AMERICAN SPORTFISHING ASSOCIATION OPPOSES STRIPED BASS CONSERVATION EFFORTS

 

Earlier this week, the American Sportfishing Association, the fishing tackle industry’s largest trade association, came out in opposition to the primary conservation measures included in the Draft Addendum III toAmendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bassfor Public Comment.  The purpose of Addendum III is to rebuild the currently overfished striped bass stock to its target level by the end of 2029, as explicitly required by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commissions striped bass management plan.

Rebuilding the stock will require a 12 percent reduction in the current fishing mortality rate, a reduction that, in the recreational ocean fishery--which encompasses all recreational striped bass fishing outside of the Chesapeake Bay--can only be achieved by adopting a some sort of closed season, as the current one-fish bag limit and narrow, 28- to 31-inch slot size limit cannot, as a practical matter, be made more restrictive.

The American Sportfishing Association’s opposition to the proposed conservation measures was announced in the September 9 edition of Policy Watch, the ASA’s in-house publication dealing with fisheries management and other policy matters.  The announcement read,

“Speak Up for Striped Bass—Tell ASMFC to Reject Seasonal Closures

“The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) is considering new restrictions for striped bass for 2026, proposing a 12% reduction for the recreational sector, which would require additional seasonal closures to achieve the reduction.  The closures even consider “no targeting”, which prohibits anglers from fishing for striped bass, whether harvesting fish or practicing catch-and-release.

“Additional seasonal closures are being proposed even though the current striped bass fishing mortality is at a 30-year low, well below both the fishing mortality target and threshold.  ASMFC is reacting to short-term swings in recreational catch estimates from the Marine Recreational Information Program, a survey that NOAA Fisheries admitted overestimates fishing effort due to design flaws.

Click the link below to tell the ASMFC to reject new seasonal closures and support status quo management.  [emphasis in original]”

It was the sort of thing that one has come to expect from the American Sportfishing Association, which has frequently demonstrated that it is more interested in exploiting fish stocks in a manner that maximizes short-term sales and the resultant short-term profit, without regard for the long-term health of fish stocks.  

The ASA had already telegraphed its intentions to hamper striped bass recovery efforts, the first time probably being when Michael Waine, its East Coast spokesman, appeared on a podcast to say,

“We’re in a rebuilding period for the striped bass population.  The trajectory is good right now, the rebuilding trajectory.  (Remember that you’ve got to take all this with a grain of salt.  I think it’s better to talk about trajectories rather than talk in absolutes given the uncertainties.)

“So we have an increasing trend in the striped bass, but we know on the horizon there’s been poor recruitment in the Chesapeake Bay, which is a major spawning area for striped bass and that’s been a good indicator of future, or what the fishery will look like in the future, right.  You cannot catch an adult striped bass without starting with a lot of babies.  We know these, what we call ‘poor year classes,’ that have been spawned over the past five years are coming down the road, meaning when the fish get large enough to be a part of our fishery, that we’re catching, there are going to be fewer of them, and so the question becomes, like what do we do in the meantime, to plan for that?

“And so that coupled with very ambitious conservation goals, very ambitious, like we’re trying to rebuild the striped bass population to a level that it has rarely ever been to in the history of striped bass, that we’ve been measuring.  And so the question becomes like how far are we willing to go from a management and policy side to meet these very ambitious conservation goals, and you can see the byproduct of that, we have a very narrow slot limit…We want to make sure…that management is aware of the headwinds but also allows for access for anglers to go out and catch a fish, and so how do we balance these values?  How do we balance building back a population to a conservation level that we call all agree on, which we never likely will, with fishing access, with the ability to actually go out and catch these fish, and what worries me, worries me specifically is like we’ll go too far, meaning we’ll actually tell people to stop fishing for striped bass, which is where I think everyone loses…”

While those comments left at least some room to give ASA the benefit of the doubt as to their intentions, Waine’s comments at the December 2024 meeting of the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, when he argued against the Management Board adopting measures to protect the above-average 2018 year class--which managers are depending on to help rebuild the striped bass spawning stock--made it clear that the American Sportfishing Association had decided to oppose additional conservation measures:

“I think giving the [then-proposed] addendum the opportunity to consider this more thoroughly [rather than adopting regulations that would go into effect in 2025 to protect the important 2018 year class, which will otherwise be very vulnerable to recreational fishermen], really develop options that the public can consume and provide input on is the best way best path forward [sic]. You know, I think about you guys know I am a part of a lot of these fisheries management discussions, and this is probably the most unique fishery that ASMFC manages, especially recreationally. 

