waiting for a mate to net it, for an extended time, then might sit on the deck for a while before the mate can unhook it, and then is held out of the water for photographs before one of the boat’s crew finally drops it back into the ocean, and it’s easy to understand why floaters occur—although, to be fair, the party boats’ contribution to the floater problem is probably far less than that of the private boat fleet, just because the private boats are responsible for far more striped bass trips.

That doesn’t mean that anglers fishing the New York Bight’s fall run are any less responsible than anglers elsewhere.  Release mortality occurs throughout the bass’ range, from the St. Lawrence River all the way to Virginia and, in the rare cases when the fish come close enough to shore, even North Carolina.  It happens throughout the year.

It’s just that, during the fall, the New York Bight, bordered by the densely-populated New York City metropolitan area, probably sees a convergence of striped bass, bait, and striped bass anglers that is greater than anything seen elsewhere on the coast.  So, it sees the greatest concentration of floaters as well.

But floaters occur everywhere along the striper coast and, wherever they occur, they remain a problem.

Right now, fishery managers estimate that about 9% of all released striped bass die, although recent research suggests that might be an overestimate, and that the actual release mortality rate is somewhere in the 4% to 5% range.  But all of those estimates are an overall average of release mortality, regardless of the size of the bass or where or how it was caught.

It is entirely possible that if managers and researchers focused on only the larger fish—say, striped bass at least 40 inches in length—and handled them in the same way that bass are handled in the real world, by engaging in snag-and-drop, and/or dragging bass up on the sand for photos, or bringing them aboard boats for extended photo sessions there, then tossing many of them back into the water without making any effort to revise them, basically, exposing them to the same sort of handling that they face every fall in the New York Bight—that they would find a mortality rate far above the currently accepted 9%.

And that’s a concern, because the last strong striped bass year class was spawned in 2018, and the eight years since then have seen, on average, the weakest spawning ever recorded.  That means that the best chance of rebuilding the stock over the next 10 or 15 years resides with the bass that are already a part of the spawning stock biomass.

The same bass that are regularly seen floating each fall in the New York Bight.

 

MARINE FISHERIES AND THE MID-TERMS

 

Two days from now, voters across the United States will have the chance to vote on—if they haven’t already taken advantage of early voting opportunities—who will fill all 435 seats in the House of Representatives.  Voters in 33 of the 50 states will also have the chance to decide on who will hold one of their states’ seats in the United States Senate.

In many states, newcomers are mounting strong challenges to incumbents.  Currently, the Republican Party controls both houses of Congress, with a 219 to 214 majority in the House (there are also two vacant seats, one formerly Republican, one formerly Democratic) and a 53 to 47 majority in the Senate.  Based on current polling, it seems extremely likely that Democrats will gain control of the House of Representatives, with professional election experts saying that there is anywhere between an 80 and a 95.1 percent chance of that happening.  The outcome for the Senate is a lot cloudier, with a number of races still being considered “tossups,” even though the polls are showing Democratic candidates leading by a narrow margin in most of those; still, predictions somewhat favor the Democrats, with the experts pegging their chances at anywhere between 60 and 77.7 percent.

The prediction markets are suggesting a similar outcome, with Kalshi giving the Democrats a 93.8% chance of controlling the House and a 72% chance of taking over the Senate; Polymarket giving them a 95% chance of controlling the House and concurs with Kalshi on their chances of Senate control.

Of course, the polls have been wrong before, but should control of the House and/or the Senate shift, there will be implications for marine fisheries management.  And there will be implications in the unlikely event that no change of control occurs.

That being said, even if the Democrats win control of both the House and the Senate, we shouldn’t expect any big steps forward in marine conservation.  Any Senate legislation is still going to need 60 votes to advance, and even the most wildly optimistic estimates only predict that—if every close election breaks Democratic, which is probably a highly unlikely outcome—the Democrats would only control 57 seats.  If the same close elections all break Republican, the Republican Party will retain its current 53-47 majority.

Any way the election shakes out, the Democrats would need at least some Republican votes to move marine conservation legislation forward, and those votes might be hard to find in a Senate that has just been through one of the more bitterly fought mid-term elections in recent history.  That would be particularly true if the Democrats win more than a token majority of the Senate seats, begin holding oversight hearings targeting various administration policy and officials, and so alienate the few Republican senators who have, in the past, been willing to reach across the aisle to pass bipartisan legislation.

