IS IT TIME TO CONSIDER RECREATIONAL STRIPED BASS TAGS?

 

NOTE:  The inspiration for today's essay comes from a veteran fisheries biologist, with whom I correspond from time to time.  He recently raised the idea, and the more that I thought about it, the more sense that it seemed to make.  Yet, while the original idea wasn’t mine, please understand that a number of the ideas presented below are products of my own speculation, and shouldn’t be blamed on anyone else.

Anyone who has listened to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board debate the possible parameters of the proposed Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fisheries Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, or who may have sat in on recent meetings of the Plan Development Team charged with preparing the first draft of such Addendum, has probably come to recognize the limits of traditional recreational management tools—size limits, bag limits, and seasons—when it comes to addressing the current state of the striped bass stock.

The recreational bag limit in every state and in every bay and sound has already been reduced to just one fish; it is impossible to go any lower.  And it’s very difficult to accomplish further meaningful reductions, at least in the coastal, or what managers deem the “ocean,” fishery with any imaginable size limit.  Recent Plan Development Team meetings have revealed that the 36-inch minimum size, often suggested by anglers who lived through the last stock collapse and successful rebuilding, would actually increase striped bass removals by 10% in 2026.  It would take a 40-inch minimum size to achieve a 5% reduction, and the only thing that would reduce coastal recreational removals by 7%--which is what managers believe would be needed to achieve a 60% probability that the stock will be rebuilt by 2029, as the management plan requires—is a 37- to 40-inch slot, something that no one seems too ready to implement.

That leaves only seasons to get the work done, and while there are combinations of seasonal closures that would reduce recreational removals by 7% or more, no one is particularly in love with any of them.  Any closure would have a bigger impact on a short-season state like Maine than it would in New Jersey, where bass are, to at least some extent, available for 10 months of the year.  Closed seasons—particularly those that would prohibit anglers from even targeting striped bass in a catch-and-release fishery—could be reasonably set to achieve the needed reductions in the northeast and upper Mid-Atlantic without too much disruption, but in the lower Mid-Atlantic, the ocean fishery is so small that even closing it for an entire two-month “wave” wouldn’t reduce removals by 7%.

And, of course, not everyone supports “no-target” reductions.  Most anglers and for-hires specializing in light-tackle fishing don’t like them, because they won’t allow any bass fishing at all, while law enforcement discourages no-target closures because they’re just about impossible to effectively enforce.  On the other hand, traditional “six-pack” for hires, which generally engage in a catch-and-keep fishery, support the idea, because any no-target closures would be shorter than those merely outlawing harvest, and would allow the six-packs to return to their business of killing striped bass in the shortest possible time.

To date, the difficulty of devising “fair” seasons that treat all states and all stakeholders in a reasonably equitable manner has caused striped bass conservation efforts to stall.

Striped bass tags, which all anglers would be required to affix to any bass that they retained, immediately upon capture, could break the current stalemate and jumpstart conservation efforts.

The tag concept certainly isn’t new.  Currently, all commercially-caught striped bass must be tagged, usually upon capture, although Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and North Carolina permit tagging at the point of first sale.  New Jersey, which has outlawed commercial striped bass fishing and uses its commercial quota to provide “bonus” bass for recreational fishermen, has issued “bonus tags” to its anglers for many years.

Other states have used tags to control landings of other species for many years.  In Texas, recreational red drum are subject to a slot size limit of 20 to 28 inches.  However, anglers receive a Red Drum Bonus Tag that allows them to retain one “bull” drum, a fish  more than 28 inches long, when they purchase their fishing license, and may purchase a second such tag each year if they choose to do so.  Not everyone does.

While there are certainly some details that would require real thought before they were worked out, the basic parameters of a tag-based recreational striped bass management program would fairly easy to set. 

The current 1-fish bag limit and current slot sizes for the coast and the Chesapeake Bay, as well as for the specially-regulated fisheries in the Hudson River and in portions of the Delaware River and Delaware Bay, would remain in place.  Any further reductions in recreational fishing mortality would be achieved by limiting the number of striped bass tags issued in each state.

The ASMFC’s Striped Bass Technical Committee would begin the process by estimating the number of slot-sized striped bass that could be caught and still constrain fishing mortality to or below the fishing mortality target (with release mortality and commercial quota also a part of that calculation).  With that estimate in hand, managers would determine how many striped bass tags could be issued to anglers in order to approach, but not exceed, the fishing mortality target.

The initial estimates of how many tags to issue would be a little rough, as managers recognize that not every tag will be filled.  To account for unfilled tags, states would issue more tags than the number of bass to be removed, just as is done with commercial tags today.  In the beginning, managers would have to be conservative with the number of tags issued, to avoid overages.  But after the system was in place for a few years, they would gain some idea of how many unused tags would likely be left at the end of the year, and could fine-tune the number authorized.

States could then be given an initial allocation of tags, based on the proportion of bass landed in their state in recent years compared to the number landed coastwide.  Allocations could also consider the coastal and Chesapeake Bay fisheries separately, with the number of tags available in each fishery tailored to size/year class abundance.  For example, given the six consecutive years of poor spawns in the Chesapeake Bay, if a recreational tag program was already in place, the Technical Committee might advise, if it saw fit, that Chesapeake jurisdictions issue fewer tags for Bay anglers than would otherwise be the case, to help assure that a larger percentage of the smaller year classes might eventually enter the spawning stock.

With the allocations set, anglers would then be able to purchase their striped bass tags.  Every East Coast state already has some sort of saltwater licensing system for its anglers (although, in New York and New Jersey, it’s called a “registration” and costs the angler nothing).  Thus, anglers who wanted striped bass tags could merely order, and pay for, such tags at the same time that they obtained their license.  The cost of the tags would be set by each state, as it deemed appropriate, and could be set high enough to fully fund the costs of the tag program.  Such an approach that would seem very familiar to many East Coast sportsmen who also hunt, and already follow a similar procedure to purchase tags to harvest big game and turkeys.

Of course, unlike big game, where harvest is often limited to one animal per year, anglers would probably be able to obtain more than one striped bass tag, to allow them to retain multiple fish each season.  To accommodate anglers who wish to keep more than one bass each year, while best assuring that every angler who wants to purchase a tag can get at least one, states would probably have to restrict the initial purchase a limited number of tags, and then allow anglers to purchase additional tags after they had reported their landings from the initial purchase to state managers.

And yes, the mandatory reporting of all striped bass caught would provide each state’s fisheries managers with a better idea of when and where fish were being caught in their waters than does the current Marine Recreational Information Program, which can only survey a limited number of anglers and isn’t intended to provide detailed catch information.

It seems like a simple, effective approach to striped bass management that would function well in a perfect world but, unfortunately, this world is far from perfect.  If a tag-based system was proposed, problems would inevitably arise.  Perhaps foremost among them would be how to address fish caught by anglers fishing from for-hire vessels.

In many—I’m guessing most—states along the striper coast, anglers fishing from party and charter boats don’t have to purchase individual fishing licenses; instead, a license purchased in the name of the for-hire vessel covers all of the boat’s customers.  Thus, striped bass tags would have to be purchased by the vessel, rather than by the anglers on board.

But there, too, the problem shouldn’t be insurmountable.

Just as states could receive an allocation of tags based on each state’s contribution to the overall catch, each state could create a pool of tags reserved for the for-hire fleet, based on that fleet’s landings when compared to overall state landings.  Then, because for-hire vessels are required to file daily vessel trip reports that provide a detailed accounting of a boat’s landings, it would be a simple thing to apportion out the for-hire tags based on each vessel’s share of the reported landings.  Should any vessel decide not to purchase tags that it was eligible to buy, such tags could be assigned to a general pool, that any for-hire boat might purchase once it had provided a full accounting of tags already used.

Such an approach would largely maintain the status quo between the for-hire fleet and private anglers, and between vessels within the for-hire fleet.  But it would also provide opportunities for experimentation with new ideas.

For a number of years, the for-hire fleet has been promoting the concept of sector separation.  That is, special rules for customers aboard their boats that would allow such customers to take more or smaller fish than allowed to the great majority of anglers, or fish when the season is closed to everyone else.  A striped bass tag might allow managers to experiment with such an approach, at least with respect to the bag limit.  