“I look at the public comments, and I know that there’s millions of striped bass anglers out there.  Millions.  And I’m only seeing twenty-five hundred comments from a lot of the same people that we know have been commenting.  And so, as an organization, we’re going to work with our members to try to get more people integrated into this process.  We know that the recreational fishery is very diverse, and I don’t feel the public comments really are a good reflection of that diversity.  And so, where is the opportunity to get those individuals into the process? 

“Where is the opportunity to give folks the chance to get involved and engaged?...Don’t talk to the same folks that you’ve been talking to all the time.  Find the people who care about this resource, and value it in a way that their voices should be heard too.  And that’s what we’ll do as an organization ourselves.  [emphasis added]” 

It’s interesting to note, in retrospect, that Waine’s justification for not taking immediate action to conserve the 2018s was based on his—and so ASA’s—support for initiating the management action that we now know as Draft Addendum III-- the same management action that the American Sportfishing Association currently opposes. 

Looking back, the real message in Waine’s December comments was his promise to “to work with our members to try to get more people integrated into this process,” a promise that we now see coming to fruition in the ASA’s recent call, expressed in Policy Watch, for people to oppose new striped bass conservation measures.

With that in mind, it’s also interesting to see the message that the American Sportfishing Association is providing to people who click on the “Take Action” link provided in Policy Watch, to see just how the ASA is trying to recruit supporters to its anti-conservation campaign:

“Protect Recreational Access to Striped Bass:  Oppose Unnecessary Fishing Closures…

“Additional seasonal closures are not needed.  Strict recreational fishery management using a narrow slot limit has effectively lowered fishing mortality to a 30-year low which is well below the target and threshold needed for rebuilding.

“So why push new restrictions?  ASMFC is reacting to short-term swings in recreational catch estimates from MRIP, a survey NOAA Fisheries has already acknowledged overestimates fishing effort due to design flaws.  In fact, the entire case for the proposed 12% reduction is based on a difference of 0.01 in fishing mortality—well within the margin of error and scientifically indistinguishable from the current management approach.

“Instead of acknowledging this uncertainty, ASMFC is proposing a lose-lose choice: accept closures that ban fishing completely or unfairly burden anglers who prefer to legally harvest fish.  These measures create unnecessary division in the angling community.

“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.

“The message is clear:  New restrictions based on unreliable data, that are not scientifically distinguishable from status quo, threaten both angler access and the economy.

“Tell ASMFC to reject new closures and maintain status quo management.  Comments are due no later than October 3.  [emphasis in original]”

It’s a remarkable collection of half-truths—and it’s easy to argue, some “untruths,” too—so it’s worth taking the time to go through the comments line by line to see just where they fall short.

Let’s start with the biggest “untruth” of all—OK, let’s be honest and just call it a blatant lie—"Additional seasonal closures are not needed.”

That’s just plain wrong.

The need for a 12 percent reduction, in order for the stock to rebuild by the end of 2029, is clearly spelled out in a memorandum, dated July 22, 2025, from the Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee and Stock Assessment Subcommittee to the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board.

That memorandum begins, in relevant part,

“Draft Addendum III projections were initially developed and discussed by the [Technical Committee] in March 2025…The projections were updated in May 2025 to incorporate final MRIP estimates for 2024 and initial commercial harvest estimates for 2024 provided by the states.  This resulted in a 7% increase in 2024 removals driven by the 7% increase in final MRIP estimates…

“Even though 7% is a relatively small increase, with the preliminary MRIP estimates falling within the 95% confidence interval of the final estimate, this resulted in a higher estimate of [the fishing mortality rate in 2024] which propagated through to the estimates of [the fishing mortality rate for 2025] and [the fishing mortality rate for the years 2026-2029] due to the assumptions of those years relative to F2024…  [internal references omitted]”

After looking at the final recreational data, the scientists making up the Technical Committee concluded that, when the 7% increase in removals is carried forward through 2029—which it must be, because the removal estimates for the years 2025-2029 are based on removals in 2024—the likelihood of rebuilding the stock by the end of 2029 falls from an dubiously adequate 49 percent to a clearly unacceptable 30 percent.

Of course, when confronted with those figures, the American Sportfishing Association might ask why it is so important to rebuild the stock by 2029, and perhaps the best answer to that question would be, “Because the management plan says so.”

Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass clearly states,

“If female [spawning stock biomass] falls below the threshold, the striped bass management program must be adjusted to rebuild the biomass to a level that is at or above the target within an established timeframe [not to exceed 10 years].  [emphasis added]”

Since the last benchmark stock assessment, accepted by the Management Board in 2019, found that the female spawning stock biomass had fallen below the threshold by 2017, the stock “must” now be rebuilt by 2029.

