THE UNREPRESENTED ANGLER

 

Saltwater angling has, of necessity, become a highly-regulated activity.

When I was a boy—let’s say, during the 1960s—fishing along the Connecticut shore of Long Island Sound, there were no closed seasons or bag limits, and the only size limit that we had to worry about was the 16-inch (fork length) minimum for striped bass.  But the U.S. population has added 150 million people since then, most of whom live near the coast, placing a substantial burden on fisheries resources.

Regulation became inevitable.

The next question, of course, was who would set the rules.

Fifty years ago, a lot of the regulation was done by state legislatures, which adopted laws setting fishery management measures.  As the need for active fishery management grew, the legislative process became unwieldy, so legislatures began to delegate management authority to state conservation agencies.  

In many cases, legislatures also set up fishery management bodies, designated “commissions,” “councils,” or “boards,” which gave selected stakeholders a chance to directly influence the management process.  Some of those bodies, such as New York’s Marine Resources Advisory Council, are strictly advisory.  Some, perhaps best exemplified by New Jersey’s Marine Fisheries Council, have veto authority over agency actions, while others, such as North Carolina’s Marine Fisheries Commission, have the power to not only to suggest, but to implement, fishery management measures.

At the federal level, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act created eight regional fishery management councils, peopled by a National Marine Fisheries Service regional administrator, state fisheries administrators, and stakeholders representing the commercial fishery, the recreational fishery, and other marine interests.  

Congress also passed the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act, which empowered the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to manage inshore fish stocks (and also offshore stocks under certain circumstances); the Commission includes two representatives from federal agencies (NMFS and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service), state fishery managers, and stakeholder representatives.

Given the role that the various councils, commissions, and boards play in the fishery management process, it is important that anglers have a seat at the table, so that their concerns will be heard and their management needs recognized, at least so far as prudence will allow.

Unfortunately, on most of such management bodies, individual anglers have almost no voice at all. 

That’s not a good situation, for in most recreational fisheries, individual anglers generate the largest share of recreational fishing trips, and probably (I say “probably” because I don’t have access to the economic data needed to be more certain) the greatest share of the economic and social benefits accruing from such fisheries. 

If we look at the six recreational fisheries most important to New York, striped bass, summer flounder, scup, bluefish, tautog, and black sea bass, we find that in 2022, private anglers were responsible for nearly 99% of all trips primarily targeting striped bass, 97% of summer flounder trips, 98% of scup trips, 99.9% of trips primarily targeting bluefish (had to use the decimal there, to avoid saying 100%), 97% of tautog trips, and 94% of all black sea bass trips.  

Given how private anglers dominate the state’s fisheries, one might think that such anglers would dominate the recreational seats on New York's Marine Resources Advisory Council, but that’s not the case.  Of the seven seats held by recreational interests, only two are held by private anglers.  Three of the other seats are held by members of the for-hire fleet, one by a representative of the boating industry, and one by a representative of the bait and tackle industry.  At least two of the ostensibly recreational members also have close ties to the commercial fishing industry.

As a result, although surfcasters and private boat anglers are responsible for more than 95% of the state’s saltwater recreational fishing activity, votes at MRAC almost always favor the outcome preferred by the fishing industry—as opposed to the fishermen themselves--and more particularly, outcomes favored by the for-hire fleet.  

We most recently saw that in March, when a possible black sea bass regulation that was broadly favored by the private sector—keeping the size limit at 16 inches, in exchange for shortening the season by just eight days—was overwhelmingly defeated in favor of one favored by industry, which increased the size limit by ½ inch but left the current season intact.

Past votes on striped bass, winter flounder, and other species resulted in similar industry-favored outcomes.

