Thursday, February 1, 2024

FISHERIES MANAGEMENT: GENERATIONS

 

It struck me as I was reading an article in nola.com, a website dedicated to news from the New Orleans region.  The article discussed proposed changes in Louisiana’s recreational fishing regulations for red drum, and included the following passage:

“While the overall tone was civil, arguments broke out between charter captains who pursue redfish in very different ways.  That often meant fly-fishing guides, who in many cases catch redfish and then release them, were urging stricter regulations, while other charter boat captains who aim to send their clients home with supper pleaded for a slower approach.

“The two groups even tended to sit on opposite sides of the room, as if members of a different tribe.

“’We’re on the water every day.  We can tell you what’s going on,’ said Venice charter captain Ron Price, 54 and a guide since 1996.”

“He argued that the proposal was too drastic, using a couple of expletives to help punctuate his point.

“’I don’t need some college kid with a seine net, throwing it in the wrong spot, to tell me we’re in dire straits,’ he said of the research.

“Ty Hibbs, 29 and a fishing guide for about a dozen years, called it a ‘decision for the future,’ as he spoke in favor of the proposal.

“’Why should my generation or the generations that follow me have to deal with a subpar fishery in Louisiana just because there’s people who don’t care about the future?’ he said.”

Change the names, and a few of the details, and the description of that Louisiana hearing could have applied described a striped bass hearing here in New York or maybe New Jersey, a weakfish hearing on the mid-Atlantic coast, a bluefish hearing in southern New England.

Because in so many of those cases, as in Louisiana, the core conflict isn’t between two different opinions about whether a specific set of regulations ought to be adopted to manage a particular species, but between two outlooks of how—and why and even whether—fish stocks ought to be managed, and whether the benefits of current exploitation outweigh the long-term benefits of a healthy and sustainable stock.

Most often, the people on each side of such debates are very different, which those pushing for larger harvests in the short term generally older folks who began to fish decades ago, when many species of fish were far more abundant, and anglers far less abundant, than is the case today.  They came to the sport when size and bag limits were liberal, if they existed at all, and seasons commonly ran from New Year’s Day to the very last day of December.  A few younger anglers, conditioned by their elders’ sensibilities, also maintain a short-term outlook, but their numbers are relatively low.

Those urging caution are usually young, who grew up in an age when size limits, bag limits, and seasons were always a part of the scene, when some fish, at least, could be hard to come by.  They may have grown up with their elders’ stories about catching fish that now, hardly anyone catches at all.  But if you look closely, you’ll not a few greybeards scattered around the younger anglers’ ranks, folks who remember the fisheries that we once had, and grieve, decades later, for what we have lost.

But the debate typically breaks down along generational lines, not only among anglers but, as in Louisiana, also among the for-hire fleet.  The old captains still focus on killing fish; full coolers are used as the gauge of a good day.  While they might not quite see themselves as selling fish to their clients, they certainly see customers’ opportunity to catch and keep fish as their business’ primary appeal; piling dead fish on the dock is nearly as important to them as it is to the captain of a longliner or trawler.  And like such commercial captains, they see themselves as part of the fishing industry.

Many young captains see things differently.  They often run smaller boats—perhaps out of preference, or perhaps out of financial necessity—and carry fewer passengers on each trip.  Their focus is less on dead fish, and more on recreation.  While catching fish still matters, they sell the overall recreational experience, often fishing with lighter tackle that emphasizes the challenge of the hookup and fight.  While that often means that their clients take fewer fish home, it also allows them to actively target fish such as false albacore that are fun to catch but aren’t valued as food, providing angling opportunities that are closed to the harvest-oriented boats.  They understand that they are mostly selling entertainment, rather than food.

And because they’re young, they also understand that if they plan to stay in the business for all of their lives, they need healthy fish stocks not only today, but for another thirty, forty, or even fifty years.

