STRIPED BASS: ADDENDUM III APPROVED FOR PUBLIC COMMENT

 

On Wednesday, August 6, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board approved Draft Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass for public comment.

It’s not an easy document to characterize.

If the assumptions made by the Striped Bass Technical Committee, on which the Draft Addendum is based, are correct, Addendum III has a 50 percent probability rebuilding the spawning stock biomass to its target level by the end of 2029, which in itself is a good thing.  However, there’s no guarantee that those assumptions are right—the one that assumes that recruitment will return to 2008-2023 levels may be particularly suspect—and, even if recovery occurs, spawning stock biomass is likely to decline again unless recruitment stays at 2008-2023 levels going forward.  (It’s probably important to note that recruitment in the years 2008 through 2023 constitutes the “low recruitment scenario,” and not historical striped bass recruitment levels; however, striped bass recruitment has been so poor in every year since 2019 that returning to “low” recruitment levels would be a marked improvement from where we are now.)

So from the striped bass’ perspective, the draft Addendum doesn’t look too bad, although it would have been nice had the Management Board opted for a 60 percent probability of rebuilding.  But that would have involved a larger mortality reduction—18 percent as opposed to 12—and there didn’t seem to be much of an appetite for that in the room.  As Massachusetts fishery manager Nicola Meserve observed, the 12 percent reduction was seen as striking a balance between needed conservation and economic concerns.

From a striped bass fisherman’s perspective, though, the draft Addendum has a few problems, most notably the possibility of closed seasons where even catch-and-release would be outlawed, and options that would give special privileges to the for-hire fleet, and relegate shore-based and private boat anglers to a sort of second-class status.

But even from that fisherman’s perspective, the draft Addendum could have been worse.  The big thing to remember when considering the document is that, at least in the so-called “ocean” recreational fishery, which encompasses the entire recreational striped bass fishery outside of the Chesapeake Bay, managers already have, for practical purposes, gone as far as they can reasonably go with restrictive bag and size limits. 

That means that the entire 12 percent recreational reduction is going to have to be accomplished with some sort of closed season, and closed seasons are a completely different sort of regulation from size and bag limits.  For no matter how restrictive size and bag limits might be, they still allow people to fish, and they at least hold out some hope that an angler who wants to take home a bass might, with luck, be able to do so.  But a closed season completely prohibits any kind of harvest, and a no-target closed season even outlaws catch-and-release fishing.  Such prohibitions can have a much greater impact on angling effort, and so can do much more serious harm to angling-related businesses than mere size and bag limits.  Thus, fishery managers tend to exercise far more caution when putting such closures in place.

 

Such concerns certainly played a role in the Management Board’s decisions, going back at least as far as last December, when managers decided not to adopt any new restrictions for the 2025 season.  To understand how they may have affected yesterday’s Management Board meeting, it is probably best to take a chronological look at events, including some of the motions that shaped the Draft Addendum and some of the comments made in opposition and in support.

The draft Addendum III that the Plan Development Team presented to the Management Board was a big, unwieldy document that just about everyone realized would have to be cut down before it went out to public comment, if the public was to have any chance to understand what the Board was trying to do.

The first action taken on the Draft Addendum, as I already noted, was limiting the probability of timely rebuilding the stock to 50 percent.  It was not a particularly controversial decision, with only Connecticut voting against it and the National Marine Fisheries Service and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service opting to abstain.

The second motion, made by Ms. Meserve and seconded by David Sikorski, Maryland’s Legislative Proxy, inspired more debate.  It was,

“Move to remove in Section 3.4 Option C (0% commercial reduction and -14% recreational reduction)”

In explaining why she wished to remove the option, Ms. Meserve stated that she didn’t believe that recreational fishermen should have to shoulder the entire burden of rebuilding the stock, but that such burden should be shared by everyone participating in the striped bass fishery.  She also noted that she didn’t want the issue of who should be responsible for rebuilding the stock distracting commenters from other, more important issues in the Draft Addendum.

