RECREATIONAL FISHERY MANAGEMENT: 'TIL THEY MANAGE TO DRAG IT ALL DOWN

 

Federal fisheries managers have gotten so good at their jobs that they’re not only taken for granted, but are too often held in contempt.

In the not-quite quarter-century between 2000 and 2024, federal fisheries managers, relying on the science-based provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, fully rebuilt 51 once-overfished stocks, and have put other stocks onto the road to recovery.  As of the end of 2024, 42 stocks remain overfished, while 23 are still experiencing overfishing.

To put those numbers into perspective, the National Marine Fisheries Service, either on its own, in conjunction with the states, or in conjunction with international organizations such as the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, manages 522 fish stocks and stock complexes.  Of those 522 stocks, it has adequate scientific information to determine the health of 263, or just over half of the total.  Of those 263 stocks with a known status, 84% are not overfished, while 16% still are.

NMFS has slightly better information about fishing mortality rates, and is able to determine whether or not 372 of the 522 stocks are subject to overfishing.  As it turn out, only 6% are, while 94% are being fished at sustainable levels.

It’s clear that a lot more work needs to be done, in order to determine the status of the remaining stocks, although that work won’t come cheap.  Probably little more will be done until we finally get a Congress that is willing to fund the needed science, as well as a presidential administration that doesn’t just issue executive orders that give lip service to the idea of sustainable fisheries, but is also willing to staff a National Marine Fisheries Service with enough biologists and professional fisheries managers to make such sustainable fisheries a realistic goal.

Still, fully rebuilding 51 stocks over 24 years, reducing the number of overfished stocks to 16% of those stocks with known status, and ending overfishing for all but 6% of known-status stocks is a real accomplishment.  Our fisheries are certainly in better shape than they were 30 years ago, when the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996 was passed, finally putting NMFS into the conservation and management business in a big way.

But it turns out that some fishermen, or at least some of the people who represent recreational fishermen, aren’t particularly happy with the way NMFS has managed fish stocks.  Foremost among them is the Center for Sportfishing Policy, an organization composed of fishing tackle and boating industry interests, including the American Sportfishing Association, the largest fishing industry trade group in the nation, and the National Marine Manufacturer’s Association, along with large “anglers’ rights” groups such as the Houston-based Coastal Conservation Association.  The Center for Sportfishing Policy states that its

“mission is to maximize opportunity for saltwater recreational anglers by organizing, focusing and engaging recreational fishing stakeholders to speak with one voice to shape federal marine fisheries management policy.  As an organization of individuals and institutions, CSP promotes sustainable fishing, protects the American angling tradition, supports the economic impact of recreational fishing and boating, works with all stakeholders to fix broken marine fisheries management policies, and advocates for fair fishing rights for anglers.  The recreational fishing and boating industries work hand in hand, with nearly 70 percent of all boats purchased so owners can fish from them.  [emphasis added]”

Jeff Angers, the president of the Center, once wrote,

“As you might expect, the strongest proponents of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the flawed policy that governs federal fisheries management, hail from the North Pacific region, where commercial fishing is king and the original legislation was born.  Since 1976, the law has worked well for fisheries and fishermen in that region, but for few others across the United States…

“Put simply, a one-size-fits all management approach has harmed coastal communities, put a major dent in the recreational fishing industry’s economic output, and left too many Americans stranded at the dock unable to enjoy one of the nation’s favorite pastimes…  [emphasis added]”

Yes, you read that right.  The Center for Sportfishing Policy is calling the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the law that fully rebuilt 51 once-overfished fish stocks—most of which were not in the North Pacific region—and made substantial progress toward ending overfishing and rebuilding other overfished stocks, is a “flawed policy” that leads to “broken marine fisheries management policies.”

It’s hard to conceive of the sort of Bizarro World, if I might steal a quote from the 2000 court decision in Natural Resources Defense Council v. Daley, the lawsuit that gave Magnuson-Stevens real teeth, where a law that led to a more vital ocean and more abundant fish stocks would be deemed “flawed” and “broken.”

That is, it’s hard until you realize who the people attacking the federal management system really are.  The Center’s Chairman is Thom Dammrich, the recently-retired president of the National Marine Manufacturers Assocition.  The two Vice Chairmen are Tommy Hancock, President of Sportsman Boats, and Dave Pfeiffer, the Vice Chairman of Shimano North America Fishing, Inc., one of the largest fishing tackle companies operating in the United States.  The Secretary is Glenn Hughes, the President of the American Sportfishing Association, while the Treasurer is Jason Schratweiser, the President of the International Game Fish Association, the organization that maintains recreational fishing world records and sets the code of conduct for competitive angling.

Of the Center’s 30 directors, 19 represent the boatbuilding and boating equipment industry, 5 represent the fishing tackle industry, 4 represent angling-related organizations that regularly receive donations in kind or in cash from the boating and fishing tackle industries, and two are high net worth individuals associated with such organizations.

The Center can talk as much as it likes about “sustainable fisheries,” “angling tradition,” “fair fishing rights,” and apple pie.  But what we—and, more importantly, federal fisheries managers—are really dealing with is a super trade association, where “the recreational fishing and boating industries work hand in hand” to “support the economic impact of recreational fishing and boating.” 