It’s entirely possible that the ASA wouldn’t consider that a particularly convincing argument, given that Waine told the Management Board, at its August 2014 meeting, that it didn’t have to initiate a 10-year rebuilding plan even after a similar trigger in Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan had been tripped because, with the fishing mortality rate reduced to the target level,

“the trend is to get back toward the target, but we can’t tell you exactly how quickly that will happen.”

Of course, we now know that Waine was far too optimistic, the “trend” was not “to get back toward the target” at all, and the next stock assessment found that striped bass were badly overfished.  

It’s not hard to believe that if Waine, who was the Fishery Management Plan Coordinator for striped bass at the time, had instead upheld the clear language of the management plan, and reminded the Management Board of its duty to initiate a rebuilding plan when the management trigger was tripped, the bass would be in a far better place than they are today.

But, apparently, being burned once was not enough to impart the needed lesson, for we again find Waine—or, at least, Waine’s employer, the American Sportfishing Association—opposing the actions needed to best ensure timely rebuilding.

It should be noted at this point that adhering to the provisions of the management plan isn’t an arbitrary action.  When, after hearing public comment—which, in the case of Amendment 7, supported the management triggers—the Management Board includes a provision in the management plan, it is entering into a moral covenant with the public, promising them that they will manage the striped bass according to the plan’s terms.  

By asking the Management Board not to adopt the harvest reduction needed to rebuild the striped bass stock by the 2029 deadline, the American Sportfishing Association is asking the Management Board to renege on that promise, and violate the trust that the public may have in the management process.

It would thus be an ethically fraught action.  Should the Management Board comply with the ASA’s request, it could only undercut the public’s already shaky confidence in the current management process, and in the ASMFC itself.

The ASA’s next statement, that “Strict recreational fishery management using a narrow slot limit has effectively lowered fishing mortality to a 30-year low which is well below the target and threshold needed for rebuilding,” achieves the dubious distinction of including a two half-truths—one of which comes close to a complete falsehood—in a single sentence.

The near-falsehood is that the current fishing mortality target and threshold is all that is “needed for rebuilding.”  The current fishing mortality threshold is 0.21, and the fishing mortality target is 0.17.  However, to rebuild the stock by the end of 2029, the Technical Committee informs us that fishing mortality must be reduced to 0.122, and to achieve that fishing mortality rate in the years 2025-2029, the 12 percent reduction is needed.

Again, the American Sportfishing Association could, if it chose, play word games, and point out that it said that the current target and threshold are all that’s “needed for rebuilding,” not “needed for rebuilding by 2029.”

But that’s where the half-truth comes in.  For while it may be true that fishing mortality is the lowest that it has been in 30 years, what the ASA doesn’t say is that in those 30 years, fishing mortality has been well over target, and often over threshold, and should never have been allowed to get so high.

Viewed in that context, getting fishing mortality down to the lowest level in 30 years doesn’t seem like such an impressive achievement.  

The other thing that the ASA doesn’t mention is that, while fishing mortality may be the lowest in 30 years, the recruitment of new striped bass into the population has been extremely low, with recruitment in the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay, the single most important spawning area on the entire coast, over the past six years the worst six-year period in the 68-year history of the Maryland juvenile abundance survey.

The Technical Committee has projected that, if recruitment remains at current low levels, the stock will never rebuild and spawning stock biomass will again decrease, beginning in 2029.

So no, current fishing mortality is not low enough to ensure rebuilding.  Further landings reductions are needed.

At this point, the American Sportfishing Association’s arguments against additional conservation measures start getting a little more technical, although they still veer away from the full and accurate story.

Take the claim that “ASMFC is reacting to short-term swings in recreational catch estimates.”  That is, on the whole, true.  But what the ASA doesn’t say is that, for the most part, those short-term swings have shown fishing mortality headed downwards.  Thus, total striped bass removals fell from about 6.8 million fish in 2022 to 5.6 million fish in 2023 to 4.1 million fish in 2024, with the declines largely driven by declining recreational catch and landings.

So if the American Sportfishing Association is trying to impeach the current recreational data because it only reflects “short-term swings,” what it’s really questioning—whether the ASA realizes it or not—is whether recreational removals are really declining substantially, as the MRIP data shows.

They probably ought to have second thoughts about that line of argument, because it clearly doesn’t support their premise that no further landing cuts are needed.