Predictably, Delaware fishery manager John Clark opposed the motion, arguing that while recreational reductions are based on estimates and predictions of future landings levels, which might or might not be accurate,

“Every pound we take away from the commercial fishery is revenue we take away from our commercial fishermen.”

He argued that, since 2014, the commercial quota had been cut by 40 to 50 percent, a comment that brought a response from Ms. Meserve, who noted that the recreational fishermen had also suffered major reductions during that time, going from an ocean limit of two fish per day and a 28-inch minimum size to a 1-fish bag limit and 28- to 31-inch slot size.  Clark answered by saying

“We have very small-scale fisheries in Delaware.  There are guys depending on this income,”

but his response apparently wasn’t convincing enough.  When the vote on the motion was taken, the motion passed, with eight jurisdictions in favor (Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and North Carolina), six opposed (New York, New Jersey, Delaware, the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, Maryland, and Virginia), and the two federal agencies abstaining.

The vote didn’t completely close the door on the commercial fishery taking a smaller cut than the recreational sector.  When the Management Board meets in October, it could, for example, cut the commercial quota by six percent and recreational landings by 12, thus weakening Addendum III and making it slightly less likely that the stock will recover on time.  However, no such option will appear in the Draft Addendum, and we can hope that the Board ultimately sees the fundamental fairness of everyone making an equal contribution toward rebuilding the stock.

At that point, what is arguably the most controversial issue in the Draft Addendum was addressed—so-called “no-target” closed seasons, when even catch and release would be illegal.

Martin Gary, the Director of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s Marine Division, opened the discussion by asking whether there were any other available tools for reducing release mortality, and then raised the key issue:  He asked whether no-target restrictions were, as a practical matter, enforceable.  

His question was answered by Lt. Jeff Mercer, of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management's Division of Law Enforcement, who responded that

“We believe that no-targeting closures would be very difficult to enforce,”

noted that such no-target closures ranked dead last on the Law Enforcement Committee’s list of 27 potential management tools, and observed that, even though no-targeting closures have been in place in federal waters since the mid-1980s, to his knowledge no one has ever been convicted of violating such closure unless they also had a striped bass in their possession.

Mr. Gary noted that he had spoken with New York law enforcement officers who said that, as a practical matter, they can’t write tickets unless an angler had a fish in possession. 

He also made a motion which read,

“Move to remove no-targeting closure options for the Ocean.”

He limited his motion to closures of the ocean fishery because he wanted to respect the previous actions of Chesapeake Bay jurisdictions, which enacted no-target closures specifically to deal with the Bay's extreme summer conditions of hot, hypoxic water, even though, when he was executive director of the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, he advised against the PRFC adopting such closures, which were implemented despite his advice.

Mr. Gary’s motion was seconded by Matt Gates, a Connecticut fisheries manager.

At that point, the debate began.

Opposition to Mr. Gary’s motion came from the usual sources—Board members such as New Jersey fisheries manager Joseph Cimino, New York Governor’s Appointee Emerson Hasbrouck, and Maryland fisheries manager Michael Luisi—individuals who have historically favored the catch-and-kill component of the recreational fishery, and cast jaundiced eyes on catch-and-release anglers.

Mr. Cimino argued that

“This is about winning hearts and minds,”

apparently assuming that anglers can be convinced not to target bass during the closures.  He argued that no-target closures were the only way to reduce release mortality and, demonstrating a remarkable lack of concern for the realities of fisheries management, said that he didn’t like the enforcement—or unenforceability—of no-target closures bearing on the decision of whether such closures should be adopted.  He also expressed the opinion that the no-target closure in federal waters resulted in a substantial decrease in anglers fishing for striped bass there, an opinion that might change should he ever take a trip out of Brielle or Atlantic Highlands late in the fall, and see all of the anglers “fishing for bluefish” more than three miles from shore, and just catching all of those pesky striped bass “by accident.”

