STRIPED BASS MANAGEMENT--THE DEVIL'S IN THE DETAILS

 

Striped bass management, and what it ought to look like, has been the subject of a years-long debate that, in 2022, saw the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s adopt the first amendment to its Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass in nearly two decades, and has since been fueled by a declining abundance of fish coupled by six consecutive years of poor recruitment, particularly in the most important nursery area in the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay.

In some ways, it’s surprising that there’s a debate at all.

Fisheries managers have worked with striped bass for a very long time.  The initial Interstate Fisheries Management Plan for the Striped Bass, released in October 1981, is designated “Fisheries Management Report No. 1 of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission”—the very first fishery management plan ever produced by the ASMFC.  

Since then, the ASMFC has produced seven amendments to the management plan and many addendums to such amendments, along with benchmark stock assessments, stock assessment updates, annual reports on the fishery, and special reports of various kinds.  In addition, scientists at various state and federal agencies, and at academic institutions, have investigated various aspects of striped bass biology and published their findings in a host of scientific journals.

Thus, when a stock assessment finds that the striped bassstock is overfished, as was the case last fall, we can be certain that such finding relies on a substantial and diverse collection of reliable data, and is not merely an educated guess, or a conclusion based on insufficient and uncertain information.  Yet the plethora of reliable and consistent data has not prevented some stakeholders, such as Delmarva Fisheries Association head Robert Newberry to make nonsense comments claiming that the striped bass in the Mid-Atlantic region

“has never been more plentiful.”

Nor has the quality of the stock assessment data prevented stakeholders from questioning the need for management measures that will rebuild the overfished stock to something approaching its target level.  Thus, we see Jill Maganza-Ruiz, president of the Montauk Boatmen and Captains association, refer to Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass as a

“needless action [which] also violates common sense”

because the stock is not currently experiencing overfishing, even though it is currently overfished, and has been for about the last decade.

Such comments veer so far from well-established facts that they deserve to be largely ignored.

But when we accept the current state of the stock, and start working out the details of how to make things better, the debate becomes more focused, and the answers aren’t so perfectly clear.  Yet the answers managers finally come up with will probably have a significant impact on the health of the stock.

Consider, for example, the debate currently going on in Maryland, and the corresponding discussion occurring at the ASMFC.

Maryland has long been willing to sacrifice the interests of its private boat and shore-based recreational fishermen in order to shore up its commercial and for-hire fisheries.  Thus, after the adoption of Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the InterstateFishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass in 2019, we see Maryland proposing a conservation equivalency provision that would allow it to, instead of reducing both recreational landings and commercial quota by an equal 18 percent, cut the commercial quota by a mere 1.8 percent, while slashing recreational landings by 20.5 percent.  

At about the same time, Maryland also proposed closing the April recreational catch-and-release season, which was of little importance to the for-hire fishery, and implementing a no-targeting closure during August, just so it could continue to allow its for-hire fishery to retain two bass per angler, even though private boat and shore-based anglers were limited to taking home one bass per day.

In doing so, Maryland has created a patchwork of open and closed seasons that becomes more and more difficult to work with as additional management changes come on line.  So, in an effort to rationalize the current muddle, Maryland has proposed changes that would, among other things, reinstate the April catch-and-release season, open the season to harvest beginning May 1, expand the no-targeting season to the entire month of August, and reduce the December harvest season by a few days, replacing them with a no-harvest—but not a no-target—closure.

An argument can be made that such changes will benefit the striped bass, while also benefiting striped bass anglers.  Still, not everyone agrees that the changes are good.

According to an article in the Bay Journal, Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources

“said it wanted to simplify its regulations and align the state’s striped bass fishing season more closely with Virginia and the separately regulated Potomac River.  It also wants to give anglers more incentive to fish in the spring.  Mike Luisi, DNR’s fisheries assessment manager, said the closures currently in effect in Maryland have essentially driven all anglers off the water and hurt the business of tackle shops and some fishing guides.”

Some folks whom I know down in Maryland like the idea of getting their spring catch-and-release season back, and believe it’s reasonable to exchange a catch-and-release season in April, when the water is cold and release mortality is low, for a no-target closure that encompasses all of August, when water temperatures and air temperatures are both high, and dissolved oxygen levels can be depressed, conditions which all make it more likely that released fish will not survive.

Research tends to support the advantages of an April catch-and-release season coupled with an August no-target closure.  According to the Bay Journal article,

“Reid Nelson, a fisheries ecologist with George Mason University, studied the issue in the Patuxent River and estimated that as many as 11% of striped bass released back into the water in summer died within about eight weeks, compared with a 6.8% death rate in spring, when temperatures are lower.  The risk of killing fish before they could spawn under those circumstances is relatively low, he said.”

Given that, it appears that the new regulations would be good for the striped bass, for most striped bass anglers, for tackle shops and other businesses providing products and services to such anglers, and for those guides/charter boat captains who participate in the catch-and-release fishery.