Even if enough senators from both parties come together to pass fisheries conservation bills, those bills would still have to be signed by President Trump who, given the language of Executive Order 14276, Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness, and Executive Order 14430, Restoring American Saltwater Angling and Recreation, clearly prioritizes deregulation of marine fisheries, and monetizing marine resources in a way that maximizes short-term economic returns, over conservation efforts that promote long-term sustainability.  That being the case, it is likely that any legislation that proposed meaningful fisheries conservation initiatives would face a Presidential veto, and anyone who believes that there would be enough Republican senators and representatives willing to join with Democrats to override any such veto is certainly far more optimistic than I am.

But that doesn’t mean that a change of control, in the House in particular, would be meaningless.  It just means that any successful Democratic efforts would probably be defensive in nature, keeping bad legislation from passing rather than moving good legislation forward.

Perhaps the best example of that would be funding the National Marine Fisheries Service’s scientific efforts. 

In 2014, NMFS discretionary funding was $950 million.  Although the agency’s funding increased steadily through most of those years, when that funding is measured in constant 2014 dollars, it actually fell below 2014 levels until 2023 and 2024, when it increased to $966 million and $963 million in 2014 dollars ($1,198 million and $1,225 million in current-year dollars), respectively.  After the current administration took over the White House, and the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, NMFS funding was cut to $1,143 million ($878 million in 2014 dollars) in 2025 and $1,239 million ($930 million in 2014 dollars) in 2026.

President Trump’s budget would cut NMFS funding to a mere $712 million in 2027, while the House would budget a somewhat better, but still meager, $946 million for next year.

Fortunately, the Senate better understands the value of fisheries science and management, and senators from both parties could be expected to insist on higher levels of funding for the agency, just as they did in 2025 and 2026.  Democratic control of the House, even if the Senate remains Republican, would eliminate recent House efforts to shortchange the National Marine Fisheries Service, and might hopefully lead to restoring past levels of funding to NMFS’ regional fisheries science centers and other important agency functions.

A change of control in the House and/or Senate would also make it less likely that problematic fisheries bills would be enacted into law.  Currently, legislation such as H.R. 207/S. 2314, the so-called “SHARKED Act,” sponsored by Rep. Robert Wittman (R-VA) and Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), respectively, which would create a panel to study why sharks attack fish already hooked by anglers and could potentially lead to efforts to reduce shark populations, might well pass in a Republican-controlled Congress. 

The same could be said for a bill like H.R. 5699, the “Fisheries Data Modernization and Accuracy Act,” sponsored by Rep. John Rutherford, which would undercut the federal Marine Recreational Information Program used to estimate recreational catch, landings, and effort along the entire East Coast and in multiple states in the Gulf of Mexico, and replace it with a patchwork of state programs that would have to be calibrated to a single “common currency” before they could be used to manage and assess a single fish stock, or H.R. 470/S. 111, the “Red Snapper Act,” sponsored by Rep. Rutherford and Sen. Scott, which would prohibit NMFS from imposing a seasonal bottom closure in the South Atlantic to prevent anglers from killing and discarding hundreds of thousands of red snapper annually, unless and until a particular study is completed and the results of such study incorporated into the South Atlantic red snapper stock assessment, whether or not the study passes peer review or whether biologists conducting the stock assessment or the Scientific and Statistical Committee of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council consider it scientifically appropriate to use the results of the study in that manner.

As suggested by the identity of the legislators who sponsored the abovementioned bills, most such legislation is introduced by Republican lawmakers, located almost exclusively in the Southeast, at the request of the same recreational fishing industry organizations that lauded Executive Order 14430, which repeatedly subordinate conservation concerns to the economic concerns of the industry. 

A change of control in the House and/or Senate would go a long way toward restoring fisheries conservation as a legislative priority.  Should control not change, bills favoring the industry’s economic concerns over the long-term health of the nation’s fisheries will likely continue to be introduced, with those that manage to be enacted almost certain to weaken the conservation and management provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

About six years ago, I wrote an essay for this blog titled “Elections:  The Sportsman’s Dilemma,” which acknowledged the different forces that pull anglers and hunters toward and away from particular candidates and political parties.  While that essay was written ahead of a presidential election, and addressed a number of issues that don’t apply today, it closed with the following words.