The problem, from the Center’s perspective, is that the same sort of science-based fisheries management that has federal managers so successful also leads to seasons, size limits, and bag limits that restrict anglers’ ability to go out and catch—or, at least, catch and bring home—as many fish as they’d like to.  In Anger’s words, well-regulated federal fisheries “left too many Americans stranded at the dock unable to enjoy one of the nation’s favorite pastimes” and, far more important from a trade association’s point of view, far less likely to purchase fishing tackle, electronics and other boating gear when the season is closed.  Depending on the fishery, regulations might even cause people to put off the purchase of a new boat.

Thus, federal fisheries management might undercut the fishing and boating industries’ short-term profits, and anything that would do that is naturally, in the eyes of an industry member, a “flawed” and “broken” management system.

Thus, what we’re now seeing is a concerted effort to undercut federal fisheries management and replace it with a patchwork of state management.  After all, while federal fisheries managers are legally required to rebuild overfished stocks within a time certain, end overfishing, and base management actions on the best available science—all actions that can limit angling activity and so industry cash flow—state fisheries managers don’t have to do any of those things.  They can—and not infrequently have—allowed stocks to languish and overfishing to continue, while ignoring the science in favor of whatever political influences happened to prevail at the time.

Yet Angers, and other industry spokesmen, continue to promote the false message that

“the states have proven the ability to balance conservation and access…over many decades,”

even though the biological needs of a species are not negotiable, and allowing “just a little bit” of overfishing in order to provide higher recreational landings—thus, “balancing” conservation and access—is still going to eventually drive a stock into decline.

The myth of the superiority of state management systems was decisively shattered just last Monday, when a North Carolina state judge found, in a lawsuit challenging the adequacy of North Carolina’s state saltwater fisheries management program, that

“The State was forced to concede, as the uncontroverted evidence showed, that not a single species managed by the State exhibits long-term viability,”

“Plaintiffs’ experts’ conclusions on the State’s management failures were entirely unrebutted,”

and that

“On the full trial record, the evidence overwhelmingly established that the State breached its obligations [to manage marine fisheries for the benefit of the public as a whole] under the public trust doctrine and the North Carolina Constitution.”

Ironically, the lawsuit was brought by the North Carolina chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association.  The CCA was one of the founding members of the Center for Sportfishing Policy—which was actually called the “Center for Coastal Conservation” when it was first formed—and one of the greatest advocates for state management of recreational fisheries.  The only hitch is that, in North Carolina, state management was thought to favor the commercial fishery, making a lawsuit against the state, brought by an angling group, seem like a viable option.

One may only wonder whether, had the state’s management failures favored the recreational sector rather than the commercials, the suit would have ever been brought.

Be that as it may, the Center and its component organizations have been aggressively pushing the myth of state superiority, and trying to put state managers in charge of federal waters fisheries, for years.  It might be instructive to look at what happened when they succeeded.

Probably their first success came with Amendment 50 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of Mexico, which maintained the annual recreational red snapper catch limit set by NMFS, but allocated that limit among the five Gulf Coast states, and allowed the states to set seasons that would supposedly constrain state recreational landings to that ACL.

The various organizations that belong to the Center hyped Amendment 50 as “a resounding success,” and in 2025, Florida announced a 126-day-long season, the longest in many years.  People were doing a lot more fishing than they were a few years ago, and one can only presume that they were buying a lot more gear as a result, and so making the industry happy.

The only problem was, the red snapper weren’t holding up their end of the deal.

It turns out that when you have a longer season, and people fish more, a lot more red snapper get caught (whether or not the supposedly superior state data collections pick up the mortality), the size and abundance of snapper decline, and legal fish get harder to find.

Charter and party boat captains, at least those in Florida and Alabama, were starting to complain about the downturn in the red snapper fishery.  In 2024, captains in Destin, Florida were already talking about a red snapper season that was the

“Worst I have seen in a long time,”

with one saying that

“The snapper fishing was by far the toughest snapper season I’ve ever fished.  They were tought from the get-go, and became almost non-existent at the end of the season.”

Another noted that

“We were able to find snappers throughout the season, but it wasn’t necessarily easy and for sure the overall size average was smaller than I’d like.”

Because when states “balance conservation with access,” the end result is fewer and smaller fish.

But states are still jumping aboard the “access” bandwagon, and trying to justify the results.  In Alabama, Dr. Sean Powers, Director of the University of South Alabama’s School of Marine and Environmental Sciences, said,

“During the last five or six years, we’ve seen the average size or red snapper decrease.  We believe that is because of fishing pressure.”

Then he dismissed any concerns about that trend.

“But we have tons of new fish coming in every year.  It may very well be that, without the large snapper on the reef, it makes more room for small snapper.

