MARYLAND LEGISLATION CHALLENGES THE ASMFC ON STRIPED BASS

 

On February 6, 2026, two Maryland state senators, C. Anthony Muse and Stephen S. Hershey, Jr., introduced SB 755, designated an “emergency bill” and described as

“AN ACT concerning Natural Resources—Striped Bass Recreational Seasons and Fisheries Regulations for the purpose of prohibiting the Department of Natural Resources from establishing a recreational catch and release season for striped bass; requiring the Department to establish certain recreational and charter boat summer and fall striped bass seasons and a trophy season for striped bass; requiring the Department to complete and submit to certain State entities for review an economic impact statement for any proposed fisheries regulations identified by the Department as having a major impact on interested stakeholders; and generally relating to recreational fishing seasons for striped bass and fisheries regulations.  [formatting omitted]”

Both legislators come from Maryland’s Eastern Shore and, given the content of the bill, it appears that they were acting on behalf of Eastern Shore waterman and, in particular, Maryland charter boat operators, who are seeking a two-striped-bass bag for their customers.

While passage of the bill would undoubtedly please the charter boat community, it would also take Maryland out of compliance with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s fishery management plan for Atlantic striped bass.  As a result, depending on the whims of the Secretary of Commerce and others within the Trump administration, it could thereby result in a complete closure of Maryland’s striped bass fishery.

While the striped bass fishery in Maryland’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay is legally regulated by the State of Maryland, Maryland’s regulatory actions are constrained by the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act, which provides in pertinent part,

“The [Atlantic States Marine Fisheries] Commission shall prepare and adopt coastal fishery management plans to provide for the conservation of coastal fisheries resources…The coastal fishery management plan shall specify the requirements necessary for the States to be in compliance with the plan.  Upon adoption of a coastal fishery management plan, the Commission shall identify each State that is required to implement and enforce that plan…

“Each State identified…with respect to a coastal fishery management plan shall implement and enforce the measures of such plan within the timeframe established in the plan…

“The Commission shall determine that a State in not in compliance with the provision of a coastal fishery management plan if it finds that a State has not implemented and enforced such plan within the timeframes established under the plan…

“Upon making a determination [that a State is out of compliance], the Commission shall within 10 working days notify the Secretaries [of Commerce and the Interior] of such determination.  Such notification shall include the reasons for making the determination and an explicit list of actions that the affected State must take to comply with the coastal fishery management plan…

“Within 30 days after receiving a notification from the Commission [that a state is out of compliance] and after review of the Commission’s determination of noncompliance, the Secretary shall make a finding on whether the State in question has failed to carry out its responsibility [to comply with a coastal fishery management plan]; and, if so, whether the measures that the State has failed to implement and enforce are necessary for the conservation of the fishery in question…

“Upon making a finding…that a State has failed to carry out its responsibility [to comply with the provisions of a coastal fishery management plan] and that the measures it failed to implement and enforce are necessary for conservation, the Secretary [of Commerce] shall declare a moratorium on fishing in the fishery in question within the waters of the noncomplying State…  [formatting and numbering omitted]”

Currently, striped bass are managed pursuant to the ASMFC’s Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, as well as Addendum II and Addendum III to such Amendment.

Relative to Maryland’s recreational striped bass fishery in the Chesapeake Bay, Addendum II provides that

“Chesapeake Bay recreational fisheries are constrained by a 1-fish bag limit and a slot limit of 19 inches to 24 inches…States are required to maintain the same seasons that were in place in 2022.

“The Chesapeake Bay recreational spring trophy fisheries are managed by the same size and bag limits as the ocean fishery (1 fish at 28 inches to 31 inches) with the 2022 trophy season dates.  [internal reference omitted]”

Addendum III granted Maryland some flexibility in setting its seasons, allowing it to either maintain its 2022 seasons or implement a different set of seasons that the state had previously presented to the board and to the Striped Bass Technical Committee; such alternative regulations were not found to increase Maryland recreational striped bass landings.  However, Maryland was not permitted to adopt any other combination of seasons—only the 2022 seasons or the alternative presented to the board were permissible.

A reading of SB 755, makes it clear that the bill, if passed and signed into law, would take Maryland out of compliance with the ASMFC’s striped bass management plan in multiple respects.

The first section of the bill, which simply states,

“The Department may not establish a catch and release season for striped bass, commonly known as rockfish,”

is fine on its face.  If Maryland chose to replace the current catch-and-release seasons with outright prohibitions on striped bass fishing, it would be free to do so without running afoul of the ASMFC’s management plan.  Problems would only arise should the state replace a current catch-and-release season with one allowing harvest.

But the second section creates all sorts of trouble, and not only with respect to compliance issues.

It begins,

“The Department annually shall establish a recreational and charter boat summer and fall striped bass season beginning May 16 each year and ending December 10 each year.”

The reason for that is pretty clear: The charter boats don’t like the current season, which allows no striped bass fishing at all (including catch-and-release) during the last half of July, and dislike the proposed alternative seasons, which would allow harvest throughout July but outlaw all striped bass fishing for the entire month of August, even more, because the for-hire boats do a lot of business during the summer and summer closures limit their profits. 

The problem is that neither the 2022 seasons, which include no striped bass fishing for half of July, nor the alternative set of seasons approved in Addendum III, contemplate the continuous open season specified in SB 755.  That season, if adopted, would take Maryland out of compliance with the current management plan.

A later subparagraph in the same section establishes a bag limit of two fish per person for anglers fishing from charter boats, which clearly contradicts Addendum II’s one-fish bag limit, and would also take Maryland out of compliance.

So would the bill’s section (C), which would require Maryland to establish a spring trophy fishery.

Such fishery existed in 2022, so if Maryland chose to reestablish it, the state would be free to do so if it kept its current season structure; language in Addendum III suggests that, if the alternative season structure was adopted, a trophy fishery would be prohibited.  However, the 2022 trophy fishery ran from May 1 – May 15, while SB 755 would break the new trophy fishery into three 3-consecutive-day periods in late April and/or early May, a clear violation of Addendum II’s requirement that “States are required to maintain the same seasons that were in place in 2022.”

SB 755 is also flawed in that it specifies that anglers “may not catch or possess [emphasis added]” more than two striped bass per day if fishing from a charter boat, or one fish per day if fishing from any other platform.  The plain meaning of the words “catch or” preceding “possess” suggest that if an angler released a bass, whether voluntarily or because the fish was over- or undersized, the released fish would be counted toward the daily bag limit, and that the angler would be required to stop fishing once the one (or, if fishing from a charter boat, two) fish bag limit was caught, even if the angler hadn’t retained any bass up to that point.

But that is a technical issue.  The primary problem with SB 755 is that, if passed, it would take Maryland out of compliance with the ASMFC’s striped bass management plan, and could result in a federally imposed moratorium shutting down the state’s striped bass fishery until the bill was repealed.

If that happened, the charter boats who are presumably behind SB 755 wouldn’t be able to fish at all, at least for a while.

It seems to be one of those cases where the charter boat folks ought to be careful of what they ask for, because they might get it.

And maybe it’s also one of those cases where legislators ought to be careful to understand all of the implications of a bill before they introduce it, because if SB 755 becomes law, and a moratorium is imposed in response, there are going to be a lot of unhappy people, both in the recreational and in the commercial fishery.

And a lot of those commercial and recreational fishermen live—and vote—on the Eastern Shore.