We see the same thing occurring at the federal level, at the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

There, the four most important recreational species are bluefish, summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass.  Because the Council includes states between North Carolina and New York, the proportion of trips taken by private anglers and for-hire boats differs somewhat from the New York figures, but the basic pattern remains unchanged.  Private anglers—surfcasters and private boat fishermen—accounted for 99.8% of all mid-Atlantic trips primarily targeting bluefish, 98% of summer flounder and scup trips, and 94% of trips targeting black sea bass.

Yet, with respect to representation, the situation at the Mid-Atlantic Council is even worse than it is at New York’s MRAC.  Not a single private angler, unaffiliated with the angling industry, holds a seat on the Council.  Instead, the recreational sector is represented by three members of the for-hire fleet, some of whom also have commercial affiliations, and three individuals who, although they fish recreationally, are also involved with various forms of outdoor media as writers, seminar speakers, and/or operators of angling websites, and thus have close ties to a fishing industry that does not tolerate media members who disagree with its fishery management goals.  Private anglers’ interests, to the extent that they are protected at all, are represented by the two Council members who are formally trained in fisheries science, and once worked as state fisheries managers.

Thus, we again see private anglers’ perspectives and interests largely ignored.  That has been particularly obvious in the case of bluefish.  The Council (and the ASMFC’s Bluefish Management Board) agreed to grant passengers on for-hire vessels a privileged, 5-bluefish bag limit, as opposed to the 3-fish bag imposed on private anglers.  When finalizing a recent amendment to the bluefish management plan, Council and Management Board members ignored anglers’ entreaties to manage the recreational bluefish fishery for abundance and recreational opportunities, and instead decided that, once the stock was rebuilt, any uncaught recreational quota resulting from anglers’ conservation efforts should be transferred to and harvested by the commercial sector.  And even when discussing the size of the bluefish released by anglers, something that caused disagreement between scientists at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center and those at the Greater Atlantic Region Fisheries Office a few years ago, not a single recreational representative would admit what any angler knows to be true—that recreational fishermen typically release the larger, stronger-tasting bluefish and keep the smaller ones, if they keep any bluefish at all.  Instead they stayed silent and tacitly endorsed the assumption that released bluefish averaged the same size as the bluefish that are kept, and in doing so, minimized the estimate of dead discards while allowing a greater amount of fish to be landed.

Later this year, the Council will begin investigating the concept of “sector separation,” which will, if implemented, again likely grant passengers on for-hire vessels special privileges, in the form of larger bag limits or smaller minimum sizes than those imposed on shore-based and private-boat anglers.  Given the makeup of the Council, and the private anglers’ lack of representation, it’s not hard to predict how that will go.

Quite honestly, I’m not sure how to fix the problem.

Appointment to the various councils, commissions, and boards is a political process.  The for-hire fleet, and other elements of the angling industry, are willing and able to work the political system to achieve their desired results.

The New York for-hire fleet, for example, may be responsible for less than 2% of all striped bass trips made in state waters, but they have managed to get at least two state legislators to contact New York’s governor and ask her not to implement the ASMFC’s recent emergency measures.  And they have convinced a Long Island congressman to pen a sign-on letter to the Secretary of Commerce, asking her to intervene with the ASMFC itself.

The same savvy (and campaign contributions) that convinces legislators to write such letters comes in handy when it’s time for a stakeholder to be appointed to a commission, council, or board.  The industry folks have the knowledge—and, perhaps more important, the determination—to push for their chosen candidates, while the private anglers are disorganized and never developed the institutional knowledge needed to promote their own interests.  State national angling organizations claim to represent private anglers’ interests but, with a few notable exceptions, promote their own interests instead, knowing that a good relationship with the for-hire and tackle industries guarantees more of the donations that they need to keep such organizations alive.

Thus, until anglers develop the determination necessary to adequately represent themselves, their sole hope lies in the consciences of those state and federal fishery managers who understand the need for everyone to have a seat at the table, and will reach out to stakeholders in an effort to find and support promising candidates.

The good news is that there are folks like that out there.  The bad news is that their numbers are still far too low.