“…If you look at the total weight number [of all the snapper on a reef], it’s about the same over the past five years.  But instead of having big, medium, and small snapper, we now have small and medium snapper…

“If they want to go back to where the average size is 10 pounds, then we have to go back to nine-day seasons…I am confident that everybody can go out there and get their two 16-inch snapper relatively easily.  For the really big snapper, you have to target them.  You have to have better sites that aren’t fished that much, and you have to be a fisherman again…

“But everything is a balance.  If you want a snapper season that consistently lasts through the summer, then you’re going to have to accept that it’s going to be a little more difficult to catch a legal snapper.  You’re really going to have to be a skilled fisherman and do your research to catch a big snapper.”

In other words, when you start managing for access, in the form of longer seasons, instead of for the long-term health and sustainability of the stock, you are going to have to artificially truncate the age and size structure of the red snapper stock, removing most of the larger fish that generally don’t survive when fishing mortality begins to rise.  And because much of the spawning potential of the red snapper stock is produced by the older, larger females, when you increase access, you decrease fecundity, and render the stock less productive, which seems counter to what one should do if you’re trying to increase landings.

It’s not yet clear what the implications of the truncated age and size structure might be.  The last assessment of the Gulf of Mexico red snapper stock was completed in 2024, but did not pass peer review.  However, given the trends of declining abundance and declining fish size in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, it is far from unlikely that when the next assessment is completed later this year, it will find that the current level of “access” is contrary to the long-term interests of the red snapper stock.

Should that occur, we’ll quickly learn whether the Center, and its member organizations, prioritizes “sustainable fisheries” and “angling tradition” over “the economic impact of recreational fishing and boating” and avoiding “a major dent in the recreational fishing industry’s economic output.”

Although I suspect that we already know what the answer will be.

Certainly, the recreational fishing and boating industry seem to be tipping their hand in the South Atlantic, where they convinced NMFS to violate both the provisions of Magnuson-Stevens and its own regulations, and issue exempted fishing permits that would have allowed the four South Atlantic states to manage red snapper in federal waters, and might have allowed anglers to overfish South Atlantic red snapper by as much as 2,000%.

Allowing overfishing at anything approaching that level—or even at an order of magnitude less—would, sooner or later, do meaningful harm to the red snapper resource, but the industry seemed to be less concerned about potential harm to the resource than it was about the

“confusion, frustration and economic disruption for anglers, for-hire operators, marinas, tackle shops, and coastal communities,”

and the

“economic consequences”

that ensued after a federal judge enjoined any fishing under the illegally issued permits.

Now, the same players are returning to the scene of their previous defeat, again seeking the existence of exempted fishing permits, only this time, in a striking example of circular logic, they’re trying to use the catch, effort, and landings data from the Florida State Reef Fish Survey to demonstrate that overfishing would not occur if exempted fishing permits were issued in order to determine whether the same Florida State Reef Fish Survey could be used to gauge recreational red snapper catch, effort, and landings.

The absurdity of that probably didn’t escape their attention, but neither did the potential tackle sales, should they manage to get the permits issued.

Determining whether the Florida State Reef Fish Survey accurately predicts the level of fishing mortality, or whether issuing the permits will, in reality, lead to overfishing, doesn’t seem to be one of their priorities.  Opening the season and selling more product—as long as the snapper population lasts—is.

And we shouldn’t believe that this sort of thinking is limited to red snapper, or to the South.  Back in 2023, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, acting in concert with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, developed a management approach that would allow recreational fishermen to exceed their annual catch limits for bluefish (once the stock is rebuilt), summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass, and even allow the combined recreational and commercial sectors to overfish those stocks under certain circumstances, without anglers suffering any penalty at all.

Unfortunately, a federal district court ruled against a challenge to that approach, so it is now the law of the land, with recreational landings for black sea bass, in particular, well above the sector’s annual catch limit, and sometimes above the acceptable biological catch for the stock.

Even though the black sea bass spawning stock biomass is high, at about 280% of the target level, we’re already seeing the consequences, much as we are with Gulf red snapper, in the form of a population composed mostly of smaller, younger fish.  Here on Long Island, where I was regularly catching black sea bass in the three- to four-pound range—and sometimes larger—a dozen years ago, today I have problems finding even a single fish that exceeds the current 16-inch minimum size, and perhaps two pounds.

Anglers throughout New York and southern New England are reporting the same sort of problems; even in New Jersey, where the size limit is a mere 12 ½ inches, there are rumblings of discontent with the state of the stock.

Once again, trying to “balance conservation and access,” rather than tailoring management to the needs of the stock, has come at a price, and with most of the population, and most of the spawning potential, concentrated in sea bass no more than four years old, we can only speculate on what might happen if recruitment—which has been exceptionally good in recent years—declines, and doesn’t feed enough young fish into the population to replace the not-that-much-older fish that are being taken out.

Declining Gulf of Mexico red snapper and efforts to sidestep recreational red snapper catch limits in the South Atlantic, along with the incredible shrinking black sea bass along the New England and mid-Atlantic coasts, are warning signs of what we may see, should we allow the recreational fishing and boating industries to successfully undercut the federal management system.

If they get their way, they will certainly increase angler access.

And increased angler access will undoubtedly be good for the industry, at least for a while.

But if it comes at the price of depleted fish stocks, as it almost inevitably will, those industry profits will be completely subsidized by the public’s—and the resource’s—pain.