Mr. Hasbrouck’s comments were similar.  After first stating that his views on the matter had nothing to do with components of the for-hire fishery—components he always seems to support by voting for sector separation and other proposals that benefit the for-hire industry at the expense of private anglers—he observed that on a substantial majority of recreational striped bass trips, no fish are retained and that half of the recreational fishing mortality is caused by fish that don’t survive release, and so argued that a no-harvest closure would only address half of the problem.  He admitted that no-target closures were not enforceable, but observed that other rules currently in place, such as those requiring circle hooks and banning the use of gaffs, were also virtually impossible to enforce (although why adding to the list of unenforceable management measures would be a good thing, he didn’t explain).  Like Mr. Cimino, he expressed a naïve belief that anglers would obey an unenforceable rule, even if that meant that they had little or nothing else to fish for.

But it was Mr. Luisi who made the most diabolical opposition comment of all, suggesting that there might be room for a compromise, if catch-and-release anglers would be willing to accept a trade-off where, in exchange for the Board abandoning no-target closures, the biological reference points for striped bass would be revised to lower the spawning stock biomass target and threshold (and by so doing, although it wasn’t explicitly stated, allowing more fish to be killed).

There is a reason that I often refer to the New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland delegations as the “Axis of Evil” when it comes to striped bass…

But Mr. Gary’s motion had supporters, too.  William Hyatt, Connecticut’s Governor’s Appointee, noted that no-target closures would likely lead to “gamesmanship” that would adversely impact recreational fisheries data.  He felt that such closures would lead to anglers providing false information on what they were targeting on any given trip, and to fail to report striped bass caught and released during a no-targeting closure.  Doug Grout, New Hampshire’s Governor’s Appointee, noted that release mortality could be reduced by other means, circle hooks being but one example, a point also made by Ms. Meserve, who noted that Massachusetts was currently engaged in research on gear modifications that could lead to better striped bass survival.

At that point, Adam Nowalsky, New Jersey’s Legislative Proxy and a long-time critic of both the catch-and-release fishery and many striped bass conservation efforts, rose to put a motion to amend on the table which read,

“Move to remove no-targeting closure options for the Ocean with the assumption that striped bass only trips are eliminated.”

Probably to no one’s surprise, it was seconded by Mr. Hasbrouck.

It was a terribly worded motion, and a lot of people, both in the audience and on the Board, appeared to have some trouble understanding what it meant, although it was finally made clear that the motion referred to one of the two assumptions that the Plan Development Team made when crafting the no-target options.

In crafting those options, the PDT asked themselves the question, “What will anglers do if they can’t target striped bass?”  One possibility is that they stop fishing until the closure ends; the other is that they switch their angling effort to another species, but might incidentally encounter striped bass as bycatch.  The former assumption would lead to a shorter closure, as no striped bass release mortality would occur; the latter would lead to some release mortality, and so require a longer closure.

Mr. Nowalsky’s motion would eliminate the no-target closure options that were based on the assumption that, if people couldn’t legally target bass, they wouldn’t fish for anything at all.

It wouldn’t solve the enforceability problem, and it wouldn’t do anything to improve angler compliance, but it was presented as a compromise of sorts, and as such had significant support. Nine jurisdictions (Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, Virginia and, surprisingly, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service) voted in favor, six (Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina) voted against, and New York cast a “null vote,” as Mr. Gary and Mr. Hasbrouck cancelled each other out, and there was no Legislative Appointee to cast a deciding vote.

The amended motion then passed with just Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina in opposition, and New York again null.

So at least some no-target options will be in the Draft Addendum for public comment.

After that, the issue of sector separation came to the fore.  No one ever addressed the sector separation options for the ocean recreational fishery, so the Draft Addendum will include both some options that treat all anglers equally, and multiple options that elevate the for-hire fleet above the rest of the sectors.  But with respect to the Chesapeake Bay, Mr. Sikorski made an motion that would have removed all of the sector separation options from the document.  His motion was seconded by Mr. Clark.

That didn’t go over well with Mr. Luisi, a long-time promoter of his state’s for hire fleet, who said that he opposed the motion because he wanted Maryland’s “charter public” to be able to comment on the issue (as if we don’t already know that the charter fleet will say “Yes, we want more liberal rules than everyone else).  