Managers could, for example, allow for-hire anglers a second bass, which would require the vessel they fished from to utilize a second tag for the same customer.  In such a situation, each for-hire operator would be able to make the simple business decision of restricting passengers to one fish per trip, so that the boat could carry passengers for a longer period of time, or allowing passengers to take a second fish and utilize a second tag, which might attract more anglers to that particular boat, but allow it to fish for a shorter period of time.

Whether the additional passengers attracted to the boat justified the shorter season is something that each vessel owner could independently decide.

The other big issue complicating tag use is compliance.  A tag system would only work if anglers affixed the tag when a bass is retained, and didn’t let fish remain untagged until a law enforcement officer appeared on the scene.  An angler engaged in the latter behavior could potentially take multiple bass over a span of days, even if only a single tag was purchased.

Poaching is already a significant problem in the recreational striped bass fishery, with far too many anglers willing to take undersized, oversized, over-limit, and out-of-season fish.  The question is whether the adoption of a paid-for tag would inspire some, or perhaps many, previously law-abiding anglers to begin disregarding the rules because they resent being assessed a charge to retain a bass.

My gut reaction is that, while most fishermen would obey the law, there would be a substantial minority who resented the fee-based tag, and would try to find ways to take extra fish for each tag purchased.  It’s funny how the same person who thinks nothing of paying $250,000 or, perhaps, quite a bit more for a boat, thousands of dollars on fuel, and run a four- or five-digit fuel bill each year will grow indignant at the idea of having to buy a $10 fishing license; having to pay for a striped bass tag would almost certainly strike such folks in the same way.

But that is an issue for the Management Board to debate, should they ever consider a recreational striped bass tag.  Over all, the issue seems to have merit.  In theory, at least, it would effectively constrain recreational fishing mortality without the need for controversial seasons.  An appropriate charge for each tag would make the program self-funding.  And the entire cost would be paid by people who want to catch and keep a striped bass, without burdening the rest of the angling community.

At this point, I’m not going to say that adopting bass tags is the right way to go.  There are issues that must be considered, and might ultimately militate against such approach.  But it is an approach that the Management Board should at least consider, and one that could provide relief from the current cycle of constantly more restrictive rules.

It is worthy of serious study.

MID-ATLANTIC COUNCIL AND ASMFC ADVANCE PLAN TO SPLIT RECREATIONAL FISHERY

 

On the afternoon of April 9, at a joint meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Interstate Fishery Management Policy Board, fisheries managers voted to move forward with an amendment to the management plans for bluefish, summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass which, if adopted, will grant special privileges to anglers fishing from for-hire vessels, in the form of higher bag limits, lower minimum sizes, and/or longer seasons, while relegating shore-based and private boat anglers to a sort of second-class status.

The effort was a long time in the making.  It arose out of the Mid-Atlantic Council’s “Recreational Reform Initiative,” a multi-year project that the Council describes as

“an effort of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (Commission) to improve management of the recreational fisheries for summer flounder, scup, black sea bass, and bluefish.

“The goals of the initiative are to (1) provide stability in the recreational bag, size, and season limits, (2) develop strategies to increase management flexibility, and (3) achieve accessibility aligned with availability/stock status for all four species.”

If you think that sounds a lot like the goals set out in the 2014 propaganda piece, "A Vision for Managing America's Saltwater Recreational Fisheries," put out by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, with the connivance and active encouragement and support of the recreational fishing and boatbuilding industries,  you’re on the right track.  Like the TRCP’s “Vision,” the Recreational Reform Initiative was an industry-supported effort to sidestep the clear legal requirements and strict scientific standards of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which was intended to allow anglers to kill more fish and, in doing so, generate more profits for the for-hire, boatbuilding, and fishing-tackle industries.

The American Sportfishing Association, the nation’s largest fishing tackle trade association and one of the prime movers behind the TRCP “Vision” document, has no qualms about touting its role in the Mid-Atlantic “reform” initiative, proudly stating that

“The initial focus of the recreational management reform initiative was a suite of harvest control rules (HCR) that incorporate more scientific variables when determining management changes for the recreational fishery than just a comparison between recreational harvest and the harvest limit…

“The American Sportfishing Industry (ASA) has worked for several years with coalition partners and the ASMFC and MAFMC to help advance the HCR approaches to final action and implementation.”

But now, the American Sportfishing Association might find that it shot itself in the foot, as both the Council and ASMFC work toward developing an amendment that will disfavor the shore-based and private boat anglers who, collectively, account for far more fishing trips, and purchase far more fishing equipment, than do those fishing from for-hire boats.

To put the issue in context, for the period 2021-24, shore-based and private boat anglers, fishing between Maine and Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, accounted for 93% of all recreational fishing trips primarily targeting black sea bass, nearly 98% of all directed recreational trips for scup and summer flounder, and more than 99% of all such trips primarily targeting bluefish, thus clearly generating the lion’s share of the social and economic benefits that accrue from such fisheries.  Yet, the Mid-Atlantic Council and the ASMFC seem determined to reduce such anglers’ share of the landings of all four species, so that the handful of anglers fishing from for-hire vessels can take more.

The Council advises that it

“and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (Commission) Policy Board are developing an amendment to consider modifications to the recreational management program for summer flounder, scup, black sea bass, and bluefish.  Specifically, the amendment may consider options for managing for-hire recreational fisheries separately from other recreational fishing modes (referred to as sector separation)…”

It justifies such amendment by alleging that

“the two sectors have different motivations, preferences, fishing behaviors, operational needs, and data reporting requirements.  Some recreational fishery participants have expressed an interest in recreational sector separation, which would entail managing for-hire and private sectors of the recreational fishery separately.  This could potentially allow managers to better tailor management to the needs and preferences of each sector while allowing for improved utilization of data reported by the for-hire sector.”

However, the Council also recognizes that

“sector separation would also introduce complexity to the management process, and some stakeholders have raised concerns that it could create regulation imbalances and conflict within the recreational fishing community.  Sector separation may also require the use of data that is more uncertain when broken down by sector.”

In truth, sector separation, as it is being pursued in the Mid-Atlantic region, is just one more effort being promoted by the for-hire fleet, which might allow their customers to take home more fish than the regulations currently allow, in the hope that more fish might lead to more customer trips, and help to salvage an industry that has passed its prime, and is now experiencing a slow and probably inevitable decline.

That doesn’t mean that the concept of sector separation is inappropriate under all circumstances.  Back in 2014, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council adopted Amendment 40 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of Mexico, which set up separate sub-allocations, within the overall recreational allocation, for the for-hire and private boat fleets.  That was done because, in the Gulf, the private boat fishery was chronically overfishing the recreational red snapper allocation, causing the federal red snapper season to grow shorter and shorter every year.  And while the federally permitted for-hire boats cold only fish for red snapper while the federal season was open, the private boats could retreat to state waters, where seasons were longer (in Texas, at that time, the season never closed) and continue to overharvest red snapper.  Because federal red snapper management considered landings on a Gulf-wide basis, regardless of whether the fish were caught in state or federal waters, the excessive state-waters landings led to shorter and shorter federal waters seasons, which threatened to put the for-hire boats out of business.

In the Gulf, sector separation was adopted as a way to restore a sort of parity between the for-hire and private boat fleets.

In the Mid-Atlantic, parity already exists, with both for-hire and private vessels fishing under the same set of rules (with the exception of a handful of mostly state regulations that already favor the for-hires).  In the Mid-Atlantic, sector separation would be used to destroy that parity, and grab more fish for the for-hires at the expense of everyone else.

And that’s something that the for-hire fleet doesn’t even try to deny.  At the April 9 meeting, Adam Nowalsky, New Jersey’s legislative proxy at the ASMFC and a long-time advocate for the party and charter boat industry, noted that fisheries management was, in fact, a “zero sum game,” and that any extra fish that might be awarded to for-hire anglers had to be taken away from someone else. 

He went on to argue that there ought to be what he called a “needs analysis” that looked at the needs of anglers belonging to the different modes (shore based, private boat, party boat, and charter boat) with the focus on the anglers themselves.  He noted that the for-hire operators were “more akin” to commercial fishermen, in that commercial fishermen provided fish to the non-fishing public, while the for-hire operators provided access to the fish for the non-boat-owning public,

“who cannot seek out fishing opportunity for themselves.”

