STRIPED BASS MANAGEMENT BOARD TO FOCUS ON RELEASE MORTALITY

 

At last January’s meeting of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, striped bass anglers naturally focused on the actions of the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, which finalized Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery ManagementPlan for Atlantic Striped Bass, and set the compliance requirements that states must meet for the 2024 fishing season.

The Management Board meeting ran far over its scheduled time, as such meetings are wont to do.  As a result, an important matter that normally would have been addressed at that meeting wasn’t aired until the next day, when David Borden, the Governor’s Appointee from Rhode Island, raised it at the meeting of the Interstate Fishery Management Plan Policy Board.  Mr. Borden said,

“At the last Board meeting I raised the subject of catch and release mortality on striped bass.  It’s well reflected in the minutes the concerns [sic].  But to summarize the concern is, we don’t currently have a process to examine that issue.  I’m getting increasingly concerned about the lack of that effort on that particular issue, because 40 percent of the mortality on striped bass relates to catch and release.  When you combine that with the news that we seem to get at every single meeting about poor year classes here, poor year classes there, invasive species feeding on striped bass in the estuaries and so forth.  I think we’re getting into a really dangerous place, where we have very limited management measures to address some of those types of concerns…”

The upshot was the Megan Ware, the Maine fishery manager who chairs the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, said that she and Emile Franke, the Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, would

“compile some of the documentation we’ve had, in terms of discussions on discard mortality, what the challenges are…some of the thoughts from the Law Enforcement Committee, the Technical Committee, so that is all in one place.”

Ms. Ware also talked about pulling together a workgroup that could prepare the groundwork for a broad discussion of discard mortality, which might eventually lead to concrete management measures.

It appears that further discussions on striped bass release mortality will be held when the Management Board meets on May 1.  The agenda for thatmeeting reveals that Dr. Michael Armstrong of Massachusetts will make a presentation on the findings of an extensive release mortality study that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has been working on in recent years.  As the Division of Marine Fisheries explains on its website,

“Between 2020 and 2021, DMF biologists tagged 349 striped bass with accelerometer transmitters, caught with both live and dead bait using both circle and J-hooks.  These specialized tags sense ‘tail beats’ from the fish within an array of receivers, informing researchers whether the fish dies or not.  Preliminary analyses suggest that survival is related to hook location, water temperature, and handling time.

“As a follow-up, we will be expanding our investigation of release mortality to include striped bass caught via artificial lures and flies.  During the summers of 2023 and 2024, we will be seeking volunteer anglers to collect information when they go striped bass fishing…

“The ultimate goals of this project are to evaluate the conservation benefit of using circle hooks, identify the causes of release mortality, and to provide an updated estimate of release mortality that is representative of the entire recreational fishery.”

The study, when finally completed, peer-reviewed, and published, is likely to provide very meaningful guidance on how fishery managers might reduce striped bass release mortality.  Some of the information already developed, which is probably what Dr. Armstrong will present at the May meeting, will cast new light on why some released striped bass fail to survive.

In addition to Dr. Armstrong’s presentation, Ms. Ware and Ms. Franke will lead a Board conversation on information gleaned from past discussions on release mortality, and ask the Board whether it believes that a work group investigating the issue should be established.  To that end, Ms. Ware and Ms. Franke prepared a memorandum addressed to the Management Board, which set out some basic parameters defining such work group, and summarized the release mortality discussions to date.

It’s hard to believe that the Management Board won’t create a release mortality work group, given that release mortality is the only source of striped bass fishing mortality that is not meaningfully constrained by existing management measures.  In the recreational striped bass fishery, anglers are already constrained by a 1-fish daily bag limit, as well as a 28- to 31-inch slot size in the ocean and a 19- to 24-inch slot size in the Chesapeake Bay (along with different but similarly constraining slots in the Hudson and Delaware rivers); it’s impossible to reduce the bag limit below a single fish, and impractical to narrow the ocean slot size limit, and still maintain a viable recreational harvest, so addressing release mortality is the only unused tool left to fisheries managers.

And they’ll probably have to figure out the right way to use such tool very soon.

A new stock assessment update will be released prior to the ASMFC’s October meeting, and if that update indicates that the spawning stock biomass has less than a 50% chance of being rebuilt to its target level by 2029, the Management Board is going to have to take some sort of action to make it more likely that timely rebuilding will, in fact, occur.

Striped bass rebuilding was on track after the 2021 season, which saw slightly under 1,850,000 fish harvested and slightly under 28,700,000 fish released.  However, the recovery was thrown completely off track a year later, when harvest spiked to about 3,450,000 striped bass and releases inched upward to approximately 29,600,000.  Emergency management measures adopted in May 2023 were only partially successful in returning striped bass fishing mortality to sustainable levels and and upping the chances for a timely recovery, lowering harvest to around 2,550,000 fish while releases fell more sharply, to about 25,550,000.

Such figures suggest that additional management measures might be needed to rebuild the stock by 2029.  Addendum II empowers the Management Board to take any needed management actions without going through the formal Addendum process, and managing release mortality will almost certainly be part of any actions taken.  Probably for those reasons, Ms. Ware and Ms. Franke have suggested that any work group assembled report back to the Management Board by the Board’s October meeting, so that the Board might have such report on hand when it receives the results of the assessment update.