But Ms. Meserve quickly rose to seek a compromise, amending Mr. Sikorski’s motion in a way that would delete only two of the three sector separation options, and leave one in the Draft Addendum.  Her motion was seconded by Mr. Luisi, and met with universal approval, except for the federal agencies, which abstained.  Thus, the Draft Addendum will include one sector separation option, which would provide a 19- to 23-inch size limit for shore-based and private boat anglers, and a 19- to 25-inch size limit for the for-hire fleet. 

Hopefully, Public comment on the option will inform the final decision of the Management Board.

Ms. Meserve then made a motion to conform the Chesapeake Bay no-target options to those applicable to the ocean fishery, by removing the option that assumed that anglers wouldn’t fish for anything else when the striped bass season was closed.  Mr. Grout seconded.

Again, Mr. Luisi opposed, arguing that Ms. Meserve’s motion didn’t capture the reality of Maryland’s Bay fishery, saying that anglers wouldn’t switch targets and

“If striped bass is closed, the trip does not happen.”

Nonetheless, Ms. Meserve’s motion passed on a vote of 12 to 4, with only New York, Maryland, the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, and Virginia in opposition.

And with that, the discussion of how to reduce fishing mortality was done, although the Management Board still had three other matters to discuss.

The first was whether to require commercial fishermen to tag their striped bass at the point of harvest or, at the latest, before their boat returned to shore, rather than at the point of sale, as is currently permitted in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and North Carolina.  Mr. Clark thus made a motion that read,

“Move to add an option for tagging at point of landing in Section 3.2,”

which was seconded by David Borden, Rhode Island’s Governor’s Appointee.

He justified his motion by arguing that, by not tagging bass before the point of first sale, there is an opportunity for fishermen to divert bass into the black market.  A majority of the Law Enforcement Committee agreed with that rationale, although there was a minority who felt that tagging at the point of harvest or landing might actually increase illegal activity, in the form of fishermen using other fishermen’s tags, and would certainly increase the administrative burden.

In the end, no one had a problem with Mr. Clark’s motion, and it passed by unanimous consent.

At that point, Mr. Clark made what might have been the most bizarre motion of the meeting, which read

“Move to add in Section 3.2 the following text:  Option B [requiring tagging at the point of harvest] can be considered an unquantifiable reduction in commercial removals because it strengthens the enforceability of commercial quotas.  The Board has approved unquantifiable reductions in recreational removals in recent years (e.g. gaffing prohibition) to offset the reductions needed through other recreational measures.  If the public and Board decide to pursue an option in Section 3.4 requiring further reductions in striped bass removals, Option B, by providing an unquantifiable reduction in commercial landings, justifies a smaller reduction for the commercial sector.”

Besides being factually inaccurate—the no-gaff provision was not used to “offset” any other recreational measure, but was merely adopted as good management practice—Mr. Clark’s motion was clearly just another way to undercut the commercial quota reduction needed to rebuild the stock.

Fortunately, it died stillborn, with no one willing to provide a second.

The second related issue was a reorganization of Maryland’s recreational seasons, which became a hodgepodge of open seasons, no-harvest closures, and no-target closures that Maryland imposed on the shore-based and private boat recreational fishery in order to provide greater benefits for its commercial and for-hire sectors.  Maryland hopes to provide a more logical season structure that would benefit both its striped bass and its striped bass fishermen, and presented a proposal that would allegedly do just that without increasing recreational fishing mortality.

However, there was substantial uncertainty surrounding the proposal, as it would open a catch-and-release season, and later a catch-and-kill season, at a time in the spring when, previously, no targeting was allowed.  The Technical Committee acknowledged discomfort with Maryland’s claim that the new open seasons wouldn’t increase recreational fishing effort, but it lacked the data needed to predict what any change in effort might be, and thus did not change the Maryland proposal in that regard.  

But the Plan Development Team included two options that called for buffers of 10 and 25 percent, respectively, to account for the uncertainty by increasing the reduction that Maryland would have to achieve with its reorganization effort.