His arguments were all valid, as far as they went, but they left out one important point:  There are currently an abundance of for-hire boats based all along the New England and Mid-Atlantic coasts, which provide opportunity for any anglers who choose to patronize them.  If those boats aren’t carrying enough passengers to remain in business, it’s not because anglers don’t have the access or the opportunity to fish, it’s because anglers choose not to take advantage of what the for-hire fleet offers.

Such choice could be made for many reasons.  The boats might cost too much.  They might be too difficult to get to (if you ever tried to drive out to Montauk, New York, particularly on a summer weekend—or, perhaps more importantly, tried to drive home from Montauk on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, and spent literal hours trying to get through the traffic jams in the various villages that dot Long Island's South Fork, you understand what “difficult to get to” really means). 

The loss of once-abundant fish species may make anglers less willing to spend the time and money on a for-hire trip.  For example, over the last few decades, just here on Long Island, we’ve seen the collapse of the winter flounder stock, which once supported fisheries in the early spring and late fall, when few other fish were available.  We’ve lost the summer cod fishery, which used to see boatloads of anglers catching big fish—a few over 50 pounds—while fishing in their shirtsleeves (we've lost almost all of the winter cod fishery, too, but that came a little bit later).  We’ve lost the winter tautog fishery, and seen the remaining tautog fishery decline significantly since the 1980s, although it’s showing some signs of rebirth.  We’ve lost the May/June pollock fishery at Block Island; and we’ve lost the winter whiting and ling fishery in the New York Bight.

Those losses can't help but hurt the for-hire fleet, even though it routinely campaigns against regulations needed to keep fish stocks healthy.

Angler preferences may have changed.  Night bluefishing used to be very popular, particularly off New Jersey and New York; now almost no boats pursue it.  And anglers may have more attractive fishing platforms available to them today.  When I was a boy, the wooden, 14-foot Old Town rowboat was probably the most popular fishing vessel, and even when I entered my 20s, most middle-class anglers operated relatively modest outboards that limited them to fishing inshore waters.  Today, boat ownership is more common, and many anglers of even modest means operate, or have friends who operate, very capable vessels, reducing their need to  pay for a for-hire trip if they want to venture onto the sea. 

Angling, like many outdoor activities, is also becoming less popular with younger people, who prefer more social activities, often conducted indoors.  That means that fewer families consider making a for-hire trip when they plan a family outing.  Even if a family might want to make such a trip, the atmosphere on many of today’s boats is not very family friendly.  When I was just six or seven years old, my parents thought nothing of taking me out on a New England party boat, but if the clientele on the boats back then was like it is on some boats today, such that captains are afraid to look into a customer’s cooler to count the catch because they’re worried about becoming the victims of violence, I suspect that my family, too, would have sought a different source of entertainment.

But the for-hire fleet tends to put all the blame for their troubles on needed regulations—which have undoubtedly dissuaded some harvest-oriented anglers from fishing—and argue that sector separation, that gifts them more liberal rules, is needed to save an industry which, with a business plan dating back to before the Second World War may, like American Motors, Sears Roebuck, and F.W. Woolworth, just be dying of obsolescence and old age brought on by a failure to change with the times.

Although Capt. Rick Bellavance, President of the Rhode Island Party and Charter Boat Association, noted at the April 9 meeting that sector separation had “a lot of support” in Rhode Island, what he didn’t acknowledge was that such support, not only in Rhode Island but elsewhere along the coast, is largely limited to members of the for-hire fishery (which is natural, for who wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of a few additional fish?).   

But the comments received during the scoping process for the sector separation amendment tell a more complete story.  Over all, the Council received 124 written comments addressing sector separation, and another 53 comments were made (including some by the same people) at hearings held at five different locations along the coast.  Of the total comments received, opinions were about evenly split, with 78 commenters supporting sector separation, and 75 opposed. 

The next question was who supported and opposed the sector separation proposal.

That question was answered at the April 9 meeting, when Council staff put up a slide showing that of 110 written comments (it’s not clear why all 124 weren’t counted, unless the other 14 addressed issues other than sector separation, which isn't unlikely) 49 supported sector separation and 61 did not.  Of the 49 comments supporting sector separation, 37 were submitted by for-hire operators or related organizations, just 4 were sent in by anglers, 2 by “other” organizations and 6 by persons of unknown affiliation.  On the other hand, of the 61 comments opposing sector separation, 37 came from private anglers or related organizations, 2 from for-hire fishermen, 2 from commercial fishermen, and another 20 from parties whose sector affiliation was unknown.

So, in the end, sector separation was very strongly supported by the for-hire operators, who were responsible for about 2.3% of all trips that primarily targeted summer flounder, scup, black sea bass, or bluefish over the past four years, and very opposed by the shore-based and private boat anglers, who paid for and benefitted from the other 97.7% of the trips.

That, in itself, might have been enough to doom sector separation in some people’s minds, but it was clear that the Council and Management Board were going to, at the least, compose a draft amendment that will be released for additional public comment.  So the next thing they needed to contemplate was what that amendment was going to say.

At that point, New Jersey’s Nowalski made a motion to include “mode management” in the draft. 

“Mode management” would allow both for-hire and private anglers to be included in the same allocation of fish.  That way, the extra fish given to the for-hire mode would be taken directly away from everyone else, and if the more relaxed for-hire regulations resulted in a significant overage, the ensuing accountability measures would apply to the shore-based and private boat anglers, too, even if they didn’t contribute to the overage at all.

The alternative to “mode management” is true sector separation, in which the current recreational allocation for each species is split into two separate allocations, one for the for-hire fleet, one for all of the other anglers.  That way, if either the for-hires or the shore based and private boat anglers exceeds their allocation, only the responsible sector would be held accountable.  So long as the allocations were based on what each sector caught in the recent past, such sector separation wouldn’t result in the for-hires taking fish away from anyone; they would have to structure their separate regulations in a way that would keep them from exceeding their landings target each year.

Thus, mode management would allow the for-hire fleet to benefit from more relaxed regulations and additional fish, without having to accept any additional responsibility or regulatory burden, so it was no surprise that they favored such an approach.  Since Nowalsky's motion was only made for the ASMFC, Greg Hueth, a New Jersey party boat captain, made the same motion for the Council to consider.

Fortunately, other people had other ideas.  Michael Luisi, a Maryland fisheries managers, offered a substitute motion for both the ASMFC and the Council:

“Move to substitute to direct the [Fishery Management Action Team]/[Plan Development Team] to further develop issue 1, recreational sector separation with all approaches described in the document.  [emphasis added]”

Nowalsky predictably spoke against the motion to substitute, admitting that the intent of his original motion was to keep separate allocations and separate annual catch limits for the for-hires and for the rest—the great majority—of anglers out of future discussions.  He noted that a majority of the public comments made with respect to the issue supported mode management, although he failed to note that the vast majority of those comments came from the for-hire sector.  And he expressed concern that looking at the separate allocation issue would take additional time.

Michael Pentony, the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Regional Administrator for the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, said that he would have supported the mode management motion, but was concerned that putting separate allocations on the table could draw out discussions, because allocation debates were historically “challenging,” while Anna Beckwith, a Council member from North Carolina, conceded that the managers would probably end up choosing mode management, but still wanted to see a complete analysis of the possible options.

When the vote was finally taken, the motion to substitute was narrowly approved by the Council on a 10 to 8 vote.  It found somewhat better support at the ASMFC, with 11 members voting in favor, including Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, Virginia, and North Carolina, and 6—Connecticut, New Jersey, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and NMFS—voting against.  After that, it easily won final approval, with a 17 to 1 vote at the Council and a 14 to 3 vote at the ASMFC, where only South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida remained opposed.

With the Council and ASMFC having responded to the scoping comments, it is now the duty of the two organizations’ staffs to compose a draft amendment, which will be reviewed and modified by both the Council and ASMFC at their August and December meetings.  At some point in early 2026, a final draft of the amendment will be approved for release and public comment, which will occur during the spring and/or summer of that year.  Assuming that managers decide to move forward with a final amendment, that document will be approved in the second half of 2026, and referred to NMFS for approval, with the final implementing regulations issued in the first half of 2027.

What will the final outcome be?  While it’s still too early to make any accurate predictions, the Council and ASMFC will probably adopt a mode-based management system that allows the for-hire fleet to take fish from the rest of the angling population, without holding that fleet accountable for any overages that such system might cause.  Instead, all anglers will be held collectively responsible for any excess landings attributable to the for-hire boats. 