The only significant short-term increase in the 2024 MRIP data—which made a substantial contribution to the 7% increase in estimated recreational removals in the final MRIP data compared to the preliminary estimates—wasn’t, in substance, an increase at all.  It came about after preliminary MRIP data, which showed that New York anglers made only 442,911 trips primarily targeting striped bass in November and December of 2024, was revised upward in the final MRIP data, to 845,711 trips.  ASA might want to throw that change into question and pass it off as just an artifact of an uncertain data-gathering process, but given that the 2022 estimate for the same two-month “wave” was about 1.09 million trips, and the 2023 estimate was 867,384, simple logic would argue that the final 2024 estimate of 845,711 trips, which is close to the estimate for the two previous years, is probably much closer to the actual figure than the preliminary estimate of a mere 442,911.

And as to ASA’s claim that MRIP is “a survey NOAA Fisheries has already acknowledged overestimates fishing effort due to design flaws,” the whole truth again lies in the things that ASA failed to say.  

For yes, NOAA Fisheries has found that MRIP appears to overstate recreational effort, and so also recreational catch and landings (although, according to comments made by NOAA Fisheries personnel at the Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel meeting on September 3, the magnitude of the overages is substantially less than the 30 to 40 percent originally estimated, the greatest level of error occurred in the winter when effort was substantially less, with far less error during the busiest part of the fishing season, and the degree of error was less in the case of boat fishermen than it was in the case of surfcasters).  

However, because the MRIP data is one of the inputs used in the stock assessment to determine the size of the striped bass biomass, if recreational catch and landings are actually less than the current MRIP estimates, than the size of the striped bass biomass is actually smaller than calculated in the most recent stock assessment. 

We can see how that works in the two most recent benchmark stock assessments. 

The 2012 assessment, used the now obsolete Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistical Survey data, which tended to underestimate recreational catch, effort, and landings, as one of its inputs.  It advised that the female spawning stock biomass was 61,500 metric tons, between the biomass target of 73,380 metric tons and the biomass threshold of 57,904 metric tons.  However, the 2018 benchmark stock assessment, which replaced the old MRFSS data with data derived from MRIP, which returned substantially higher estimates (now believed to be overestimates) of recreational catch, effort, and landings, estimated female spawning stock biomass to be slightly higher, at 68,476 metric tons, but also found the stock to be badly overfished, since the new, higher estimates of recreational removals caused the biomass threshold to be recalculated, and it increased from 57,904 metric tons to 91,436.

So, if recent recreational landings were actually lower than the MRIP estimates, as the ASA claims (and they probably were), that means that the striped bass spawning stock is also lower than the latest stock assessment suggests, and that reference points will need to be changed as well.

The bottom line is that lower recreational removals do not justify the ASA’s call to maintain such removals at their current level. 

The American Sportfishing Association’s assertion that “ASMFC is proposing a lose-lose choice: accept closures that ban fishing completely or unfairly burden anglers who prefer to legally harvest fish.  These measures create unnecessary division in the angling community” may be its most bizarre claims of all.  While “no target” closures would ban all striped bass fishing during the term of such closure, it’s not clear why “no harvest” closures, which permit catch-and-release during the closed season, “unfairly burden” anglers who might want to keep a bass.

Such no-harvest closures are generally accepted in the fishing management and the angling communities.  Here in New York, we have had such no harvest closures in our striped bass fishery since at least the 1990s.  In federal waters off New York’s coast, they exist for shortfin mako sharks and other prohibited shark species, and for bluefin tuna during the closed season.  In New York’s fresh waters, no harvest seasons that allow catch-and-release fishing exist in the recreational fisheries for trout and both largemouth and smallmouth bass.

Other states have adopted similar rules.

To date, few if any anglers have complained that such seasons “unfairly burden” anglers who might want to harvest fish.  They just require all anglers—and most anglers do harvest fish from time to time—to wait for the season to open before taking fish home.  That is, after all, how closed seasons are supposed to work.

For ASA to grasp at straws and claim that a traditional tool of fisheries management has some how become “unfair” when applied to striped bass does little but demonstrate the weakness of its overall position.

And to claim that closed seasons somehow cause division in the angling community is just downright strange.  If anything might cause outrage and division, it is the American Sportfishing Association’s opposition to needed striped bass conservation efforts, for most dedicated striped bass anglers care deeply about their favorite species’ future.

For the true losing proposition is being presented by the ASA:  Maintaining status quo regulations in the face of an overfished stock and historically low levels of recruitment, and so exposing the striped bass stock, and striped bass anglers, to the very real risk of a stock collapse at least as severe as the one that we experienced half a century ago.

Which, finally, gets us to the American Sportfishing Association’s motivation for opposing conservation measures, a motivation that exposes just how foolish its opposition really is. 

It all comes down to money.

The ASA notes 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.” 

