STRIPED BASS SECTOR SEPARATION: AN EXERCISE IN FUTILITY

 

At this point, anyone at all familiar with the Atlantic striped bass, except perhaps for a select group of science-deniers, knows that the stock is not doing well.  The stock is overfished, fishing mortality exceeds the target, and poor recruitment in three of the four major spawning areas bodes ill for the future.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board is setting the stage for remedial measures, although whether such measures will be strong enough, or put in place soon enough, to prevent a severe decline in abundance is something that we cannot yet know.

If spawning conditions in the natal rivers, particularly those draining into the Maryland portion of Chesapeake Bay, remain unfavorably for a few more seasons, it is possible that nothing the Management Board can do will prevent a collapse of the stock.

It’s clear that everyone engaging in the striped bass fishery, whether on the commercial or recreational side of the ledger, is going to have to make some sacrifices to prevent the current situation from getting much worse.  Thus, the Management Board has released Draft Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass out for public comment.

Addendum II, if adopted in its most restrictive form, would perpetuate the current 28- to 31-inch slot limit in the ocean recreational fishery, impose meaningful reductions in landings and fishing mortality in the Chesapeake Bay recreational fishery, and cut commercial quotas by 14.5%.  If it accomplishes all those things, Addendum II might, just barely, have a 50-50 chance of reducing fishing mortality to the target level and rebuilding the striped bass stock by 2029.

Unfortunately, Addendum II won’t necessarily require sacrifice from everyone.  Although commercial fishermen, and recreational fishermen who fish from their own boats or from shore, will be required to pitch in to aid the striper’s recovery, some of the options contained in the Draft Addendum would actually let one group—those fishing from for-hire vessels—to not only escape any sacrifice, but kill more striped bass than they did in 2022.

Among the five options proposed for the ocean recreational fishery, the two designated as Options C and E would expand the current 28- to 31-inch slot limit that applies to all ocean anglers to 28 to 33 inches—but only for those who fish from for-hire boats.

Supposedly, the owners and operators of for-hire vessels need such a slot to attract enough customers to keep their businesses alive.

I’ve written about the issue before.

I’ve argued that such special treatment discriminates not only against the great majority of anglers who, even though not guided by knowledgeable and experienced captains, will have to try to find a fish that fits within the narrower slot if they desire to take a bass home.  I’ve argued that such a “sector separation” provision also discriminates against businesses such as tackle shops, fuel docks, marinas, and such which, no less than the for-hires, are at risk of losing business if anglers find it too hard to take a bass home.  And I have argued that it is just bad public policy to prop up any business that refuses to modify its operations to adapt to changing times.

But there is another, and perhaps a far better, reason to reject sector separation:  Any effort to maintain higher for-hire landings is doomed to fail, because given the poor recruitment over the past five years, recruitment that may or may not improve in the near future, by 2026 or 2027, there will be few slot-size bass left to catch, even if the Management Board decides to adopt a 28- to 33-inch slot for the for-hire fleet.

Right now, the catch-and-keep fishery in the ocean is being driven by the 2015 year class, even though such fish currently average about 31 ½ inches in length, and so will soon grow out of even the proposed 28- to 33-inch slot.

The 2017 and 2018 year classes, although only half the size of the 2015 (and the 2017s didn’t show strong recruitment at Age 1), will provide some half-decent fishing for a couple of years.  The first 2017s will have crossed the 28-inch mark this season; in 2024, most will fit within the slot, whether that slot is 28 to 31 inches or 28 to 33, so anglers, including those on the for-hire boats, will still be able to take some fish home, even though the 2015s will have largely grown too large.  But, assuming that the bass of the 2017 and 2018 year classes grow at the same rate as the 2015s, the majority of the 2018s will be over 33 inches long, and so out of even the proposed 28- to 33-inch for-hire slot, by 2027.

Beginning in 2027, and continuing through at least 2031—and perhaps much longer, depending on when, and if, another strong year class emerges—the supply of slot-sized fish will dry up, and landings, including for-hire landings, will crash.

The crash is inevitable, because we know that striped bass recruitment for the years 2019 through 2023 was dismal, and it’s impossible to land bass that have never been spawned.

Many anglers probably don’t understand just how bad recent recruitment has been.

Somewhere between 70% and 90% of all of the migratory striped bass population on the Atlantic coast is spawned in the Chesapeake Bay, and about two-thirds of the Chesapeake production comes from the Maryland portion of the Bay.  The Maryland juvenile abundance index is considered the best single indicator of future striped bass abundance.

The long-term average of the Maryland juvenile abundance index is 11.1.  Even during the depths of the stock collapse in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the lowest five-year average of the Maryland JAI was 3.45.

The average for the five years between 2019 and 2023 was 2.74, more than 20% worse than any five-year average ever recorded.  So in a few years, we’re going to see a very real shortage of striped bass that fit into the slot, and there is absolutely nothing that the Management Board can do about it, for that die has already been cast.

Which brings us back to sector separation.

The Management Board could adopt sector separation when it finalizes Addendum II, and if it does, it will buy a few of years of higher landings for the for-hire fleet.  But if they do so, they are only delaying the inevitable, because in just a few years, there will be very few bass available that fall into even the proposed 28- to 33-inch for-hire slot limit.

In fact, there will be fewer bass of that size available than there were in 1980, or ’81, or ’84, and if you were living and fishing for striped bass back then, you already know just how bad things were in those years. 

If you’re a little younger, and didn’t experience the collapse, trust me when I say that it’s the sort of experience that you should do your best to avoid.

Which means that managers are going to have to make a hard choice to do one of two things.

If they’re set and determined to keep for-hire landings high, they can create a special, moving for-hire slot that tracks the growth of the last healthy year classes of bass, allowing the for-hire anglers to keep chipping away at the remains of the spawning stock while the great majority of recreational fishermen languish in a striped bass desert defined by some smaller slot.

Or, they can finally admit that there are limits to their ability to prop up an industry determined to remain dependent upon killing fish, let for-hire landings fall to wherever the absence of suitably-sized bass might take them, and leave the industry to try to figure out how to survive.

If they take the former course, they might make the for-hire fleet, and for-hire anglers, fairly happy, but they will certainly alienate the shore and private boat anglers who, in 2022, accounted for more than 98% of all striped bass trips.  That would seem like a politically difficult thing to do.

But if they take the latter course, and ultimately leave the for-hire fleet to figure out how to run a business that doesn’t depend upon bringing home limits of dead fish, there is no reason why they would need to adopt sector separation at all, and by doing so, hold out the false hope that current landings levels might be sustained, when they know that recent poor recruitment will eventually make that impossible.

For in the end, reality will prevail, and the reality is that there is no way to both protect the remaining large year classes of striped bass while also maintaining current landings levels, whether for the for-hires or for everyone else. 

The bass drought is coming.  It is going to last for at least five years.  It is inevitable.

Sector separation won’t save the for-hires from its effects.

That being the case, the Management Board would be well advised to admit the truth now, and reject sector separation when the finalize Addendum II.

The alternative is to provide false hope, that will only lead to greater disappointment, and greater disillusionment for those affected, when reality finally sets in.