While that might seem inequitable, it is a nearly inevitable outcome when the deck is stacked against the shore-based and private boat anglers who, despite their dominance of the recreational fishery, don’t hold a single recreational seat on the Mid-Atlantic Council.  For when the for-hire fleet holds all of the cards—and the recreational fishing industry controls all the recreational seats—it’s a near-certain bet that the majority of anglers aren’t really in the game at all, and are just being set up to lose.

 

STRIPED BASS ADDENDUM III: ITS OUTLINE IS CLEAR

 

About ten days ago, I noted that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Striped Bass Plan Development Team was moving forward with the proposed Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass.  After holding four meetings over the past two weeks, the PDT has now hashed out the basic outline of the proposed Addendum.

While there is still more work to be done before the first draft of Addendum III is finalized and presented to the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board ahead of its May 6 meeting, that work will consist of fine-tuning, rather than merely roughing-out the Addendum’s core issues.

As I noted in the April 3 essay, the Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee has recommended that the Plan Development Team, as well as the Management Board, assume that fishing mortality for the years 2026 through 2029 will be the same as it was in 2024.  Based on that assumption, there is a 48.7 percent probability that the striped bass spawning stock biomass will be fully rebuild by the end of 2029, even if no changes are made to the existing management measures.

However, if the Management Board would like to proceed more cautiously, and adopt a 60 percent chance of rebuilding by the 2029 deadline, a 7 percent reduction in striped bass removals will be required.

There are many ways that such reduction could be achieved, including cutting both recreational fishing mortality and the commercial quota by 7 percent, leaving the commercial quota unchanged and cutting recreational removals by 8 percent, and using some very flawed logic to decide that, since the commercial fishery is responsible for only 11 percent of the fishing mortality, the 7 percent commercial reduction should be multiplied by that sector’s 11 percent share of overall removals, so that recreational fishermen will be forced to cut back by 8 percent, while the commercial quota is reduced by a trivial 0.8 percent. 

All but the first approach obviously places all, or nearly all, of the conservation burden on the shoulders of the recreational fishery.

The next question is how any reduction might be achieved.  In discussing the possible options, the Plan Development Team only considered an equal, 7 percent reduction for both sectors, although the draft Addendum III presented to the Management Board will very probably present options for 8 percent reductions as well.

It seems easy on the commercial side, where the quota would simply be cut by 7 percent.  However, appearances can be deceiving, for although it comes close in some years, the commercial sector rarely, if ever, lands its entire quota.  A 7 percent quota reduction doesn’t typically equate to a 7 percent reduction in removals, but instead to something less.  Thus, even the seemingly “equal” reductions achieved by a 7 percent commercial quota cut and a 7 percent reduction in recreational removals aren’t equal in fact; the recreational sector is giving up just a little more.

On the recreational side, managers have three tools that they might, in theory, use to manage the fishery:  bag limits, size limits, and seasons.  As a practical matter, the bag limit, already set at a single fish per day in both the Chesapeake Bay and on the coast, can’t be reduced any further.  And on the coast, even size limits prove problematic, as the only size limit that would—barely—achieve a 7 percent reduction is a 37- to 40-inch slot, a size limit that, the Plan Development Team fears, might make it difficult for shore-based anglers to take home a legal fish, and would also make the big 2015 year class, which the current slot size is intended to protect, vulnerable to recreational harvest once again.

Which pretty much leaves us with a coastal season.

When the Management Board met last December, it chose not to change management measures for 2025, in part because the seasons proposed by the Technical Committee were perceived as unfair to anglers in certain states.  

The Plan Development Team tried to address that problem during its deliberations.

If seasons were set on a coastwide basis, the equity issue might be solved by adopting two short closure periods, one of which would have a greater impact on anglers in southern states, while the other would primarily affect those in the north.  Perhaps the most equitable of those split seasons would either impose a two-week no-target closure sometime in May and/or June (actually, such season need only run for 12 days, but the Management Board had previously decided that 14 days should be the minimum closure length) and another such closure sometime in November/December, or impose 18-day no-harvest closures (when catch-and-release would still be allowed) during the same two two-month periods.

The Plan Development Team also considered the possibility of regional management. 

Creating a small northern region, that only ran from Maine to Massachusetts, seemed workable although, due to their shorter seasons, Maine and New Hampshire anglers would be impacted more than those in Massachusetts.  Even so, a season that closed either 22 (no-target) or 23 (no-harvest) days in July and/or August would be enough to achieve the needed 7 percent cut in recreational removals.  

Another option, which would add Rhode Island to the northern region, would require a slightly longer July/August closure of 23 (no-target) or 25 (no-harvest) days.

States to the south posed thornier problems.  No single closure could serve them equally well.  Breaking the closure down into two smaller closed seasons, one earlier in the year, one later, could prove more equitable.  

But that wouldn’t solve a separate issue that came up when three regions were considered—the ocean fishery south of Delaware Bay is very, very small, so small, that if the coast was broken up into three regions, with the southern region ranging from Delaware to North Carolina, even closing an entire two-month "wave" wouldn’t come close to achieving the needed 7 percent reduction.  In fact, unless one assumed that, if a no-target closure was imposed, anglers would either stay home, play golf, or fish in fresh water, and not engage in any sort of angling where a striped bass might, accidentally, be caught, even closing multiple waves would not achieve the needed cut in removals.  Thus, in the end, the Plan Development Team decided that a three-region approach was not a practical alternative.

Of course, creating only two regions brought up the equity issue again.  A season that might work for New York and New Jersey probably wouldn't work for Maryland and Virginia.  However, as in the case of the proposed coastwide option, splitting the overall closure into two smaller closed seasons offered some attractive options.

Assuming that the southern region would extend from Rhode Island to North Carolina, the 7 percent reduction could be achieved by either 1) one 8-day closure in May/June and another in November/December (each, a no-target closure, coupled with an assumption that anglers won’t switch from striped bass to another species while the season is closed), 2) two 10-day closures, occurring during the same two-month periods (a no-target closure, coupled with an assumption that anglers will fish for something else while the striped bass season is closed, resulting in some bass being incidentally caught), or 3) two 15-day no-harvest closures, one in May/June and one in November/December, when catch-and-release is allowed. 

While a number of other options were proposed, the foregoing provided the shortest possible closed seasons.

Of course, nothing is quite that easy.

In this case, the problem is largely created by New York, which may not open its saltwater striped bass fishing season before April 15, nor keep it open after December 15 (other seasons prevail on the Hudson River).  Because those closures are already figured into the needed harvest reductions, any November/December closure imposed by New York would have to fully occur before December 15.  And because all of the states in a region are supposed to occur at the same time, that means that every other state would have to adopt, for example, a 15-day no-harvest closure on December 1, and would then be allowed to reopen their seasons on December 16, to run for the rest of the year.

That didn’t go over to well with some Plan Development Team members from other states, so the PDT ultimately decided that New York’s late-season closure might have to occur at a different time than the closures in other states.

And that revealed yet another potential problem.

The calculations made with respect to closed season length assume that every day during a two month “wave” sees the same number of fish caught and landed, but everyone recognizes that doesn’t reflect reality.  Instead, particularly near the beginning and end of the season, the typical number of fish caught at the start of a wave many be very different from what is caught at that wave’s end; there is certainly a big difference between the number of bass caught and landed during, say, the first week of November than the number caught and landed between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, but the calculation treats those weeks in the same way. 

Thus, a comment made by New Jersey’s representative on the Plan Development Team should have set off warning bells, when he noted that if New Jersey tried to accommodate New York, and closed its season from December 1 through December 15, it might make no sense for the state to reopen for the rest of the year, because there weren’t many boats in the water in late December, and striped bass fishing would be pretty much over by then.

Yet, assuming that New Jersey could set part of its closed season at any time during November/December, it would be completely within its rights to begin that closure on December 17 and end it on New Year's Eve, a time when there wouldn’t be many boats in the water and the striped bass season was, already, pretty much over. 

It’s hard to imagine such a late closure contributing much to a landings reduction.

That, then, is an issue that might deserve a very close look by the Management Board, and maybe some reconsideration.