And yes, that’s true.  The recreational striped bass fishery is the single most important salt water recreational fishery to be found anywhere in the United States which, given that no other nation hosts as large a recreational fishery as the U.S. does, means that it’s the most important salt water recreational fishery in the entire world.

And from the vehement, if deceptive, arguments that its making, it’s pretty clear that the ASA isn’t willing to see even one of those billion dollars generated by the fishery lost, even temporarily, to conservation efforts. 

Which is short-sighted and, to be frank, remarkably stupid.

Because MRIP data clearly demonstrates that striped bass fishing activity is generated not by the number of dead bass that anglers can put on the dock, but by the number of live fish they can find in the water.  Abundance generates effort, and effort generates revenues.

From 1995 through 2014, the recreational ocean fishery was generally governed by the same set of regulations—a two-fish bag limit, 28-inch minimum size, and no closed season.  Some states veered away from that, but even in those states, regulations generally stated the same through the years.  Yet if we look at the effort data compiled by MRIP, we see directed striped bass trips increase steadily from 1995 through 2006 or 2007, then begin a long decline; the number of trips taken corresponds almost perfectly with the changes in striped bass biomass, as regulations went unchanged.

Thus, we—and the Management Board—would do well to completely ignore the ASA’s ludicrous claim that “An additional 12% reduction would devastate the recreational fishing economy.”  The ASMFC acknowledges that

“The recreational fishery is primarily prosecuted as catch and release, meaning the majority of striped bass caught are released alive either due to angler preference or regulation…Since 1990, roughly 90% of total annual striped bass catch is released alive.”

To suggest that a 12 percent reduction in landings is going to “devastate the recreational fishing economy” in a fishery where 90 percent of the fish caught are already released is to stretch credibility to, and then well beyond, the breaking point.

To put it as politely as I can, the American Sportfishing Association’s arguments against the 12 percent reduction called for in Addendum III are a towering sculpture composed solely of bullsh*t and greed, authored by a trade organization so desperate to preserve short-term profits that it would risk a stock collapse that really would devastate the salt water sportfishing industry.

Because no one goes fishing if there aren’t any fish.

And if people don’t fish, they don’t buy fishing gear.

That seems to be a point that the ASA is forgetting.

But I don’t forget the last stock collapse, when bass were nearly as scarce as unicorns, and I could fish for a week and only catch one or two.

The other thing that I can remember—and the ASA ought to remember, too—was that back when there were no bass, you could spend a day on the water and never deal with crowds.

The fishermen all stayed home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BLOWING SMOKE: "FAIRNESS" AND "EQUITY" IN STRIPED BASS MANAGEMENT

 

When any major fisheries management measure comes up for debate, we can always be sure that we will hear someone bring up the concepts of “fairness” and “equity.”

And most people, hearing that, would think, “Of course,” because everyone wants to be fair. 

At least in theory.

Even the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act has decreed, as part of its National Standard 4, that

“If it becomes necessary to allocate or assign fishing privileges among various United States fishermen, such allocation shall be fair and equitable to all such fishermen…  [formatting omitted]”

But once we get away from Magnuson-Stevens, we find that concepts of “fairness” and “equity” have no fixed meaning.  For in fisheries, as in kindergartens, geopolitics, and corporate management suites, if I get more than you, then things are perfectly fair and equitable.  I you get more than me, everything is completely unfair, and corrective measures are needed.

Striped bass management may provide the starkest illustration of that truth.

Soon after the adoption of Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, the fairness argument became weaponized by sectors and their advocates on the Management Board, who began slinging it around indiscriminately and without a solid logical basis, solely to gain advantage for themselves at the expense of everyone else—and of the striped bass.

As strange as it sounds, special treatment for particular sectors of the striped bass fishery is now being justified by some twisted concept of “fairness.”

Thus, in August 2023, when the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board began discussing a motion that would extend the emergency action for another year, unless an addendum to Amendment 7 was adopted sooner, Adam Nowalsky, the Legislative Proxy from New Jersey, rose to oppose the motion on what were essentially equitable grounds, saying

“if the concern of this body is the health of the resource, and in five of the last six years removals have exceeded, the majority of the removals have come from release mortality and not harvest, and this emergency action focuses only on harvest.

“How could we in good conscience say we’re doing this purely for the resource?  We are doing this as a de facto reallocation from the harvest fishery to the release fishery.  The reallocation of such has a dramatic impact on the demographics of the users of this resource.  They are very different users.  They come from very different backgrounds.

