THE PROBLEM WITH THE STRIPED BASS HEARINGS

 

What a field day for the heat

A thousand people in the street

Singing songs and a-carrying signs

Mostly saying hooray for our side.

                              From “For What It’s Worth”

                              by Buffalo Springfield, 1966

 

When the song “For What It’s Worth” was recorded back in the latter half of the 1960s, I was still very young, growing up in a nation riven by internal conflicts over the Viet Nam War, civil rights, and the first stirrings of feminism and the environmental movement.  Traditional values were being challenged by a public growing ever less willing to accept the status quo. 

Although the song was originally a response to a curfew imposed by the City of Los Angeles, California, intended to reduce late-night crowds patronizing various music venues, the lyrics became, and still are, an anthem and--if you listen closely enough, also a caution--for advocates who challenge the established governing system and work toward some sort of reform.

As I’ve grown older and more cynical, I’ve also noted to myself that some of its lyrics could apply as much to a fisheries hearing—and particularly, in my part of the world, a striped bass hearing—as to a debate over other, more broadly applicable policy matters that raise the public’s ire.

Certainly, the current debate over the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Draft Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass for Public Comment seems to fit.

At its heart, Addendum III is a simple document, born out of a simple need:  The last benchmark striped bass stock assessment, which the ASMFC accepted in early 2019, found that the striped bass stock was overfished.  Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which was still in effect at that time, required the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board to rebuild the overfished stock within 10 years, thus establishing a 2029 rebuilding deadline (Amendment 7 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, adopted in 2022, includes the same requirement).  Last October, a 2024 update to the stock assessment was released, which informed biologists and fishery managers that the stock was unlikely to meet the rebuilding deadline unless removals (the combination of landings and release/discard mortality) were reduced.  At the August 2025 Management Board meeting, the ASMFC’s Striped Bass Technical Committee informed the Board that, in order to have a 50% probability of meeting the rebuilding deadline, striped bass removals would have to be reduced by 12%.

Although it also addresses some ancillary issues, the primary purpose of Addendum III was to implement that 12% reduction.

Efforts to reduce removals, regardless of the species involved, are always controversial, but Addendum III’s relatively modest harvest cuts drew particular rancor because, for the first time, they called for a closed recreational fishing season in the ocean fishery (which includes all recreational striped bass fisheries outside of the Chesapeake Bay).  

With the bag limit already reduced to a single fish, and a narrow, 28- to 31-inch slot limit already in place, such closed season represented the only practical way to achieve the necessary reduction.  But that didn’t mean that anglers were going to accept the closure easily, particularly when it might shut down fishing at the most productive times of the year.

Commercial fishermen rejected any quota reduction outright, and disclaimed any responsibility for the striped bass’ current depleted condition.  They adamantly insisted that they were only responsible for 10% of all removals—rarely mentioning that their share of the removals increased to 16% in 2024. 

New York’s Bonnie Brady, the head of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, whined that

“It’s the commercial fleet that takes the cut,”

even though the same 12% reduction would be applied to the commercial and recreational fisheries, and claimed that

“Commercial and for-hire fishermen did not create this problem,”

even though, in 2024, the combined commercial and for-hire fisheries accounted for more than 20% of all striped bass removals.

Instead, Brady blamed the shore-based and private boat anglers, and particularly those who practiced catch-and-release, for any woes that might be besetting the striped bass stock.

Her comments were in line with those made by the rest of the commercial fishing community, some of whom even said things like

“Why haven’t you considered giving us 12 percent back instead of taking?”

and

“I’ve been doing this for 60-plus years.  You come in for one day, trying to run this industry…Had a 12,000-pound quota when this all started.  When you’re done with this one, I’ll have seven.  Take a 50 percent cut in your salary, see how long you sit there.”

The for-hire fleet, for the most part, also sought to evade any responsibility for rebuilding the striped bass stock, even though, on a per-trip basis, they harvest more striped bass than any other segment of the recreational community (an analysis of data made available by the National Marine Fisheries Service indicates that shore-based anglers harvest, on average, 0.025 striped bass per directed striped bass trip, private boat anglers harvest 0.185 striped bass per directed trip, and anglers fishing from for-hire vessels harvest 0.777 striped bass per directed trip).

By and large, the party boat fleet and the traditional “six-pack” charters opposed any landings reductions, and actually sought to increase their harvest by widening the ocean slot limit to 28 to 33 inches, with an equivalent adjustment made to the recreational slot in the Chesapeake Bay, for anglers fishing from their vessels.  

The fact that adopting the wider for-hire slot would force shore-based and private boat anglers to cut back their removals even more, and face a longer closed season, did not seem to bother most of the for-hires at all.  (It should be noted that the smaller light-tackle boats, often colloquially referred to as “guide boats” rather than “charters,” generally supported the 12% reduction and opposed the special for-hire slot, with the American Saltwater Guides Association recommending that the Management Board adopt the former while rejecting the latter.)

The fishing tackle industry also opposed the reduction in removals proposed in the draft addendum, apparently afraid that both shops and manufacturers would lose sales if a closed season was imposed.  The American Sportfishing Association tried to rally anglers in opposition to the proposed reductions, arguing, in part, that

“The recreational striped bass fishery drives billions of dollars in economic activity, supports tens of thousands of jobs, and sustains countless small businesses up and down the Atlantic coast.  An additional 12% reduction would devastate the recreational fishing economy while doing very little to improve the health of the fishery.”