The Plan Development Team also developed options for the Chesapeake Bay recreational fishery, but they had more flexibility there, with multiple ways to achieve a 7 percent reduction by changing the size limit alone, along with ways to achieve such reduction through seasons.

The next big question was whether the size limits and seasons should apply to everyone, or whether anglers fishing from for-hire vessels should get special privileges not allowed to anyone else.

The Management Board directed the Plan Development Team to look at the issue, and the PDT took the time to get back to the states for advice on what the for-hire boats might be looking for.  Since the Management Board had already decided that the bag limits for everyone would remain at one fish, once again, size limits and seasons were the only possible variables.

Since there are only so many bass available for harvest, if the for-hire fleet was gifted with more liberal regulations, the shore-based and private boat anglers would need to pay for that gift by having more restrictive management measures imposed on them.  The Plan Development Team calculated that if the slot limit for anglers on for-hire boats was widened from the current 28 to 31 inches to 28 to 33 inches, the reduction on landings for all of the other recreational fishermen would have to be increased from 7 percent to 8 percent; that additional one percent might not seem like much, but it amounts to a 14 percent increase in the number of fish that would no longer be available to the shore-based and private-boat sectors.  And if commercial fishermen are also allowed to escape with either no quota reduction or the trivial 0.8 percent reduction that some have proposed, the shore-based and private-boat anglers will have to give up even more, even though they are responsible for about 98 percent of all recreational trips that primarily target striped bass.

Hopefully, the Management Board won’t let things go that far.

On the other hand, the Plan Development Team also investigated an approach, akin to the ASMFC’s policy of conservation equivalency, that would make the adoption of different regulations for for-hire anglers far more palatable.  Under that approach, if for-hire anglers were allowed to retain bass that fell into a wider, 28- to 33-inch slot, then the for-hire fishing season on the coast would have to be shortened by 27 percent.  Thus, while shore-based and private boat anglers might have to experience a 23-day no-harvest closure during July and August in the northern region, for-hire anglers in the same region would need to accept a longer, 38-day closure in exchange for the wider slot.  The same wider slot, adopted in the southern region, could result in all of November and December being closed to for-hire harvest. 

Such an approach, if adopted by the Management Board, would ensure that equity between anglers is maintained in the coastal fishery.

In the Chesapeake Bay, where a 19- to 24-inch slot limit currently prevails, allowing for-hire anglers an extra inch—a 18- to 25-inch slot—would also result in shore-based and private-boat anglers having to take an 8 percent reduction, rather than the currently-proposed 7 percent cut, to compensate for the for-hire’s higher removals.  If the Management Board invoked conservation equivalency to maintain equity between anglers and offset the impacts of higher for-hire landings, the for-hire season in the Bay would have to be reduced by 13 percent.

Once the question of “mode splits” for the for-hire season was thoroughly examined, the Plan Development Team touched upon a few other issues.

One was the question of how to address recreational fisheries in the Hudson River, Delaware River, and Delaware Bay, which permit anglers to take smaller, presumably male, striped bass at certain times of the year.  Such fisheries were given special recognition in Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which also exempted them from the prohibition on using conservation equivalency when the striped bass fishery was overfished, as it is today.

The discussion was somewhat involved, given that this is the first time seasons, rather than bag or size limits, might be used to achieve the needed reduction in removals, and given that the fisheries in question might not even be open when the nearby ocean striped bass season is closed.  It’s possible that the discussion grew too involved, as it’s not quite clear why simple conservation equivalency couldn’t be used to achieve the required reductions.  But that is one of the issues still to be worked out, by both the Plan Development team and then, ultimately, by the Management Board.

Other than that, the PDT discussed the question of whether commercially-caught striped bass ought to be tagged as soon as they’re caught, or need not be tagged until they are first sold to a buyer.  All states, with the exception of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and North Carolina, currently require fish to be tagged on the water, and a majority of the ASMFC’s Law Enforcement Committee believes that such tagging makes it more difficult to sell fish illegally.  However, Rhode Island, which does not require its commercial fishermen to obtain special striped bass permits, feels that such on-water tagging will be a substantial administrative burden, which will require the state to send out an impractically high number of bass tags to all of its commercial fishermen. 

It is an issue that the PDT could not, and should not, resolve on its own.

The final question was whether the ASMFC should adopt a standard methodology for measuring striped bass.  A majority of states require that bass be measured lying flat, with the fisherman pinching the tail to obtain the longest possible length measurement.  However, some states, including Massachusetts, have no such requirement, which allows fishermen to fan out a bass’s tail, in order to make the fish as short as possible, and so fit into the slot limit, when the same fish, with its tail pinched, would be deemed oversized.

The practicality of that measure was debated by some PDT members, who questioned whether anglers would always have a convenient, flat place to measure their fish, or whether many would use a tape to measure fish over its curved side, and so obtain a longer measured length.  The issue is particularly relevant to shore-based anglers, who might be fishing from jetty rocks or similar irregular structure, where finding a flat place to lay a fish might prove difficult.

Again, this is a point that the Management Board will have to resolve.

But perhaps the biggest issue that the Management Board will need to resolve is whether to move forward with Addendum III at all.

The Plan Development Team has now largely completed its job.  It will soon have finished drafting the initial version of Addendum III, and then will pass it on to the Management Board for formal discussion at its May meeting.  In May, the Management Board will be confronted with a complex document, that will receive substantial public comment once it’s released, and which will require substantial staff time and effort to complete.  So the threshold question is, when there is already almost a 50 percent chance that the stock will rebuild with no further action, is Addendum III worth all of the time and effort that it will require?

I believe that it is, not because of the rebuilding itself, but because, once rebuilding is or isn’t achieved, managers will have to face the impacts of at least six years of historically poor recruitment.  Beginning in 2026 and 2027, anglers and for-hires alike are going to find few slot-sized striped bass along the coast, and that absence will continue for at least six years; the dearth of legal fish has already made itself felt in the Chesapeake Bay.

Reducing striped bass removals now, rather than two or three years down the road, will slow the attrition of the spawning stock, and make it more likely that the stock will remain abundant enough to avoid the sort of collapse we experienced a generation ago.

If the Management Board decides to move forward with Addendum III, it might approve a draft of that Addendum at its May meeting, and send it out for public comment over the summer.  However, it is more likely to recommend significant  revisions, and send the draft back to the Plan Development Team for additional work.  Should that be the case, the revised draft will be reviewed at the August Management Board meeting, and almost certainly released for public comment in August and September.  Final approval, if it occurs, will most likely occur in October.

Should that happen, the management measures included in Addendum III would become effective on January 1, 2026.

Thus, there is a long way to go before Addendum III impacts the striped bass fishery.  Hopefully, whatever the final version of the Addendum looks like, it will help set the striped bass stock on a path toward long-term health and sustainability.

 

 

FALSE ALBACORE: PRACTICING PRECAUTION

 

For a very long time, the false albacore was a sort of fishy pariah.

There was no significant market for their bloody, strong-tasting meat, which was also a turnoff to anglers, who cursed when the fish crashed lures meant for one of the better-tasting tunas. A few recreational fishermen enjoyed their hard fight, but at a time when small, “school” bluefin still swarmed just few miles offshore, Atlantic bonito were common, and inshore anglers could find plenty of striped bass, red drum, and bluefish, false albacore weren’t many anglers’ favorite species.

They were even identified by what they were not, called “false” albacore, to contrast them with what anglers deemed “true” or “longfin” albacore, a tasty, white-meat tuna that just about every fisherman was happy to ice and take home. If anyone down on the docks had referred to them by their proper name, “little tunny,” they would have just gotten most folks confused.

But things changed.

Saltwater fly fishing and light-tackle angling became more and more popular, and anglers who employed such gear began to widen their horizons, willing to cast to any sort of fish that ran fast and pulled hard. False albacore certainly fit the bill, and in places like Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, Montauk, New York, and Harker’s Island, North Carolina, a new industry sprung up that saw charter boat captains taking to the water in small, fast boats, to chase down schools of false albacore that could be caught, and subsequently released, on their clients’ favored gear. These charter boat captains often called themselves “light tackle guides” to distinguish their operations from those of the traditional “six-pack” fleet that ground away with sturdy rods and heavy lines, in an effort to kill and keep as many fish as possible.