Mr. Sikorsky moved to eliminate the 25 percent buffer option, arguing that, while the management plan called for such buffers in the case of conservation equivalency proposals, what Maryland was doing wasn’t technically conservation equivalency, that the percent standard error in the Maryland data, when taken as a whole, was under 30 (the level which triggered a 25 percent conservation equivalency buffer), and that

“The buffers are almost punitive.”

Ms. Meserve then made a motion to amend, seeking to also remove the option that would allow Maryland to reorganize its recreational seasons without any buffer at all.  Mr. Grout seconded, and Mr. Sikorski objected, again arguing  that the buffers were punitive (a questionable claim given the level of uncertainty acknowledged by the Technical Committee), and that a substantial majority of stakeholders supported what Maryland was attempting to do.

In the end, Ms. Meserve’s motion failed, gaining the support of only New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and North Carolina.

At that point, Robert Brown, a commercial fisherman and a Governor’s Appointee from Maryland, moved that the entire section addressing Maryland’s reorganized recreational seasons be deleted from the Draft Addendum.  His motion failed for want of a second.  The main motion, to remove the 25 percent buffer option, then passed on a vote of 10 in favor, three against, and three abstentions.

The Management Board then moved on to the final issue, a proposal that would require anglers to measure striped bass in a straight line, from the tip of the snout to the end of the tail, with the tail compressed to achieve the greatest possible length, rather than over the curve of the body.  On that issue, there was neither discussion nor dissent.

The Draft Addendum was then approved for public comment, again by unanimous consent.

Where does that leave the bass and the bass fishermen?

There will undoubtedly be opposition to Addendum III, with most probably coming from the commercial and for-hire sectors.  The 12 percent fishing mortality reduction in the Draft Addendum is the bare minimum needed to rebuild the stock by 2029, and leave it in the best possible position to face the future should the current very low recruitment rate continue.  Thus, it is important that anglers comment on the Draft Addendum, in order to better assure that the reduction actually happens.

Beyond that, it makes sense to oppose unenforceable no-target closures, which will almost certainly be less effective than they appear on paper, in favor of clearly quantifiable, but somewhat longer, no-harvest closures—that is, traditional closed seasons.  Such traditional closures will allow anglers to continue to fish, and so allow tackle shops and for-hire boats to do some kind of business, when the season is closed, and so provide the greatest socio-economic benefits from the fishery while also providing the most certain and quantifiable benefits to the bass stock.

It may also make sense to support the mandatory commercial tagging at harvest/before landing, and for an interesting reason.  At this time, Massachusetts may have the only open-access commercial striped bass fishery on the coast, which sees bass caught and sold not only by legitimate commercial fishermen, who depend on the fishery to feed, house, and clothe their families, but also by what have been dubbed “recremercials,” anglers who choose to sell their fish to pay some of the cost of their hobby.  Massachusetts has already publicly stated that if it is forced to go to a tag at harvest/landing, rather than a tag at sale, system, it would be practically unable to provide tags to all of those currently licensed to sell striped bass, and might be required to put some sort of limitations on who can get a commercial striped bass permit.

That could be a good thing.

Also, from a conservation perspective, if the Maryland reorganization is to be supported at all, the option that includes a 10 percent uncertainty buffer should be the only one considered.  We know that uncertainty exists, and the expectation is that effort and landings will, in the end, be higher than Maryland predicts.  Under such circumstances, a buffer is not punitive, it is merely prudent.

Finally, anglers should oppose any sector separation proposal that trades a longer closed season for everyone for a more liberal slot limit for the for-hire fleet.  An angler is an angler, no matter whether they fish from shore, their own boat, or a for-hire vessel, and as a policy matter, it is wrong, and completely unjust, to elevate one small group of anglers above another, and grant them special privileges, particularly when for-hire anglers account for a very small percentage—well under five percent—ofall directed striped bass trips, and so should not be raised above those who make most of the trips and generate most of the economic benefits from the fishery.

And that’s it for now.

Once the schedule of public hearings is out, and the Draft Addendum is released in its final form, I’ll undoubtedly put out another post addressing the specific issues in greater detail.  But for now, you can just take what we know so far, and start steeling yourself for the debate to come.