However, as I have often noted in this blog, fisheries management is a zero-sum game, and when all of those stakeholders enjoy new benefits, it’s pretty likely that some other group of stakeholders is taking a loss.  In this case, that group includes the traditional Maryland charter boats—those that, collectively, comprise what some of my Maryland contacts refer to as the “meat fleet”—boats that take their passengers out only to kill their limit of striped bass, and quickly return to the dock once that killing is done.

In their case, the Bay Journal reports,

“Brian Hardman, the heard of the Maryland Charter Boat Association, charged that Maryland’s proposal would expand striped bass fishing greatly for anglers who practice catch-and-release while further restricting those who want to bring their catch home to eat.  Charter captains have reported declines of up to 70% in bookings in 2024 after a rule change deprived their customers of the ability to keep two striped bass per trip.”

The Maryland Charter Boat Association has repeatedly—and so far unsuccessfully—sued the ASMFC and, more recently, other entities as well, arguing that the loss of a second fish is illegally preventing them from practicing their trade, and depriving them of the value of their business investments.

But the counter to that argument is that, when striped bass abundance is declining—and, particularly, in a place like Maryland’s section of the Chesapeake Bay, where striped bass spawning success over the past six years has been the lowest ever recorded, and fish less than six years old make up a very large part of the fishery, with most bass moving out of the Bay to join the coastal migratory stock sometime between the age of 5 and 7 years—promoting catch and release probably makes a lot of sense, from both a social and an economic viewpoint.

After all, in a catch-and-kill fishery, a legal-sized bass is typically removed from the population, and no longer available to other anglers, the first time it is caught.

On the other hand, in a catch-and-release fishery, even given the currently-accepted estimate that nine percent of all released fish do not survive, the average striped bass can be caught 11 times before it is removed from the population, and can provide additional social and economic benefits each time it is encountered by an angler.  Even if it is not caught, its very presence provides an incentive for anglers to spend money on fishing because it is still in the water and available to catch.

Put more simply, the available supply of bass will last longer if individual fish aren’t removed from the water at the very first opportunity.  And effort data clearly demonstrates that, the more fish that are in the water and available to anglers, the more often anglers will fish.

Thus, from a social and economic perspective, managing striped bass primarily for a catch-and-release fishery makes the best use of a limited natural resource.  And, despite their often-loud claims, such management doesn’t push the traditional catch-and-kill fleet out of the fishery, so long as they are willing to be a little more flexible in how they go about their business.

So long as they choose to operate their boats like floating grocery carts, heading back to the dock as soon as all of their fares have boxed a limit of fish, a one-fish bag limit probably will cost them a substantial amount of business.  After all, who wants to pay hundreds of dollars, and perhaps travel hundreds of miles, just to go out on the water for an hour, perhaps less, toss a bass in the cooler and then go back home?

On the other hand, if they start focusing less on dead fish and more on encouraging their customers to enjoy the live ones—that is, if they start actively promoting and participating in a catch-and-release fishery themselves, while still enabling their customers to keep whatever legal bass they might land—and fishing out the entire half-day charter even after a limit of fish has been boated, they might find more people willing to book trips, even with the more restrictive rules now in place.

How such details are finally resolved—that is, whether new regulations will favor catch and release, and how stakeholders might adapt to any new rules—probably won’t have too much on an impact on the striped bass themselves, if Maryland’s current estimates of fishing mortality turn out to be true, but they could have a big impact on the economic value of Maryland’s recreational striped bass fishery.

However, the Maryland charter fleet has raised another issue that might be more difficult to analyze and address:  A claim that the stress caused by catch-and-release fishing during the spawn might cause females to drop their eggs prematurely, and so result in lower recruitment.

It’s not an unreasonable concern.

Again turning to the Bay Journal article,

“Dave Secor, fisheries ecologist with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, said he thinks that ‘catch-and-release of fecund females does [increase the risk] of failed reproduction for that fish.  It’s a very energetically taxing period [of] provisioning eggs, migrating and courtship behaviors.”

The article also notes that the same Reid Nelson who conducted the Patuxent River release mortality study weighed in on the question, and noted that studies of other species have found that fish may produce lower-quality eggs, which produce lower-quality larvae, if they are caught and released before spawning.

It’s another detail that managers must consider when deciding whether Maryland’s proposed changes make sense.

Fortunately, the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board has instructed the Striped Bass Technical Committee to consider Maryland’s proposal, and advise the Board as to how it compares to the management measures the state currently has in place, with respect to striped bass mortality.  It is unlikely to be approved if mortality would increase.

Which illustrates why striped bass management is as challenging as it is.

It’s not just about the current biomass size, or biomass trends, or recruitment levels, although all those things matter.  It’s also about the details, and getting the small things right.

For, in the aggregate, small details can make a real difference, and if managers get them wrong, it’s likely that the larger-scale issues won’t be quite right, either.