Anglers
and bluefish have a complicated relationship.
We call them “yellow-eyed
demons” when they show up in the surf, attacking lures meant for striped bass.
And we call them worse things farther offshore, when they show up to ruin shark
baits and mangle carefully-rigged—and expensive—ballyhoo intended for tuna.
But when they burst through
the surface of a calm summer sea, leaping completely clear of the water before
landing headfirst on a topwater plug, we have to admit, however reluctantly,
that they are one of the great gamefish of our northeast coast.
Still, great gamefish aren’t
always great food fish, and that’s certainly true with big blues.
Small bluefish, fresh from
the sea and still lean from their travels, can taste pretty good. Even larger
ones that have been feeding on squid, sand eels and butterfish in deep ocean
waters can be enjoyable. But once bluefish invade inshore waters and begin
feeding on menhaden, their flesh becomes too oily and strong-tasting for most
people’s palates.
Thus, most bluefish caught by
anglers today are released.
That wasn’t always the case.
During the early years of the
fishery, recreational fishermen killed most of their catch, even if they had no
intention of eating them. I remember boats coming back to the dock in the 1960s
and ‘70s, the anglers on board calling out “Who wants some bluefish?” even
before the boats were tied up in their slips.
They got very few takers.
In those days, before states
licensed their commercial fishermen, some of the unwanted bluefish were sold to
local restaurants. Some were given to (often, almost forced on) reluctant
neighbors, while others fertilized gardens. Far too many ended up in a dumpster
or were returned, dead, to the bay.
Because bluefish weren’t in much demand as a food fish, the
commercial fishery was small; through the 1980s, it only amounted to about 10% of the overall landings. As noted in the
initial Fishery Management Plan for the Bluefish Fishery,
released in 1989, “bluefish comprise a small percentage of all finfish
harvested commercially along the Atlantic coast primarily because the
commercial bluefish market is unstable, easily saturated, and characterized by
low dockside prices.”
Because anglers so dominated bluefish landings, the original
fishery management plan allocated 80% of the bluefish harvest to the
recreational sector. When the management plan was amended
in 1998, the allocation was amended as well, to 83% recreational and
17% commercial, with the proviso that if the commercial quota in any year was
less than 10.5 million pounds, and recreational fishermen were not expected to
land their entire quota in that year, a portion of the unharvested recreational
quota could be transferred to the commercial sector.
That allocation was based on
recreational and commercial landings during the years 1981 through 1989.
During those years, anglers in the New
England/Mid-Atlantic region still killed most of their bluefish,
releasing only 21% of all the fish caught. Since then, a conservation ethic has
pervaded the fishery. In the most recent decade, 2008-2017, that release rate
has tripled, with 62% of all bluefish caught returned to the water.
Anglers have come to realize
that fishing is more enjoyable when fish were abundant, and that they can help
to assure such abundance by releasing unwanted bluefish, instead of using them
for crab bait. Unfortunately, it seems that the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management
Council (Mid-Atlantic Council) and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission
(ASMFC) now want to penalize bluefish anglers for adopting that conservation
ethic.
On April 30, in a joint meeting, the Mid-Atlantic Council and
ASMFC’s Bluefish Management Board (Management Board) approved a Draft Scoping and Public Information Document for
a proposed Bluefish Allocation Amendment to the Bluefish Management Plan(Scoping
Document). One of the primary issues to be addressed in the Scoping Document is
whether the current recreational/commercial allocation should be changed.
As the Scoping Document
notes, “These allocations were developed using catch data from 1981-1989 (the
years prior to regulations that may have affected both recreational and
commercial landings) and are still the basis for current bluefish allocations.
Stakeholders would like to see allocations reviewed using more recent catch
histories.”
While that statement may be
true, there are problems with its underlying premise.
Although the terms “catch
data” and “catch histories” are widely used in fishery management, it would be
far more accurate to say that the allocation and any reallocation of bluefish
that might occur are based on “kill” data and “kill” histories, because fish
that anglers return to the waters alive were never a part of the calculation.
That skews the allocation
discussion, for in catch-and-release fisheries, the most important
consideration isn’t sustainable yield, or the number of fish that can safely be
removed from the water, but instead sustainable abundance, the number of fish
available for anglers to catch, release, then hopefully catch again. Fish can
be, and are, utilized, even if they are not killed.
That’s acknowledged in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens), which
defines “optimum” yield as “the amount of fish which will provide the greatest
overall benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to food production and
recreational opportunities… [emphasis added]”
Yet, despite the fact that
such language clearly values recreational opportunity as much as it does food
production, fishery managers still give purely recreational considerations
little weight in their decisions, and instead practice what might be termed
“dead fish management,” placing all of the emphasis on harvest. The
Mid-Atlantic Council has never acknowledged that recreational fishermen are
fully utilizing their bluefish allocation when they maximize recreational
opportunities through catch and release.
Capt. John McMurray, an ASMFC
commissioner from the State of New York, raised that point at the joint
meeting, pointing out that the Scoping Document failed to address “the value of
keeping fish in the water.” ASMFC staff agreed to add such language before the
document was released to the public.
Capt. Tony DiLernia, who represents New York on the Mid-Atlantic
Council, raised another important issue. He pointed out that the Marine Recreational Information
Program (MRIP), which estimates recreational catch and
recreational harvest, is revising its figures for angling effort. And, as noted
in the Scoping Document, “Preliminary MRIP calibration work suggests all effort
estimations will increase ~3-5 times. This increase has the potential to
drastically alter bluefish catch/landings/effort data for the shore and private
angler modes.”
Thus, there is a very good
chance that recreational bluefish landings will turn out to be much higher than
previously believed, probably high enough that no reallocation of recreational
quota to the commercial sector could be justified. Because of that, Capt.
DiLernia suggested that the Scoping Document not be released until the revised
MRIP data becomes public.
Until then, no one will know
how many bluefish anglers truly catch, or kill.
New Jersey ASMFC commissioner
Tom Fote agreed. He also reminded everyone that while striped bass may be
considered more glamorous, bluefish are the “money fish” on the coast, the fish
that, when they are abundant, attract tourists to the party boat fleets and
force anglers to replace lures and other gear that the bluefish destroy. An
abundance of bluefish is an economic boon.
Despite such arguments, the
Mid-Atlantic Council and Management Board, on near-unanimous votes, decided to
move forward with the reallocation process and release the Scoping Document for
public comment.
That is unfortunate, because
the Scoping Document effectively tells anglers that their conservation efforts
will prove to be futile, for the fish that they choose to release will only be
reallocated to, and killed by, the commercial sector. It tells them that, from
an allocation standpoint, they were better off in the days when they fed their
dead bluefish to rose bushes and dumpsters, compared to today, when they set
most of their live bluefish free.
That is the wrong message to
send, and not only because it is contrary to the clear language of
Magnuson-Stevens.
It is wrong because it values
dead fish more than live ones, when it is only live bluefish, abundant and
available, that will allow both the recreational and commercial fisheries to
thrive in the future, as well as today.
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