STRIPED BASS: ANOTHER POOR YEAR CLASS IN MARYLAND

 

It’s hard to say many good things about striped bass fishing right now.

For most people, in most places, this season, bass were few and far between.  While there are still a few big fish around from the big 1996, 2001, and 2003 year classes (and maybe even a very, very few ‘93s), large bass have been hard to come by.

On the other hand, there is a rush of small fish from the solid 2014 and 2015 year classes—some just entering into the bottom end of the prevailing 28- to 35-inch slot limit—popping up all along the northeast coast.  The good news is that these fish are doing all of the things that bass do in the fall, blitzing bait on the surface and keeping the boat and surf fishermen happy. 

The bad news is that these fish are, right now, the last, best hope of rebuilding the currently overfished striped bass population and, as I said, they’re entering the bottom end of the slot, meaning that for the next four or five years, they will be the focus of every coastal striped bass angler who wants to take a fish home.  Thus, attrition from angling—both from the “meat fishermen” who intentionally kill them and from the catch and release-oriented anglers who inadvertently kill about one out of every eleven fish they return to the water—is going to hit them hard, and make their contribution to the spawning stock a lot less than it probably ought to be.

After 2015, there aren’t a lot of fish coming up to replace them.

That fact was driven home yesterday, when Maryland’s juvenile abundance index for 2020 was revealed to be a dismal 2.48, as compared to a long-term average of around 11.5.

People may look at that number and say “but it’s only one year,” and argue that striped bass recruitment moves up and down, and one bad year can easily be redeemed by solid recruitment a year or two later.  

There’s some justification in thinking that way.  After all, there’s a very firm limit on how “below average” any one year can be.

If the long-term average is 11.5, then even in the worst-case situation, where no recruitment at all occurs (something that has never been recorded in the 63-year history of the juvenile abundance survey, although it got pretty close in 2012, when the young-of-the-year index recorded its all-time low of 0.89), the index could be more than 11.5 points below average, while the upside for good recruitment is theoretically unlimited.  We already saw an index of 59.39—nearly 40 points above average—in 1996, closely followed by a 50.75 in 2001.

Years like that can make up for a few sub-par spawns.

There's no real need to worry unless below-average recruitment continues for a few years.  Yet we have already experienced extended recruitment droughts, when the young-of-the-year index remained below average for a very long time.  

The worst of those was the 17-year period between 1972 and 1988, when the Maryland young-of-the-year index didn’t reach the current 11.5 average even once; for those years, the average young-of-the-year index was only 5.35.

And we all know what happened back then…

We saw something similar, though of shorter duration, in the seven years between 2004 and 2010.  It wasn’t as severe—the long-term average was exceeded twice in those years, and the seven-year average was a far less-distressing 9.05--but even that level of recruitment decline, coupled with an Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission that was—and still is--more interested in maintaining consistent regulations, and consistent harvest levels, than in maintaining a healthy striped bass stock, was enough to cause the stock to become overfished once again.

If we want another, less conservative measure of sustainable recruitment, we can take a look at Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which established the management measures that successfully nurtured the striped bass stock back to health in the late 1980s.  Amendment 3 provided, in part,

“That the states prevent directed fishing mortality on at least 95% of the 1982 year class females, and females of all subsequent year classes of Chesapeake Bay stocks until 95% of the females in these year classes have an opportunity to reproduce at least once.  This objective is intended to apply to the fishery until the 3-year running average of Maryland’s young-of-year index attains 8.0.  [emphasis added]”

Now, the striped bass stock had collapsed by 1985, when Amendment 3 was adopted, and as bad as its condition may be today, the stock hasn't collapsed and the spawning stock biomass is still about four times the size that it was back then, so the two situations aren’t directly comparable.  While Amendment 3 effectively shut down the striped bass fishery—while it was in effect, recreational landings ranged between roughly 114,000 and 270,000 bass per year, as compared to nearly 2,200,000 bass in 2019—the current state of the striped bass stock doesn’t call for anything near such stringent measures. 

Still, it’s significant that the managers then at the ASMFC felt that a three-year running average of 8.0 or more would be needed to justify more lenient regulations.