Suddenly, false albacore were in the spotlight. Anglers were willing to travel hundreds of miles, and spend thousands of dollars, just to cast a fly or toss a lure to fish that went all but ignored a few years before.

As the striped bass population declined and bluefish grew scarcer, the ability to put clients on false albacore became even more important. Nearly a decade ago, Capt. David Blinken, a long-time Montauk guide, asked that the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Mid-Atlantic Council) provide false albacore some protection, noting that “albies give us a shot at diversity. Since the demise of the striped bass fishery we rely on them to satisfy our clients.”

The Mid-Atlantic Council did not heed his call. Since then, the striped bass fishing has only gotten worse, which has made false albacore even more important to the recreational fishing industry.

But an issue lurked in the background. Although false albacore range along much of the East Coast, from Massachusetts to Florida and then throughout the Gulf of Mexico, and are very common outside the United States as well, not much was known about them. For a while, the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (South Atlantic Council) included them in its Coastal Migratory Pelagics Fishery Management Plan, but in 2011 they were removed from that plan because the South Atlantic Council no longer believed that the stock was “in need of conservation and management,” as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. No other regional or national management body had attempted to govern the fishery.

No one knew whether the false albacore caught off New England, New York, North Carolina, and Florida were part of the same stock of fish, or belonged to reproductively distinct populations. And no one had any idea whether increasing fishing pressure in the southeast might affect fish elsewhere on the coast.

That became an issue, because commercial fisheries for false albacore slowly began to develop. Although the meat wasn’t traditionally eaten in the United States, it was consumed elsewhere in the western hemisphere; similar species also swim in the Pacific Ocean, and support fisheries there. Thus, as people from those areas came to the U.S., market demand for false albacore increased. False albacore has also become a popular bait that is cut into pieces to catch dolphin, snapper, and other smaller fish, or sliced into long strips to attract bigger species such as swordfish, sharks, and goliath grouper.

From 1950 through 1994, commercial false albacore landings were scattered among the various East Coast states, although only North Carolina had annual landings exceeding 100,000 pounds on a regular basis. Beginning in 1995, Florida began recording significant landings, and was soon exceeding 300,000 pounds per year, while North Carolina’s annual landings generally remained between 100,000 and 200,000 pounds. In 2003, Florida’s commercial false albacore landings exceeded 1,000,000 pounds for the first time, and although the state’s landings fell back substantially after that, Florida remains the dominant player in the commercial false albacore fishery, with North Carolina not too far behind.

Both anglers and the guides whom they fished with grew concerned that the commercial landings might harm the recreational false albacore fishery, but they had no data that they could use to either justify or allay their concerns.

The American Saltwater Guides Association (ASGA), which had already seen its members hurt by a decline in striped bass and bluefish abundance, recognized that “Our guides and fishing-related businesses on the Atlantic coast can’t afford to lose another species,” and became the false albacore’s primary, and arguably only, advocate.

ASGA’s efforts began in 2022, after it found a group of sponsors willing to fund a tagging study that would be conducted by Dr. Jeff Kneebone of the New England Aquarium. Working from boats operated by ASGA members, Dr. Kneebone’s team implanted 50 acoustic tags in false albacore caught in Nantucket Sound during the first year of the study. Another 97 false albacore were tagged in 2023.

Scientists, working on many different projects, have deployed acoustic receiver arrays all along the coast between southern Canada and the U.S./Mexico border, and typically share their data. Whenever one of the tagged false albacore passes near an array, its tag will transmit a unique identifier to the receiver, and Dr. Kneebone will be notified. That will eventually provide him with important information on the timing and extent of false albacore migrations, and also help him to determine whether all of the false albacore on the coast belong to a single stock, or whether they constitute separate regional populations.

ASGA also worked with the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center (Science Center) to develop a tagging program using conventional “spaghetti” tags, streamers of plastic that are anchored in the muscle of the false albacore. Each tag is imprinted with a unique number, along with brief instructions on how to return it to the Science Center.

Spaghetti tags are cheap, particularly when compared to acoustic tags that cost hundreds of dollars apiece, and so large numbers of them can be deployed. Such volume is necessary, because unlike acoustic tags, which need only pass by a receiver to record a fish’s movements, spaghetti tags require that the tagged fish be recaptured and reported by a fisherman; that only happens with a small minority of the fish tagged. Thanks to ASGA’s widespread membership, there were many guides, located in ports between New England and Florida, who were willing to help out and tag their clients’ false albacore and so contribute to the false albacore study.

The tagging efforts are already showing results. It appears that all of the false albacore on the U.S. East Coast constitute a single stock, as fish tagged in Nantucket Sound have been detected by receivers as far away as the southernmost tip of the Florida Keys, with particular concentrations off southern New England, eastern Long Island, North Carolina, and southeast Florida.

A DNA study, also supported by ASGA, lent additional credence to the single-stock hypothesis. Researcher Steven Bogdanowicz analyzed samples provided from false albacore caught off Massachusetts, New York, and North Carolina, utilizing two different software packages to evaluate the results. He noted that, ”we didn’t set out to determine whether fish from MA/NY/NC were different from each other; rather we’re asking ‘If we take a sample of albies from a pretty broad area at about the same time, how many genetic groups do we see?’”

As it turned out, both software packages suggested that, in the entire expanse of coastal sea between Massachusetts and North Carolina, all false albacore belonged to the same genetic group. Thus, should overfishing occur anywhere along the coast, it could impact the entire false albacore population.

With that information in hand, ASGA began to advocate for precautionary false albacore management.

It first approached the South Atlantic Council, which had, for a brief time, managed the species. ASGA argued that the South Atlantic Council’s 2011 finding that the stock was not in need of conservation and management was outdated, and should be reconsidered. In response, the South Atlantic Council’s Mackerel-Cobia Committee (Committee) drafted a white paper which was intended to be a preliminary examination of whether the species met Magnuson-Stevens’ ten criteria for management.

The analysis suggested that false albacore met four of the ten criteria, and may have met a few others, but that the stock “has not been assessed and as a result the stock condition is not well understood. However, there is no other available information suggesting that the stocks may be in a depleted or otherwise diminished condition, or that management is necessary to address such conditions.”

In the end, the Committee directed South Atlantic Council staff to provide a Fishery Performance Report for false albacore every three years, which would allow the Committee to keep a closer watch on the fishery, and perhaps spur action if fishing mortality spiked.

After that modest success, ASGA encouraged the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) to consider false albacore management. The issue was first discussed at the February 2, 2023 meeting of ASMFC’s Interstate Fishery Management Program Policy Board (Policy Board), where it received the support of some state fisheries directors. The Policy Board’s then chairman, “Spud” Woodward, the Governor’s appointee from Georgia, noted that both false albacore and Atlantic bonito “are sort of in this, what I would call under-loved tunas’ category right now,” and opined that “We really need to look at both of them, because the South Atlantic Council was approached by the American Saltwater Guides Association about bringing both of them under Magnuson-Stevens Act management…There really wasn’t any appetite, because most of the fishery is occurring in state waters…we probably need to consider both of these species, if we’re going to move forward.”

However, the Policy Board walked away from the issue at its May 3, 2023 meeting. The ASMFC’s fisheries policy director, Toni Kearns, warned that if the ASMFC was asked to manage any additional species, “We would probably either need to have another ISMFP staff member, and possibly a new stock assessment scientist, or we would need to have measurable changes in the current species priorities for both management and stock assessments.” Erika Burgess, a Florida fisheries manager, noted that Florida was responsible for more than half of all false albacore landings, had looked at the management issue multiple times, and saw no need for managing the species, whether through the ASMFC or otherwise. Other state representatives also voiced their opposition.

In the end, the Policy Board took no action, and left the matter up to the states.

And, over the past few months, the states have accepted the challenge.

North Carolina was the first to act. On March 12, 2025, after holding a series of meetings and receiving extensive public comment, much of it driven by ASGA’s advocacy efforts in favor of precautionary false albacore management measures, the North Carolina Marine Resources Commission voted 5-4 to adopt new regulations to protect false albacore.

The new rules do not immediately create new restrictions on the false albacore fishery. Instead, should landings in any year rise above 200 percent of the average combined commercial and recreational landings for the years 2018 through 2022, the director of the Division of Marine Fisheries may issue a proclamation establishing a 3,500-pound trip limit for commercial vessels and a recreational bag limit of 10 false albacore per person, and no more than 30 false albacore per recreational vessel.