“And thus, the Sportsman’s Dilemma.

“Do you vote for the party that will protect natural resources, but might restrict your ability to access them?  Our do you vote for the party that might guarantee gas and guns, but by supporting extractive industry, take away your reason for wanting them in the first place?

“Everyone must make their own choice, but for me, it always comes down to the resource.  Not only our chosen sport, but our very quality of life, depend on clean air and water, on abundant fish and wildlife, and on extensive and available public lands and waters where we, and the rest of nature, can wander.

“Without healthy, abundant, and accessible populations of wildfowl, upland birds, and game, my rifles and shotguns will stay in the safe, for I’ll have no reason to use, or even own, them.

“Without healthy oceans, that support an abundance of marine resources, there’s no reason for me to own a boat.

“Without clean air and water, and wild places where beauty remains unsullied by drill rigs and unscarred by mines, I don’t have much need for my truck or canoe, because I can find plenty that’s polluted and ugly very close to home.

“So, come next Tuesday, I’ll be voting for clean air and clean water.  I’ll be voting for science-based management of natural resources.  I’ll be voting for national monuments, and undrilled, unmined, and unfracked public lands.  I’ll be voting for beauty and life.

“I’ve solved my own Sportsman’s Dilemma.

“You may find a different solution.

“Although to be honest, I hope that you don’t”

 

 

 

 

STRIPED BASS: THE "M" WORD

 

As striped bass recruitment remains low, and as anglers note a distinct decline in the number of bass swimming past their shores, we hear more and more conversations turning toward the stock collapse of the late 1970s and 1980s, the subsequent recovery, and the role that a harvest moratorium played in rebuilding the stock.

There seems to be some support for a new moratorium, from a growing minority of anglers, who feel that the striped bass is in dire enough straits that conventional management measures won’t be enough to rebuild the stock or, in the worst case, avoid stock collapse.  The interesting thing is that a lot of those anglers, although certainly not all of them, are too young to remember what the past stock collapse, and the subsequent recovery, looked like, and they get a lot of things about the moratorium wrong.

Perhaps the biggest thing they get wrong is believing that there was a single, coastwide moratorium that prohibited striped bass harvest, both commercial and recreational. 

That was never the case.

For a long time, the states fumbled around, some adopting half-measures, some doing nothing at all, with most afraid to take decisive action that might disadvantage their fishermen compared to those in neighboring states.  That didn’t change until Congress passed the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act in 1984, which gave the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission the authority to require all member states to adopt the ASMFC’s striped bass management plan, and put non-complying states at risk of having their entire striped bass fishery shut down by the Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of the Interior until the offending states decided that compliance with the ASMFC plan was the most acceptable of all their limited options.

Once the ASMFC had that authority, it prepared Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which was released in 1985.  Amendment 3 was intended to protect the 1982 year class of striped bass, which was the only relatively strong year class remaining in the population, and all subsequent year classes as well.  It did that by imposing a minimum size limit that increased steadily through the years, always remaining high enough to ensure that no more than 5% of the bass spawned in 1982 and subsequent years would be removed from the population in any given fishing season.

Notably, it did not include a coastwide moratorium.

Instead, the various moratoriums were imposed by individual states, at different times and for different purposes, not all of which were the conservation of the striped bass stock.

Maryland, perhaps hoping to improve on Amendment 3, adopted a moratorium in 1985 that remained in place until 1989.  But on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia didn’t impose a moratorium until June 1989, and lifted it less than a year and a half later, in November 1990, after a strong 1989 year class of striped bass led the ASMFC to adopt Amendment 4 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which began to relax management measures.

Delaware emulated Maryland, and imposed a moratorium from 1985 to 1989, but most other states opted for shorter closures.  Connecticut and Rhode Island both imposed moratoriums in 1986.  New York did, too, but in New York’s case, the moratorium was imposed for health reasons, to keep people from eating PCB-laden striped bass from the Hudson River, and only lasted for a single year.  Two important striped bass states, Massachusetts and New Jersey, never imposed moratoriums at all.