While we can’t know for certain what the report might say, we can probably assume that it will recommend some sort of closed season.  The big question is whether such season would only prohibit harvest, and allow a catch-and-release fishery to continue, or whether it would completely prohibit anglers from targeting striped bass.  With respect to that question, the Ware-Franke memorandum notes that

“…While there are noted concerns about the unenforceability of no-targeting closures (including concerns expressed by the Law Enforcement Committee), it is assumed that the maximum reduction in effort, and thus maximum reduction in number of releases, would be achieved with no-targeting closures.  No-targeting closures would address recreational releases from both harvest trips and catch-and-release fishing trips.  While no-harvest closures would reduce the number of fish harvested, angler behavior may shift to catch-and-release fishing, thereby increasing the number of recreational releases which is counter to the objective of reducing release mortality.

“…Fishing trips targeting other species that incidentally catch and release striped bass would still occur regardless of closure type.  Additionally, seasonal closures for striped bass may shift effort to targeting other species, or shift effort to other times of year when the striped bass fishery is open.  Regarding no-targeting closures, there is concern about the lack of standardized method to estimate the number of removals.  Estimating the reduction of removals from a no-targeting closure depends on assumptions about changes in angler behavior, which is highly uncertain…”

Such discussion sets out the issues that must be considered when deciding upon a no-harvest versus a no-target closure, but it also unintentionally illustrates the folly of trying to treat release mortality as an isolated issue, instead of integrating it into a suite of management measures that, when taken as a whole, reduces fishing mortality by the necessary amount.

That is largely captured in the sentence, “While no-harvest closures would reduce the number of fish harvested, angler behavior may shift to catch-and-release fishing, thereby increasing the number of recreational releases which is counter to the objective of reducing release mortality.”

Quite bluntly, merely “reducing release mortality” should never be a stand-alone objective.  The proper objective for striped bass managers is to “reduce fishing mortality by making appropriate reductions in the level of harvest and release mortality.”  Taking that approach would make things much easier for fishery managers, and would likely to lead to a more successful result.

Such success would be achieved by beginning with a no-harvest closure, and making two basic assumptions:  that anglers who previously harvested fish will shift to catch-and-release fishing, and that the fishing mortality from such shift to catch-and-release fishing will not materially exceed 9% of the mortality from harvest during the period that will henceforth be closed. 

Both assumptions are logical.  The Ware-Franke memorandum notes that

“Since 1990, roughly 90% of all striped bass caught recreationally were released alive either due to angler preferences (i.e., fishing with intent to release striped bass) or regulation (e.g., the fish is not of legal size, was caught out of season, or the angler already caught the bag limit).”

Given such a propensity for catch-and-release fishing, with even harvest-oriented anglers fishing and releasing bass caught out of season or in excess of the bag limit, it is not unreasonable to believe that most fishermen will continue to catch and release bass even if a no-harvest closure is imposed.  While there will be some recreational fishermen who will abstain from striped bass angling if they aren’t allowed to retain a fish, such fishermen will probably prove to be few in number; their temporary exit from the fishery will merely provide a buffer against any underestimate of release mortality.

Given that likelihood, any no-harvest closed season should be long enough to not only reduce fishing mortality attributable to harvest by the needed amount, but also to account for the assumed increased release mortality attributable to formerly harvest-oriented anglers switching over to catch-and-release for the duration of the closure.  

To avoid being caught in a sort of Xeno’s Paradox, in which managers lengthen the season to account for the additional release mortality caused by the original harvest closure, only to cause additional release mortality requiring a longer closure, ad infinitum, it would be necessary to add a few extra days to whatever season the calculations call for, to ensure that fishing mortality is adequately constrained.

In that manner, a no-harvest closure, which still allows some social and economic benefits to be generated by the fishery, could be fruitfully put in place.

Of course, there will be voices among the for-hire fleet, committed to maintaining a harvest fishery, who would condemn such an approach and argue that only a no-target closure would “fairly” address the release mortality problem.  In their minds, restrictions on harvest, but not on targeting, unfairly benefit the light-tackle fleet, which generally engages in catch-and-release, while placing the conservation onus on the traditionally harvest-oriented “six-pack” charters and party boats.

But the truth is that any vessel operator who took such position would be shooting themselves in the foot, for while a no-harvest closure would probably disadvantage the traditional boats more than it would the light-tackle fleet, such closure would still allow everyone to take people fishing and make some income, even if that income might be a little lower than it would have been if harvest was allowed.  Some boats might have to change their approach a little bit, and replace their usual broomstick-like trolling rods, wire line and umbrella rigs with spinning outfits and diamond jigs or other castable lures, but at least they could take out fares and show them a good time. 

While there are undoubtedly some customers who won’t charter a boat if they can’t kill a fish, there is also a real question as to how important harvest is to many charter boat clients, particularly in resort areas.  I well remember the former president of the Montauk Boatmens and Captains Association coming before NewYork’s Marine Resources Advisory Council some years ago and arguing that charter boats should be allowed to sell the striped bass caught by their customers, because many of those customers are tourists and have nowhere to keep or cook their fish once they return to the dock.

But while we can question the importance of harvest, one thing is certain:  Keeping a boat tied up at the dock during a no-targeting closure, instead of taking at least some customers out on catch-and-release trips, isn’t the best answer for anyone.

No-targeting closures would also cause real economic harm to tackle shops, gas docks and similar businesses, particularly in these days of often-scarce bluefish, three-fish bag limits for sea bass and more restrictive fluke regulations, when not fishing for striped bass could often mean not going fishing at all.

So as the Management Board begins to focus on release mortality, which they will probably be forced to do, anglers need to do all they can to ensure that managers don’t forget that release mortality, in and of itself, is not a problem.  A fish that dies after release is no more dead, and no more of a loss to the spawning stock than a bass that expires on ice in someone’s cooler. 

What matters is reducing overall fishing mortality.  Reducing release mortality, just like reducing harvest, is nothing more than one step toward achieving that goal.