While such regulations seem lenient, they are sufficient to prevent false albacore from succumbing to an explosive increase in landings. As the first significant restrictions on false albacore landings anywhere along the coast, they constitute an important precedent for future management action. But in Massachusetts, fisheries managers are moving toward much more conservative management.

Dan McKiernan, the director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, has long been concerned with maintaining the health of the Atlantic bonito stock. He first raised the issue at the February 2, 2023 meeting of the Policy Board, initiating the discussion which eventually led to the Policy Board’s short-lived consideration of false albacore management. Thus, it was hardly surprising when Massachusetts, urged on by ASGA and other concerned recreational fishermen, began to consider regulations to limit the harvest of both species.

Nor was it surprising that, on March 27, 2025, the Division of Marine Fisheries approved regulations which established a five-fish aggregate bag limit for false albacore and Atlantic bonito (with an exception for fish caught by commercial mackerel-jigging vessels) as well as a 16-inch (fork length) minimum size for both species. While such regulations are not yet final, and must progress through Massachusetts’ rulemaking process, there is no reason to believe that they will not be put in place.

False albacore regulation is expected to gain momentum, particularly in the Northeast. ASGA has spoken to a number of state fisheries managers, and has generally found a good reception.

At the March 11, 2025 meeting of New York’s Marine Resources Advisory Council, Martin Gary, the director of the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Marine Resources Division, broached the topic, hoping to get the councilors’ initial reactions. The discussion was short, with one councilor representing the recreational sector strongly in favor, and one commercial councilor largely indifferent (although he thought that a 16-inch size limit for Atlantic bonito might be too high). The only opposition came from a party boat captain notorious for opposing any efforts to regulate fisheries, who deemed false albacore management a waste of time.

Despite such naysayers, the growing importance of false albacore to the recreational fishing industry can’t be denied. As other important sport fisheries decline, it only makes sense to adopt precautionary measures intended to maintain the health of the false albacore stock. For as ASGA has already noted, “guides and fishing-related businesses on the Atlantic coast can’t afford to lose another species.”

Effective, precautionary management, adopted in time, can help to ensure that they won’t.

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This essay first appeared in “From the Waterfront,” the blog of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, which can be found at http://conservefish.org/blog’

T

 

BLACK SEA BASS MANAGEMENT: WHY BOTHER TO COMMENT?

 

On April 3^rd, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent agency of the National Marine Fisheries Service, published a notice in the Federal Register announcing 2025 recreational management measures for the northern stock of black sea bass.

The notice notes that

“The [Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management] Council and the [Atlantic States Marine Fisheries] Commission’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board (Board) meet jointly each year to recommend recreational management measures for all three species, generally set for two years, so that recreational harvest achieves, but does not exceed, the recreational harvest targets specified by the Percent Change Approach adopted in the Harvest Control Rule Framework…Black sea bass recreational management measures were previously only set for 2024 due to a delayed stock assessment.  This action proposes the recreational management measures for only black sea bass and for only the 2025 fishing year.

“…The Council and Board recommend status quo recreational black sea bass measures for 2025, including the continued use of conservation equivalency, with regional measures expected to achieve, but not exceed, the harvest target.  A status quo approach for 2025 complies with Framework 17 [the Percent Change Approach] given that the 2025 catch and landings limit were not set “in response to updated stock assessment information” and instead were left unchanged…According to the most recent stock assessment, the biomass of black sea bass remains well above the target and overfishing is not occurring.  Black sea bass measures are being set for only one year as an updated management track assessment is expected to be available later this year and will be used to inform specifications and recreational measures for 2026 and beyond.  Therefore, the Council and Board recommended that recreational measures remain unchanged in 2025.  [citations omitted]”

While those paragraphs pretty well outline what NMFS, and more particularly NMFS’ Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, plans to do, it leaves much unsaid and, when all the facts are considered, seems almost intended to conceal relevant facts, rather than to reveal them.  

While the first paragraph was fairly straightforward, the second was, in many ways, not at all forthcoming.

Take, for example, the statement that “A status quo approach for 2025 complies with Framework 17 given that the 2025 catch and landings limit were not set “in response to updated stock assessment information.”

That statement is objectively true, but…

Why wasn’t the 2025 catch and landings limit not set “in response to updated stock assessment information”?

It wasn’t because either the Council of NMFS lacked a stock assessment to respond to.  In fact, they had two stock assessments available.  One was a so-called research track stock assessment, which employed a new population model that could better incorporate some of the more challenging characteristics of the black sea bass stock.  The other was a management track stock assessment, based on the methodology used in the research-track assessment.  

After reviewing the management-track assessment, a peer-review panel wrote

“The Panel concluded that the [Terms of Reference] had been met and the assessment is sufficient for providing catch advice.  This assessment is the first to implement the many changes in the recently completed Research Track.  Changes include the use of a single model that allows for migration between northern and southern areas, estimation of fleet specific fishing mortality in both areas, and use of an integrated measure for relative abundance from the VAST model.  The new projection methodology I [the Woods Hole Assessment Model used in the assessment]…is thought to provide a more valid characterization of future uncertainty…” 

The peer-review panel also explicitly stated that

“The assessment represents Best Scientific Information Available (BSIA) for this stock for management purposes.”

So the Council and Management Board were given a bright, shiny new tool to use to manage black sea bass.  According to the peer-review panel, that tool could do things that the tools used before just couldn’t do, and it also constituted the best scientific information available, which was a very important consideration, because National Standard 2, a critical part of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, requires that

“Conservation and management measures shall be based upon the best scientific information available.”

The only thing is, neither the Council nor NMFS nor the regional office nor the Management Board wanted to use it. 

Despite the peer-review panel’s favorable review, despite the likelihood that the new assessment was more accurate than those that went before, due to how it addressed severable variables, and despite the fact that the new management track assessment represented the best available scientific information,the Management Board and the Council and NMFS chose to ignore it, and instead rely on an older assessment that gave rise to the existing regulations.

Why would they do that?

Apparently, because the new stock assessment would have required a reduction in black sea bass landings.  (Although it probably should be noted that, in issuing the 2025 management measures, NMFS and the Greater Atlantic regional office didn’t completely ignore the latest stock assessment; they were more than willing and happy to note that “According to the most recent stock assessment, the biomass of black sea bass remains well above the target and overfishing is not occurring,” which was true.  NMFS and the regional office only chose to ignore those parts of the new assessment that didn’t support their preferred narrative, that previous harvest levels should remain unchanged.)

Yes, there were various state managers who did not understand why the new assessment projected a decline in recruitment, when recruitment had been consistently robust in recent years.  That issue certainly merits investigation.

But what no one—no one at all—questioned was the new assessment’s calculation of the target biomass—that is, the biomass needed to support maximum sustainable yield—was about 11,225 metric tons, roughly 20 percent smaller than the 14,092 metric ton biomass calculated by the older assessment.

Nor did they question the new assessment’s conclusion that the maximum sustainable yield for the black sea bass stock—the level of landings that the stock could produce over an extended period—was just 3,649 metric tons, nearly 24 percent below the 4,773 metric tons previously calculated.

No one appeared to doubt that the black sea bass stock was less productive than previously believed.

But they just chose to ignore the fact, because black sea bass remained abundant, and many state managers just seemed afraid of the public reaction if they followed the scientific advice and reduced the acceptable biological catch, and thus the various catch limits, by 20 percent.  That fear was conveyed in the ASMFC’s summary of an August management meeting, which noted that

“With biomass currently more than double the target level and overfishing not occurring, it is challenging to communicate the conservation need for a 20% reduction in the [acceptable biological catch]”

And thus they didn’t even try.

After all, why try to engage in a challenging conversation, just because the best scientific information available strongly suggests that it’s the right thing to do?  

Instead, various state fisheries managers fretted about upsetting stakeholders, asking “how do we go back to stakeholders” with news of a landings reduction, worried that they were “at great risk of alienating our many stakeholders,” and declaring, despite the findings of the most recent stock assessment, that “this one [landings reduction] doesn’t make any sense.  The tone, if not the precise language, were reminiscent of parents worried about how to tell their spoiled child that he could not have any ice cream for breakfast.

