STRIPED BASS: LOOKING TOWARD DECEMBER 16

 

On December 16, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board will meet to discuss, and hopefully adopt, management measures for the 2025 season, which should make it more likely that the spawning stock biomass will be completely rebuilt by 2029.

But before the Management Board gets to that point, there are a lot of things that need to happen.  And along the way, there will undoubtedly be people who will be doing their best to see that the adoption or new, more restrictive management measures is one thing that doesn’t happen at all.

Thus, this is a good time to begin thinking about the state of the striped bass stock, what might be done to rebuild it, and some of the arguments people might use in their efforts to convince the Management Board to maintain the status quo.

Regarding the state of the stock itself, there should be little doubt that it remains overfished, and that spawning stock biomass must increase by more than 25 percent over the next five years for it to reach its target level by the 2029 deadline.  That might not be too hard to accomplish if striped bass fishing mortality remains as low as it was during the first eight months of this year.   However, continued low fishing mortality is not guaranteed.

While recreational striped bass landings in 2024 have lagged landings in both 2022 and 2023 by a substantial amount—52 percent and 25 percent, respectively—landings in November and December of those years were, by far, higher than in any previous two-month period.  If 2024 repeats that pattern, which is possible given the large numbers of striped bass caught off New York and New Jersey during November, rebuilding may not be quite as easy as data from earlier in the year suggests.

At the same time, the good late-season fishing will undoubtedly lead some members of the fishing community, most particularly those engaged in the for-hire fishery and perhaps some members of the retail tackle business, to argue that the striped bass stock is healthier than the most recent stock assessment update suggests, and that no additional restrictions should be imposed on the fishery.

A variation of that argument, which we heard during the debate leading up to the Management Board’s adoption of Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, is that recent poor recruitment in the Chesapeake Bay does not signal a potential crisis for the striped bass stock, because a warming climate is shifting recruitment toward more northern rivers, including rivers in Connecticut and perhaps elsewhere in New England that are not currently considered striped bass spawning grounds.

But as I noted almost a year ago, there is no evidence to support such assertions.  Although striped bass recruitment in the Hudson River can swing wildly from year to year, recent spawns have averaged out to something close to historical levels, and the 2023 spawn was the least successful since 1985.  As far as the New England rivers go, some might produce a few bass each year, but their overall contribution to the spawning stock biomass is minimal, and whatever contribution they do make would be detected in the various state surveys once the bass grew old enough to begin migrating along the coast.

In addition, new research reported a few months ago confirmed the importance of the Chesapeake Bay to the health of the coastal striped bass stock.  Using fin clips to sample the DNA of more than 5,400 striped bass caught at various locations between New York Harbor and Portland, Maine, New Hampshire researchers found that, depending on the year, the Chesapeake Bay produces between 80 and 88 percent of all the striped bass migrating along the coast.

Thus, despite some of the claims being made, recruitment in the Chesapeake Bay does and will continue to have a very big impact on the number of fish that will be present along the coast.

We need to keep that in mind when we think about December 16 and 2025 management measures, because rebuilding the stock, while important in its own right, is only one step on the road to a healthy striped bass population. 

And rebuilding is not guaranteed.

I know that at least one representative of the fishing tackle industry, Michael Waine, an employee of the American Sportfishing Association, has already suggested not fully rebuilding the stock, saying

“the question becomes like how far are we willing to go from a management and policy side to meet these very ambitious conservation goals, and you can see the byproduct of that, we have a very narrow slot limit.  And so where we, where we’re currently located is where do we go from here?  We want to avoid like the scenario like southern flounder and a scenario like red snapper [where recreational landings are sharply curtailed].  We want to make sure that management…is aware of the headwinds but also allows for access for anglers to go out and catch a fish, and so how do we balance these values?  How do we balance building back a population to a conservation level that we can all agree on, which we never likely will, with fishing access, with the ability to actually go out and catch these fish, and what worries me, worries on this specifically is like we’ll go too far, meaning we’ll actually tell people to stop fishing for striped bass, which is where I think everyone loses…”

And at the November meeting of New York’s Marine Resources Advisory Council, one representative of our local fishing tackle industry asked whether there was any chance that the 2029 rebuilding deadline, which was established by the very clear language of Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, language that was perpetuated when the ASMFC adopted Amendment 7 to the management plan in 2022, might not be a firm deadline, but instead could be extended out by some unspecified number of years.