“They have a very different purpose.  Not only is this not in the overall best interest of the resource, but it severely impacts one demographic group over another…”

It was a somewhat puzzling argument, given that the purpose of the emergency action was to protect the majority of the large 2015 year class of striped bass, which was expected to be instrumental in rebuilding the overfished striped bass stock, and also given that it kept everyone on the same, level playing field, able to harvest the same, 28- to 31-inch fish.  But to Nowalsky, the motion was somehow unfair, because it didn’t let one group of anglers to kill as many bass as they wanted to.

But that is how the “fairness” argument typically goes.  And most of the Management Board seemed to understand that, so the motion Nowalsky opposed passed by a substantial margin.

Yet the debate over granting special privileges to the commercial and for-hire fleets, and placing the greatest conservation burden on shore-based and for-hire anglers—all in the name of “fairness”—was just gaining steam.

For along with the effort to grant special privileges to the for-hire fleet came the effort to prohibit catch-and-release angling during the closed season, a prohibition that was never before put in place on a coastwide basis, not even during the 1980s, when harvest moratoriums in most coastal states helped fully restore what had been a collapsed striped bass stock.  But the for-hire fleet—or, at least, that portion of the fleet that specialized in serving up dead striped bass to its customers—liked the idea, because such “no-target” closures, which theoretically reduced or eliminated release mortality, would allow for a shorter closed season, and let them get back to their business of killing striped bass that much sooner.

Thus, at the same August 2023 Management Board meeting, we saw New York’s Governor’s Appointee, Emerson Hasbrouck, speak in favor of such no-target closures, saying

“Harvest and discard mortality have been pretty much evenly split, in terms of which one comprised the majority of recreational removals over the past 10 years.  I don’t know why we would not want to help address this high level of discard mortality by implementing no targeting…

“I know there are enforcement issues…I have to think that there will be compliance with no targeting, even if enforcement is problematic…

“I also understand that we can’t actually calculate what the reduction in fishing mortality will be with a no-targeting closure.  But we couldn’t calculate that for some of the other things that we’ve implemented, circle hooks and no gaffing, but we know that they are going to reduce mortality.  Similarly, with a no targeting closure it is going to reduce that discard mortality.”

Hasbrouck didn’t play the “fairness” card at that point, but it was only a matter of time before he became a leading advocate of reducing recreational (but not commercial or for-hire) effort in the name of regulatory “fairness.”

Later on in the same meeting, he seconded a motion that would include options granting special privileges to the for-hire fleet, not enjoyed by other anglers, in the draft Addendum II to Amendment 7, which was going out for public comment.

He rose yet again, to put a motion on the table that would have removed a 14.5 percent reduction in the commercial striped bass quota from the draft Addendum II, and so place all of the burden of rebuilding the striped bass stock on the shoulders of recreational fishermen. 

Apparently, neither granting the for-hire fleet special privileges not enjoyed by other anglers, nor placing the entire responsibility for rebuilding the striped bass stock on the shoulders of anglers offended his notions of “fairness,” which seems more than a little absurd after we look at his comments at subsequent meetings.

The absurdity—for both Hasbrouck and others—began early when the Management Board met in January 2024, to approve the final version of Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, as Hasbrouck implicitly questioned the validity of the public comment when he asked

“…For most of the written comments and comments received at then public hearing.  The majority of those commenters, again written and again at the public meetings, were recreational fishermen, primarily?  Is that correct?...”

Upon learning that his assumption was true, he went on,

“However, our own [Advisory Panel] we have a more balanced representation between recreational anglers, the for-hire industry and commercial fishermen, so that provides us with a more balanced representation.  As I recall from your presentation, the [Advisory Panel] and the majority, actually twice as many, I think, members of the [Advisory Panel] supported Option C [granting special privileges to the for-hire fleet] for the ocean fishery.  There was also overwhelming support for Option, I think it was Option A, status quo for the commercial reduction.”

Thus, his comments suggested, the great majority of the public comment should be discounted, and the sector that generated about 90 percent of all striped bass removals, and the vast majority of the social and economic benefits gleaned from the fishery largely ignored, to the benefit of two special interest groups, the for-hire fleet, which accounted for less then two percent of all recreational trips primarily targeting striped bass, and the commercial sector, which was only responsible for about 10 percent of striped bass removals, and which, from a purely economic perspective, probably shouldn’t exist at all.

Yet Hasbrouck seems to see nothing “unfair” about his anti-angler bias, as soon after making his comment, he seconded an ultimately unsuccessful motion that would have allowed the for-hire fleet to retain striped bass that must be released by the rest of the angling community.

Shortly thereafter, Maryland’s Luisi made not one, but three different motions attempting to grant for-hire boats in the Chesapeake Bay a two-fish bag limit, when the rest of the anglers could keep only one.  In justifying his efforts, he said

“Fairness has been brought up, it has been discussed, and in my opinion it’s very difficult for me to have two different sectors of the same group.  You have your…sport angler, your catch and release angler and your for-hire captain, who is taking trips for parties for the purpose of business.  It’s very difficult for me to look at those two individuals and believe that they are one and the same.”