The Management Board led the charge to ignore the scientific advice.  They can do that sort of thing, and have done it before, because the ASMFC has absolutely no legal obligations when managing fish stocks.  It can allow overfishing to continue unabated, it can allow overfished stocks to languish, and it can ignore the most compelling scientific information, and have no accountability at all.  Thus, when a motion was made to keep the 2024 black sea bass management measures in place throughout 2025 was made and seconded, it passed with few dissenting votes.

The Council dutifully made the 20 percent cuts, as Magnuson-Stevens required, but NMFS Greater Atlantic regional office would soon willingly undercut that statute with some active bootstrapping and some creative interpretations of the law.

NMFS and the regional office cited a regulation that reads,

“If the total catch, allowable landings, commercial quotas, and/or RHL measures adopted by the ASMFC Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board and the [Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council] differ for a given fishing year, administrative action will be taken as soon as possible to revisit the respective recommendations of the two groups.  The intent of the action shall be to achieve alignment through consistent state and Federal measures such that no differential effects occur to Federal permit holders,”

to justify the decision to violate National Standard 2 and ignore the best scientific information available, and instead conform its decision to that of the Management Board, and argued that the regulation

“require the Regional Administrator to take administrative action to align measures to prevent differential effects on Federal permit holders.”

But that is an apparent overstatement of what the regulation requires, as various sources define “revisit” as

“to consider or take up again” (Merriam-Webster),

“to talk or think about something again, with the intention of improving it or changing it” (Cambridge Dictionary),

or

“to return to an idea or a subject and discuss it again” (Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries).

The one common theme in all of those definitions of the verb “revisit” is that they all embrace the concept of returning to a topic, and reconsidering it, perhaps with the hope of improving or changing a preexisting condition, but none of those definitions suggest in any way that “revisiting” a previous decision or action requires that, after due consideration, any changes must be made.

Thus, NMFS’ and the regional office’s suggestion that the agency was required to conform its regulations to the Management Board action, and in so doing violate a very clearly stated provision of Magnuson-Stevens, is on as shaky factual ground as are a number of their other statements regarding black sea bass management.  

Similarly, NMFS’ and the regional office have taken the position that language in Magnuson-Stevens which requires “Each Council” to set annual catch limits no higher than the level recommended by that Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee only binds the regional fishery management councils, and does not prevent NMFS from ignoring the Committee’s advice and setting an acceptable biological catch higher than the SSC recommendation (in the case of black sea bass, the Council’s SSC recommended setting the ABC 20 percent below what it had been in 2024, but NMFS and the regional office ignored that advice and maintained the ABC at its 2024 level, apparently believing that, while the Council cannot ignore the best scientific information available, the agency and its regional office may do so with impunity).

The end result is that the 2025 acceptable biological catch, annual catch limit, and related specifications (e.g., sector annual catch limits, commercial quota, recreational harvest limit, etc.) are all substantially higher than they should be, and higher than they would be had the advice in the latest stock assessment been followed.

Which leads us back to the initial question:  Why bother to comment on proposed management measures that NMFS and the regional office seem Hell-bent on adopting, regardless of what anyone else might believe?

Although I hate to say this, because I am a firm believer in participating in the management process and making everyone’s views known, in the case of black sea bass, I believe that there is no point in commenting at all.  Fisheries managers in most states, at the ASMFC, and at NMFS and the regional office seem determined to maximize landings, regardless of whether that is consistent with the best scientific advice.

Why?

I can only speculate that, at this point, fisheries managers have been so beat up by the constant whining and complaints, and just plain frequent bullying from representatives of the for-hire fleet and others in the recreational fishing industry that they’ve developed a sort of Stockholm syndrome with respect to the black sea bass fishery.

“Stockholm syndrome,” you may recall, is a term used to describe a seemingly irrational affinity that captives sometimes feel for their captors.  It got its name from a 1973 incident in which a former convict took four persons hostage in an effort to use them as leverage to free a friend from prison, and held them captive in a bank vault for six days.  After their release, none of the hoastages would testify against their former captors, and instead raised money to aid in their captors’ defense.  The former hostages apparently felt that law enforcement took irrational actions that threatened the hostages’ well-being, while the captors, who ultimately chose to release the hostages, acted more rationally, and so earned the hostages support.

It's not hard to draw an analogy between the hostages and fisheries managers who, beset at meetings by hordes of fishing boat crew and other persons, when even the completely sober folks in the crowd (which description, unfortunately, does not apply to everyone who attends such events) jeered and catcalled and insulted the professional managers, who were forced to support regulatory actions that were mandated by Magnuson-Stevens, but did not seem completely necessary given the temporary abundance of the black sea bass resource.  

Under such circumstances, it might not be surprising that the mangers became willing to ignore the science and the law, and to side with their critics in the hope that the chronic complaints and criticism might be, if not ended completely, at least be substantially reduced.

Regardless of the reason, it is just about certain that NMFS is intent on maintaining status quo regulations in 2025, regardless of what comments the public might make, and that making any comments at all would be a waste of time. 

Accepting that, the question becomes:  Can we believe NMFS when it says that “an updated management track assessment is expected to be available later this year and will be used to inform specifications and recreational measures for 2026 and beyond”?

I wish I could believe that, but given the experience of the 2025 assessment, I have serious doubts.

After all, in December 2023, the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Monitoring Committee advised the Council and Management Board against implementing the 10 percent reduction in recreational black sea bass landings supposedly mandated by the Percent Change Approach, because  that approach was designed to work with an updated stock assessment, and the planned 2023 management track assessment was never completed.  Instead, the Monitoring Committee recommended that status quo regulations be maintained, until the 2024 stock assessment provided a better idea of the stock’s status.

But when the 2024 stock assessment was completed, and seemed to require a 20 percent reduction in landings, a number of Monitoring Committee members recommended status quo once again, because they were unwilling to accept the assessment results.

So what does that bode for the 2025 management track assessment, once it is released?

If the results of the 2025 assessment rebut those of the 2024, there is little doubt that managers will take the new and better news as gospel, and after more than  a few “I told you so”s, will happily go about their business of maintaining high black sea bass landings.  And that scenario is certainly possible.

But it’s also possible that the 2025 assessment will tell a very different story.  After all, at least where I fish off Long Island (and from what people have told me, both north and south of Long Island as well), black sea bass numbers seemed to be down in 2024.  When we passed over a wreck, we no longer saw the towering schools of black sea bass rising from the ocean floor to 30 or more feet above the bottom, and most of the fish that we caught were disappointingly small, a continuation of the steadily shrinking size of the fish that we’re catching over the past decade or so.

Black sea bass benefit from a warm ocean, with the size of each year class determined not by the initial success of the spawn, but by the water temperature at the edge of the continental shelf, where young-of-the-year fish spend their first winter.  Warm, saline water tends to produce big year classes, while colder water reduces the young fish’s survival.

Last year, we observed water temperatures that were far lower than we normally see.  I had surface temperatures south of Fire Island in July that were six to eight degrees Fahrenheit cooler than what I typically see, and divers noted that bottom temperatures off Long Island were unusually cold this year.  I don’t know when the warm water started or when it ended, but it’s not at all impossible that black sea bass spawned in 2023 and/or in 2024 could have felt its effects.  If that happened, the worst case might be that we’re looking at a stock that has seen high fishing mortality removing most of the older, larger individuals, while cold water resulted in a smaller number of young fish recruiting into the population.

If the 2025 stock assessment reflects such a worst-case scenario, and shows a decline in the black sea bass population, will managers be willing to make the necessary cuts in recreational landings, which may at that point be well over 20 percent?

Or, assuming that the worst-case scenario doesn’t happen, and the 2025 stock assessment merely confirms the results of the 2024, and demonstrates that a 20 percent reduction really is needed, will managers finally concede and do what needs to be done?

I can’t confidently answer either of those questions in the affirmative.  

Black sea bass management no longer seems to have firm roots, whether those roots might take the form of a stock assessment or even just of a management plan.  Ever since 2019, black sea bass managers have, in every year but one, sought ways to avoid making the landings reductions called for by the standards and methodologies spelled out in their management plans.  Managers seem wedded to the status quo, regardless of what the data, the science, or the management plan might suggest.

I’ve already decided that they have no intention of considering public viewpoints that might differ from their own.

And I have a gnawing fear that they might not consider the findings of the 2025 assessment, either, if those findings contradict the status quo.