In an exhibition of unintended irony, the American Sportfishing Association alleged that

“ASMFC is reacting to short-term swings in the recreational catch estimates,”

only to have Michael Waine, its spokesman on East Coast fishery matters, call in to an Addendum III hearing held in Kings Park, New York, and argue in favor of maintaining the status quo, because recreational striped bass catch appeared to be off by 50% in the first half of 2024—an argument that could only be called a reaction to a short-term swing in recreational catch estimates.  

A big on-line New Jersey tackle shop also asked its customers to support status quo.

And some Garden State anglers clearly did, as the New Jersey angling press reported that many recreational fishermen attending New Jersey hearings also opposed any reduction in landings.  In other places, the majority of anglers seemed to support Addendum III’s conservation measures.

But in most instances, whether comments were made by recreational fishermen, commercial fishermen, for-hire operators, or members of the fishing tackle industry, most of those comments seemed to focus on how the proposed harvest reductions would impact the person making the comments, or that person’s industry or sector.

Outside of many—but far from all—of the recreational fishermen, the comments were strictly partisan, and didn’t focus on the most important factor of all—the health of the striped bass stock.

In the end, things could be summed up with another set of lyrics:

There’s battle lines being drawn

Nobody’s right, if everybody’s wrong

And in the Amendment III debate, just about everyone has been wrong to a greater or lesser degree.

There are the folks involved in the various businesses—commercial fishermen, for-hire operators, and the tackle industry—who can’t seem to shift their focus from their short-term profits and possible losses onto their likely long-term gains if the bass stock can be rebuilt and maintained at a higher level of abundance.

They seem to lack the ability to contemplate what might happen to their businesses should the bass stock, instead of being rebuilt, go into a further decline and, perhaps, even a collapse.

Given the last six years of historically low levels of recruitment, such decline and collapse are not impossible outcomes.

Yet the businesses' wrongheaded focus on the short term continues.

The many anglers who want to see the bass stock rebuilt often criticize the commercials and for-hires for their resistance to needed management measures, but the recreational sector is also far from blame in that regard.  That has been painfully obvious in their reaction—and their opposition—to the proposed closed seasons.

Since the idea of closed seasons was originally broached, many anglers, most particularly those in states between Maine and New Jersey, complained that the proposed closures would unfairly hamper their ability to fish for striped bass.  

While, to some extent, I could sympathize with the folks from northern New England—they kill relatively few bass, compared to states farther south, and nature has already allowed them the shortest fishing season of any states within the striped bass’ range—the fact remains that everyone has contributed to the species’ decline, and everyone should expect to contribute to its recovery.

So Maine anglers complain about midsummer closures, which hit them at their peak season, while New Jersey fishermen whine that, even though they may catch bass for ten months of the year, closures that impact Wave 3 (May/June) and Wave 6 (November/December) would cause them unacceptable harm.

Here in New York, anglers complain about different possible seasons, depending upon where they fish.  Those who fish on the East End of Long Island abhor the idea of a midsummer closure, but would accept closed seasons in the spring and late fall, while anglers on the western half of Long Island, in Westchester and in New York City share the concerns of New Jersey fishermen, and might grudgingly accept a midseason closure, but don’t want their activities impaired in the spring and the fall.

The need to rebuild the striped bass seems to take second place to anglers’ desires to catch them.

That fact becomes even more clear in the debate between “no-harvest” and “no-target” seasons.

A “no-harvest” season would prohibit anglers from taking fish home, but would not prevent them from practicing catch-and-release; New York’s current striped bass season operates in just that way.  A “no-target” season would prohibit anglers from even trying to catch a striped bass during the closure, regardless of whether or not the fish was released.

Because catch-and-release fishing results in some striped bass dying after being returned to the water, a no-target closure would be shorter than a no-harvest closed season.  However, as a practical matter, no-target seasons are not enforceable, as it is extremely difficult to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that an angler was actually trying to catch a striped bass and not a bluefish, weakfish, or other species that might be caught at the same time in the same waters using the same angling technique, so the mortality savings attributed to such no-target seasons are largely illusory.

In addition, no-target seasons would unnecessarily deny anglers the social and recreational benefits offered by a catch-and-release fishery, while denying angling-related businesses the economic benefits that accrue from anglers catching and releasing striped bass.

Thus, most recreational striped bass fishermen rightfully argue for no-harvest closures and against a no-target season.

However, far too many anglers are opposing no-target seasons so intensely that they are forgetting that the most important issue being considered isn’t the nature of the closed season, but instead the need to reduce striped bass removals by at least 12%, so that the stock can have a reasonable probability of rebuilding by 2029.  

By de-emphasizing the need for such reduction, those anglers are implying that avoiding a no-target closure—something that could be accomplished merely by taking no management action at all, and so maintaining the current status quo—is more important than rebuilding the stock.

They don’t understand that even ae partial reduction, dependent on a flawed and unenforceable no-target closure, is better than no reduction at all.

And that, too, is wrong.

It is time for everyone involved in the fishery—recreational, commercial, for-hire, and related businesses—to understand that there is nothing more important to all of them than the long-term health of the striped bass stock, and that even if it comes at some temporary cost to business and/or to recreational opportunity, a rebuilt stock will, in the end, benefit everyone.

It is time for everyone to understand that, in the long run, drawing battle lines, and cheering on their own side, rather than coming together for the good of the striped bass resource, only makes it more likely that, in the end, we—and the striped bass—are all going to lose.

Yet it seems that, for far too many, that understanding will never come.