The two outlooks aren’t easy to reconcile.  That came through loud and clear in the recent debate over the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which saw the latter group of for-hires submit comments similar to those provided by Maryland’s Capt. Greg Shute, who noted,

“I also recommend that whatever action the board chooses in ensuring abundance that they accept dead discards while reducing harvest as a means of lowering overall mortality.  The slot options presented [for the Chesapeake Bay recreational fishery] reduce harvest significantly and only increase release mortality minimally while allowing participation.  Participation is what drives the socio-economic benefit to sport fishing.  [emphasis added]” 

On the other hand, the older, more traditional for-hires echoed the sentiments expressed in a form letter used by a group of charter boat captains, which argued that customers on for-hire boats should be governed by a wider slot size limit than that imposed on all other anglers, because

“This option is beneficial to charter boats who may be struggling to find striped bass within the small 3” slot window for their clients to bring home fish for food.  Fish for food is a very important aspect of the striped bass fishery.  [emphasis added]”

The two views seem irreconcilable, and it might seem impossible for both to be true at the same time.  Yet, I can easily argue that both positions are equally valid, as they reflect the views not only of different factions within the for-hire fleet, but also different factions within the larger angling community.

And I’ve lived long enough to understand why.

When I first started to fish in the late 1950s and early 1960s, fish of all kinds were very abundant and regulations were very few.  There was only a 16-inch (fork length) size limit for striped bass, and nothing else that a Connecticut angler need worry about.  Most adult anglers had lived through the Great Depression and many were World War II vets who approached fishing in a no-nonsense way, enjoying what they did while very much fishing for food.  Even though the economy was booming in the post-war years and employment was high, a “keeper” fish was meant to be kept, and few recreational fishermen ventured out intending to return “free” protein to the sea.

In the northeast and mid-Atlantic, things really didn’t change much until the late 1970s, when the striped bass stock collapsed, shattering many fishermen’s belief that the ocean was a limitless resource (except for “Russian” trawlers, of course, and our own commercial fishermen who they viewed as threats to the resource, a view that they never thought to extend to anglers like themselves).

Then, beginning with striped bass, the 1980s began to usher in the modern era of regulation.

Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass successfully rebuilt the striped bass stock by severely restricting landings, imposing a 1-fish bag limit and an ever-increasing size limit, intended to protect the relatively healthy 1982 year class, which eventually topped out at 36 inches. 

Later in the decade, states began to require anglers who sold all or part of their catch—back then, a not-uncommon practice among more experienced and successful “recreational” fishermen—to buy licenses, something that was never required before.  And by 1988 or so, a decline in the numbers of winter flounder, once one of the most common fish in the estuaries and bays, led to the first size and bag limits for a species that was very much taken for granted.

Throughout the 1990s, and particularly after the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act became law in 1993, regulations began constraining the landings of most other recreationally-important fish such as bluefish, summer flounder, scup, weakfish, and tautog (apologies for limiting the listing to New England/mid-Atlantic species, but that’s just the timeline that I know; other species, in other regions, were also seeing their landings limited during this period).

By the time the 21st century dawned, a few things were true:  Many fish stocks had declined to levels that anglers fishing in the 1970s would not have believed.  The saltwater recreational fishery was regulated to an extent that such anglers could not have imagined.  And because of such regulations, some important recreational species, such as striped bass and summer flounder, were recovering—or, in the case of bass, had recovered—from being very badly overfished.

That pattern has continued to the present day.

As a result, we see different generations responding very differently to fisheries management and fisheries regulations.

A large percentage of older anglers still pine for the Wild West days of the ‘70s.  Remembering how they once brought home bushels of winter flounder, burlap bags filled with tautog or cod, and garbage cans (the old-time predecessor to today’s Yeti coolers) stuffed solid with bluefish, they rail against restrictions on landings and, contrary to common sense, try to force time to run backwards to an era when unregulated recreational fishermen could take what they wanted, any time that they wanted, without any limits or laws.

For many, the striped bass’ collapse was a watershed that forced them to confront their own attitudes toward fisheries regulation.  Some became conservation advocates, many became more mindful of how their actions impacted the bass fishery, if not necessarily other species.  Some quickly forgot the collapse and returned to their own way of thinking as soon as the bass stock began to rebuild, and retain their ‘70s mindset unto today.

On the other hand, anglers who just started saltwater fishing in the last 20 years have never experienced an unregulated fishery, nor have they ever experienced the diverse and abundant fish stocks of the 1960s and ‘70s.  They have seen the striped bass decline, and have also seen the bluefish, summer flounder, and weakfish stocks wane.  Many have never caught, or even seen, a winter flounder. 

Abundance for them is defined by scup and black sea bass, the only two species that, for the moment, still thrive.  Regulation is a normal part of the angling scene.

And thus we have generational conflict, as older anglers remember what was, and try to recreate the past, while their younger counterparts, born into a more limited fishery, think of what may yet be, and look to the future.

One cannot reverse the flow of time.

 

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