I have been involved with fishery management issues for close to half a century now, and if I have learned anything over those years, its that when an industry spokesman starts to talk about “balancing” conservation and business concerns, his goal is to shape an outcome that is all about business, and not about balance at all, and that when industry folks talk about “extending” a rebuilding deadline, one might think that the choice is, perhaps, between extending the deadline from one year to the next or maybe the year after that, when the real choice often turns out to be between the designated rebuilding deadline and never.

When discussions over 2025 management measures begin, we ought to keep those things in mind.

We also ought to remember that the discussion is going to be about more than just timely rebuilding.  Given that the 2018 year class is going to be the last even somewhat strong year class to enter the spawning stock for some time, and that the Maryland juvenile abundance index for the years 2019-2024 represents the lowest six-year average index in the 60-plus year history of the Maryland juvenile abundance survey—lower even than during any 6-year period when the striped bass stock collapsed in the late 1970s and early 1980s—what we’re really talking about is the health and sustainability of the striped bass stock in the foreseeable future.

There is no room for mistakes, compromise, or overconfidence.

While we all hope that recruitment in the Chesapeake Bay will soon improve, and that a large year class of bass will be produced very soon—maybe even in 2025—there’s no guarantee that will happen.  It is very, very possible that the spawning stock biomass that we have in 2029 will be the largest we will see for many years, and that Chesapeake Bay will not produce another big year class until another decade or more has passed.  If that happens, the bass that we have in 2029 may, for all practical purposes, be the only bass that we have for a very long time, and it would be wise to make them last.

Although it’s still far too soon to utter the words “impending stock collapse,” as the spawning stock biomass is still nearly four times as large  as it was in the early 1980s, we cannot be certain that a stock collapse doesn’t loom in the bass’ not-too-distant future.  While striped bass management is far better than it was 45 years ago, with far more protections in place, striped bass are also a much bigger component of the recreational landings today than they were then, as traditionally targeted species such as winter flounder, cod, and even mako sharks are no longer available to anglers, and other species, including bluefish, weakfish, and summer flounder are far less abundant today than they were in 1980.

It is entirely possible that the benefits of the improved management system that bass enjoy today could be more than offset by the greater recreational fishing pressure that they’re facing.

Should the worst-case scenario occur, and the striped bass stock collapses once again, then the females that compose the spawning stock in 2029 may be just about the only females that we will have to depend on to rebuild the stock once spawning conditions are again favorable enough to produce a strong year class.  It is thus only prudent to maximize the size of the spawning stock biomass while fish remain available, and so hopefully preserve some older, larger females that will be able to jump start a recovery when the opportunity finally arises.

We will probably get our first look at the ASMFC’s proposed 2025 management measures on Tuesday.  On Thursday, the Management Board will hold a webinar that will provide stakeholders an opportunity to ask questions, but not provide opinions, on such proposals, while all public comment on 2025 management measures must be provided to the ASMFC, in written form, by December 10.

The ASMFC has issued a press release, which all stakeholders should read, that provides more detail on both the webinar and the comment period.

Maybe conditions will improve, and we’ll see a good spawn in the Chesapeake this year.

But maybe they won’t, and maybe the December 16 meeting will represent managers’ last best chance to put rebuilding, and the future of the striped bass stock, back on track.

It’s important that everyone who is concerned for the striped bass’ future make one more big push, and comment in support of the efforts of the Technical Committee, ASMFC staff, and those Management Board members who are doing their best to get it right.

Time is running short.