The problem with that argument, of course, is that the striped bass bag limit isn’t intended to regulate for-hire captains—or to regulate tackle shops, fuel docks, or any other angling-related business, all of which are affected to some degree by striped bass regulations.  The bag limit is applied to the individual angler, and it is hard to argue that it is “unfair” for all anglers to be governed by the same rules. 

Although Luisi, in his efforts to aid the for-hire fleet, fell back on the “fairness” argument anyway, even using it in support of what would have been, from the anglers’ perspective, a very unfair rule that favored one small group of anglers over everyone else.  His efforts finally raised the ire of a member of his own delegation, Legislative Proxy David Sikorski, who fumed,

“Let’s stop trying to define people by the way they choose to participate in the fishery, or what their opinion might be at the time you talk to them.  Stop this—sportsmen versus clients versus these people or those people.  It is the general public, and I cannot support giving some people in the general public two fish, when other people get one…”

He was talking about real “fairness”—creating a level playing field for everyone—and enough people agreed that all of Luisi’s efforts went for nought.

But that didn’t stop some Board members efforts to create special rules and exemptions for a privileged group of stakeholders.  Once the recreational sizes and bag limits were addressed, John Clark, the Delaware fisheries manager, made a motion to leave the commercial quota unchanged, a motion which would have, again, placed the entire burden of striped bass recovery on the recreational sector.  He seemed to reject the “fairness” argument, saying

“I understand how there is a concern that if the recreational side has to do something, then the commercial side has to do it.  But once again, I said when we first started this addendum process, we weren’t even talking about taking anything away from the commercial, because we recognized what a small part of reduction in the striped bass numbers were out there.”

Why the commercial sector shouldn’t, in “fairness,” make an equally small contribution to the bass’ recovery wasn’t quite clear.

Hasbrouck seconded Clark’s motion, justifying has action by arguing

“everyone will benefit from an increase in the population of striped bass.  But we’re trying to deal right now with this large increase in recreational removals.  Again, I think it’s disingenuous for us to put a lot of that onus on the commercial fishery, when they haven’t been part of the problem that we’re looking to address.”

Apparently, in his mind, the 10 percent of striped bass removals attributable to the commercial fishery didn’t contribute to the present, depleted condition of the striped bass stock.  Thus, it was apparently “fair” for the commercial sector to share fully in any increase in the striped bass population, but “disingenuous”—that is, dishonest or duplicitous, and so even worse than “unfair”—to make the commercial sector responsible for 10 percent of the species’ recovery.

Maybe, if you’re biased against the recreational sector—or biased in favor of the commercials and for-hires, which amounts to about the same thing—that makes some sort of sense although, if you believe that everyone should share the burdens and the benefits of a striped bass recovery equally, the logic is pretty hard to see.

The shenanigans continued after the effort to leave the commercial quota untouched had failed.  That’s when Luisi moved to cut the commercial reduction by seven percent, as opposed to the 14 percent reduction faced by the recreational sector.  Jeff Kaelin, the Governor’s Appointee from New Jersey, seconded.  The motion then passed by a narrow majority, which apparently saw nothing “unfair” about the disparate conservation burdens.

Then, the “fairness” issue festered, until the next management action—or, more accurately, non-action—that occurred at the December 2024 Board meeting.

The Board was deciding whether to take any action to protect the slightly above-average 2018 year class of striped bass, which would have grown into the slot by 2025 or, in the alternative, take no action for the 2025 season, but instead initiate a new addendum that would go into effect in 2026. 

In the ocean fishery, the only practical way to achieve the needed harvest reduction was a season, and there was a legitimate discussion about what season would be fair to all—that is, the season that would require everyone to give up something, without placing too much of a burden on anyone, or letting any state get away without making a significant contribution to the recovery of the striped bass stock.

Once again, the issue of no harvest versus no target closures arose, and it came in a pair of hypocritical statements extreme enough to define the entire striped bass “fairness” debate.  And once again, they were made by New York’s Governor’s Appointee, Emerson Hasbrouck, who said

“As a Commissioner in New York, representing all citizens of the state of New York, one of the things that I’m concerned about is equity.  A couple of things that I’ve heard through a lot of the public comment, is that a lot of people say we should take some action here today, and that all sectors need to participate in that reduction.  However, there seems to be an exception being made by the public, an exception for catch and release.