So looking at some of those past figures—the young-of-the-year average of 5.35, that prevailed during the collapse years, the average of 9.05 for the most recent period of below-average recruitment, or the three-year rolling average of 8.0 used in Amendment 3 as a trigger for more relaxed regulations (1 fish at 34 inches on the coast, and a restricted commercial fishery, regulations that probably aren’t too different, on a conservation equivalency basis, from where things stand today)—how does current recruitment compare?

If you look at the Maryland young-of-the-year index for the past three years, you get an average of 6.88, more than 4 ½ points below the long-term average, with each individual year’s index continuing to decline.  The average for the past three years is only 1 ½ points higher than the average during the years leading up to and extending through the stock collapse, is nearly 1 ½ points below the Amendment 3 standard for reopening the directed fishery, and 2 ½ points below the average for 2004-2010, the most recent period of sub-par recruitment.

So over the past few years, it’s safe to say that striped bass recruitment, when judged on a historical basis, has not been very good, and so there is reason to be concerned about this year’s low index number.

Looking back five years instead of three provides the opportunity to incorporate all of the year classes since the big one in 2015 into a similar comparison.  The average for those years--2016-2020--is 7.20.  That's slightly better than the average of the most recent 3 years, as it captures both 2017 and 2018, which both returned indices that were marginally above average.  

Yet it still falls below the Amendment 3 standard for a recovering stock, and is well below both the long-term average and the average for the sub-par 2004-2010 period.  

That provides even more reason for concern, because we’re at the point when most of the big females are aging out of or being removed from the population, the big 2011 year class did not recruit into the spawning stock in the numbers expected, and the fish that represent the best current chance to replenish the population—the 2014s and 2015s—recruited in good numbers, but are now entering a slot size that will make them the exclusive target of coastal striped bass anglers who want to harvest their catch for the next four or five years.

And once the 2014s and 2015s have run that gauntlet, there are currently no big year classes poised to take their place.

When you have a lot of fish being removed from the population, either through fishing or natural mortality, and you have five consecutive years when the recruitment of fish to replace them is well below average, a little worrying is not out of line.

So, are the striped bass in crisis?

Probably not.  At least, not yet.

But they are in a place where managers should be carefully monitoring the situation and, more importantly, should be placing their greatest emphasis on maximizing the number of females that not only enter the spawning stock, but remain there for years, to become the sort of “BOFFFs”—big, old, fecund female fish—that are needed to buffer the population against years of sub-par recruitment.

Without such big females, bass will face a greater likelihood of another stock collapse.

Thus, as the ASMFC begins work on a new amendment to the striped bass management plan, anglers who want to see a healthy striped bass stock need to tell its Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board that they are charting a dangerous course.

Currently, when contemplating the new amendment.

“The [Atlantic Striped Bass Management] Board identified management stability, flexibility, and regulatory consistency as guiding themes for future striped bass management, and discussed the desire to balance these principles to the extent practical.”

That’s nice for the folks on the Management Board.  Those principles would give them carte blance to allow overfishing to continue, fail to rebuild an overfished stock, and let the population decline in the face of declining recruitment, without having to lift a finger to protect the future of the fishery.  It would let them avoid irking the folks, in both the recreational and commercial sectors, who see nothing but dollars on the heads of dead bass, and consistently oppose conservation measures.

In other words, it would let the Management Board continue to do what they’ve been doing for the past two decades or more, although the new measures would make ignoring the striped bass’ future official ASMFC policy, instead of merely another ASMFC failure.

I propose a different set of principles.

How about, for the first time in this century and part of the last, the Management Board makes maintaining the health of the striped bass stock, preventing overfishing, and rebuilding the population its guiding principles.

I recognize that, for the ASMFC and the Management Board, that’s a radical notion, and goes against everything they’ve done since, perhaps, 1985.  But maybe it’s worth another try.

Just maybe, for the first time in three decades or so, the Management Board can really make a good-faith effort to take care of the bass.

And just maube, if the do that, they’ll find that the bass, once restored to abundance, will take care of the recreational and commercial fisheries all by themselves, and everyone, including the fish, can finally claim a real win.