In the case of all state moratoriums, anglers were still permitted to target striped bass in catch-and-release fisheries, leading to some level of release mortality, although with only an estimated 797,325 directed striped bass trips taken in 1985, compared to about 11,600,000 such trips in 2025, the number of bass that succumbed to release mortality during the Amendment 3 years would have been far fewer than die from the same cause today.

So, the question in at least some anglers’ minds is, if the striped bass stock continues to decline, might a moratorium be considered as a viable management measure, and if so, what would such a moratorium look like?

As early as 2021, Stripers Forever, a group of recreational fishermen that advocate for striped bass conservation, called for the ASMFC to put a 10-year moratorium in place.  Mike Spinney, one of the organization’s directors, argued that

“We are 18 years into a ten-year management plan that has utterly failed in its objective to rebuild striped bass stocks.  Now the ASMFC is preparing to embark on yet another ten-year plan of compromise and half-measures and stripers may not survive.  Bold, decisive action is needed to prevent a collapse of the fishery like we saw in the late 1970s.  An emergency moratorium was adopted in 1984 and is the only approach proven to work.  We are calling on recreational anglers, conservationists, and anyone who depends on a healthy coastal ecosystem for their economic well-being to stand with us and demand that a moratorium be adopted now.”

As we now know, the ASMFC did not listen to Stripers Forever, or to any other striped bass anglers who might have called for a moratorium five years ago, when managers were debating the shape of Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass. 

But while Mr. Spinney might have gotten some of the details wrong—in 2021, we were not in the midst of a rebuilding plan that was initiated 18 years before, an apparent reference to Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, adopted in 2003, for at the time Amendment 6 was adopted, and for much of its duration, the striped bass stock was deemed to be in good shape, neither overfished nor experiencing overfishing; in addition, as noted before, there was never a unitary “emergency moratorium” adopted in 1984, but rather a patchwork of state moratoriums adopted at various times—but he wasn’t much off the mark when he noted that the ASMFC’s recent management efforts could be characterized as “compromise and half-measures,” such as the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board’s failure to impose the 12% harvest reduction, to better ensure that the stock will fully rebuild by the 2029 deadline imposed by the management plan, at its October 2025 meeting.

And there is no doubt that the striped bass stock is in a worse position than it was when Mr. Spinney made those comments five years ago.

Even so, it’s a safe bet that the Management Board will try to avoid imposing a coastwide moratorium, which could prove the kiss of death for many commercial fishing operations, as well as for traditional “six-pack” charter boats that have long maintained business plans built around their customers killing and keeping a limit of striped bass rather than catch-and-release.  Commercial and for-hire interests, probably joined by the fishing tackle and boating industries and more harvest-oriented recreational fishermen, would undoubtedly raise strong objections and mount a fierce opposition should any such moratorium be proposed.

Still, should striped bass spawns continue to result in starkly below-average recruitment, and should the 2027 benchmark stock assessment predict another stock collapse should management remain unchanged, there is a good chance that, when the next management action is initiated, a moratorium will at least be discussed.

But what would such moratorium look like, and would everyone be affected?  Those are the key questions that might determine whether a moratorium proposal would get any significant support.

The last time a moratorium was considered, in conjunction with Amendment 7, it would have been limited to a moratorium on recreational harvest, and would not have impacted the commercial fishery.  Needless to say, that didn’t go over too well with anglers, with one recreational fishing group, the American Saltwater Guides Association, noting that

“[A moratorium] only works if everyone does it.  So, we save striped bass by allowing only one sector to harvest?  Somehow, this doesn’t pass the smell test.”

And even if such one-sided moratorium might have been justifiable in 2021, when the commercial fishery was thought to account for only 14% of fishing mortality, now that the Marine Recreational Information Program’s estimates of recreational striped bass landings and releases (and thus release mortality) have been revised downward by anywhere between 20.3% and 31.6%, and 21.4% and 31.3%, respectively, over the past five years, the commercial contribution to striped bass mortality will have to be revised substantially upward as a result, making a recreational-only moratorium unthinkable.

But one thing that anglers pursuing a moratorium probably should be thinking about is whether it would allow any recreational striped bass fishing at all.  When the ASMFC proposed Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass back in 2025, which would have achieved a 12% reduction in coastal recreational removals by imposing a closed season, one of the biggest debates—and the issue that, in my view, doomed the 12% reduction—was whether the closed season would merely be closed to harvest, with catch-and-release fishing allowed, or whether it would be closed to all recreational striped bass fishing, including the recreational release fishery.

At the time, the party boats and “traditional” six-pack charters supported the no-target closure, both because it would have been shorter than a no-harvest closure, and because their business plans emphasized catch-and-kill and had catered to a customer base intent on taking fish home.  They, as well as the commercial sector, argued that it was only “fair” that if they and/or their customers couldn’t catch and kill striped bass, then anglers shouldn’t be allowed to catch and release them during the closed season, either.

Since a moratorium is, in effect, nothing more than a very long closed season, it is very possible that a ban on catch-and-release fishing during any such closure will be a part of the conservation, although it is also very possible that faced with the options of either not booking striped bass charters at all, or booking at least a few charters for anglers willing to release all their bass, the six-packs might be willing to rethink their positions should there be a serious chance that a moratorium will be imposed.

Which brings us to the final question regarding a moratorium, should things ever get so bad that one must be imposed:  What constitutes the best use of the striped bass resource, should the population continue to decline, and extreme measures become necessary to conserve what remains of the spawning stock biomass?

It’s probably not the commercial fishery. 

I try to focus solely on striped bass conservation issues, and do my best to avoid allocation debates; thus, I am not an advocate for “gamefish status” that would outlaw the commercial fishery, as that merely shifts the harvest from the commercial to the recreational sector, and doesn’t conserve any fish at all. 

In fact, it could be argued that, because commercial fishermen are bound by a hard-poundage quota, and must pay back any overages in the following year, while recreational fishermen are neither bound by a quota nor obligated to pay back overages, and may overharvest with impunity (as exemplified by Maryland’s recreational landings from 2015 through 2019, when instead of reducing harvest by 20.5%, as the management plan required, the state’s anglers actually increased harvest, sometimes doubling what their landings should, in theory, have been had the state complied with the letter of the management plan), that the commercial fishery better promotes the conservation of the striped bass stock.

However, while conservation is the ultimate goal, the Management Board is also going to give some consideration to economic concerns; any fishery that leads to over 11 million recreational trips in a single year is clearly an important driver of coastal economies.  In that regard, we have to consider the comparable economic benefits of the commercial and recreational fisheries.

There have been some studies produced in that regard.  The advocacy group Stripers Forever commissioned Southwick Associates, a firm specializing in performing economic analyses of various outdoor activities, including striped bass fishing, to produce economic analyses comparing the economic value of the commercial and recreational striped bass fisheries.  The studies determined that the striped bass produced far more economic value as a recreational species, although the fact that Stripers Forever has long advocated for making the striped bass a “gamefish,” and paid for the studies, has led some to question the studies’ conclusions.

A study produced by the presumably unbiased Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences in 2000 came to the same conclusion, finding that allocating the entire striped bass harvest to the recreational sector generated the greatest economic benefits, although it was careful to note that social and cultural concerns might militate against such a one-sided allocation.  Unfortunately, such study is now difficult to locate on the Internet, and so I cannot make it available to readers of this post.

So while the conservation arguments against shutting down the commercial striped bass fishery remains valid, in a situation where fishing mortality must be very tightly constrained, economic concerns could dictate otherwise.

And economic concerns would certainly dictate against a no-target moratorium, which would deprive coastal businesses of all income now being generated by the recreational striped bass fishery. 

While the need to maintain fishing mortality at or below a particular target might, in the sort of extreme circumstances that would justify a moratorium, require even the catch-and-release fishery to be limited to a particular season, and/or for no-target rules to prevail on striped bass spawning grounds, a moratorium that permitted catch-and-release angling might well produce the greatest economic and social returns from the very restricted fishery.

Hopefully, that’s a decision that managers won’t have to make.

Hopefully, while the striped bass fishery will probably have to be tightly restricted through most or all of the 2030s, when the impact of poor recruitment will be most acutely felt, stock collapse can be avoided, and talk of a moratorium will remain on a strictly theoretical level.

Still, until recruitment improves, a stock collapse, or something close to it, remains a possibility.  So long as that remains true, a moratorium remains a tool that managers might have to reluctantly employ in order to address the situation.

We ought to start giving some thought now to what might justify imposing a moratorium at some point in the future, and just what such moratorium might look like this time around.