“Some of the language is that many anglers could still participate in the fishery if catch and release is allowed.  But if we’re reducing removals, don’t we want to reduce all removals?..

“Perhaps in the [Advisory Panel] or public comment about how are we going to be equitable here with telling some components of the recreational fishery, you can’t go fishing, and perhaps a reduction in the commercial fishery, and at the same time saying, oh, but it’s okay if we continue to allow a segment of the recreational fishery to keep catching fish and discarding and applying that 9 percent mortality…”

Later on in the meeting, he continued expounding on the same theme:

“This motion [to consider no target closures] an issue that has been concerning me, and that issue is equity and inequity.  You know reading through the public comment, the public comment summary, the [Advisory Panel] report, speaking with fishermen, and as a Commissioner representing all citizens in the state of New York, I see that there is an inequity here in not addressing catch and release.

“We know that catch and release doesn’t remove as many fish, and when I say remove, I don’t mean just harvest, I mean dead discards as well.  But a lot of the comment is that everybody needs to sacrifice, because everybody will benefit.  But then there is always the caveat, except we can’t have no targeting, because by not having no targeting it provides an opportunity for anglers to continue fishing.

“To me that is somewhat disingenuous, and I know that no targeting is difficult to enforce.  But we’ve been ignoring the removals by people who continue to target striped bass during closed seasons and otherwise…”

It’s hard to know where to start when dissecting those comments, although the first thing that sticks out is Hasbrouck’s claim that he is “representing all citizens of the state of New York,” a claim that is patently false because, as much as one might read through the transcripts of Management Board meetings, one will never find a time when Hasbrouck represented the most populous group of New York participants in the striped bass fishery—the recreational fishermen. 

Instead, we will find times, as described above, when he tried to discount the public comments submitted by thousands of anglers, in favor of those made by a handful of commercial fishermen and for-hire operators. 

We will find multiple occasions when he actively supported leaving commercial quotas untouched, so that those same anglers will have to bear the entire burden of bass conservation (something that he did later in the December meeting, when he seconded a motion to cut the commercial quota reduction from nine to a trivial one percent and, when that motion failed, made another motion to cut the quota reduction from nine percent to five), and times when he supported increasing for-hire landings at the same time that shore-based and private boat landings was reduced.

But we will not find a single time that he supported New York’s recreational striped bass fishermen, whom he always cast in a subordinate role.

We will find him asking “don’t we want to reduce all removals?” in an effort to burden the recreational catch-and-release fishery, at the same time that he seeks to minimize, or even eliminate, cuts to the commercial quota, and seeks to increase the for-hire kill.

Worse, we find him misrepresenting the nature of the recreational fishery by pretending that there are two separate components—one catch-and-release, one catch-and-kill—when the reality is that most striped bass anglers keep some of their fish while intentionally releasing others, with some emphasizing harvest and some emphasizing sport, but with most engaging in both activities.  So, when he said that allowing catch-and-release in the closed season would be “telling some components of the recreational fishery, you can’t go fishing,” he was telling a blatant lie, because all components of the recreational fishery could go fishing during such a closure, just as no component of the recreational fishery could harvest a fish during that time.  Such a situation represents true equity, with all components of the recreational fishery treated the same, something that Hasbrouck, with his apparent dislike for catch-and-release angling, refuses to admit—perhaps even to himself.

In the end, what is truly disingenuous is a Management Board member who is willing to give commercial fishermen a pass when it comes to reducing their quota, and is willing to increase the for-hires’ kill, but then focuses on limiting catch-and-release angling as a necessary component of any rebuilding plan.

In the end, that abject hypocrisy might sum up the “fairness” argument better than anything else.

“Fairness” isn’t about treating everyone equally.  It isn’t about expecting everyone to do their share to recover the fishery.

Instead, it’s about indulging your personal biases, and labeling everything you don’t like as “unfair.”

A MISSIVE FROM MRIP

 

A few days ago, I got a big envelope in the mail.

The return address was from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, c/o Gallup [the polling firm] in Lynbrook, New York.  I was a little curious, because although it’s not unusual for me to get some mail originating at NOAA, the packaging, and the fact that it was not addressed to me but to “NEW YORK RESIDENT” at my address, seemed a little strange.

The enclosed letter was hardly enlightening, reading, in part,

“I am writing to ask for your help in a study that the Gallup Poll is conducting on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  This survey asks questions about severe weather and outdoor activities.  The results will be used to learn more about the environment and help improve the quality of marine and coastal resources.

“For this study to be accurate, we need all households who receive this short survey to compete it and send it back.  Your address was randomly picked from a list of addresses in New York, and we can’t replace you with someone else.  Your responses will help all residents of New York have their voices heard.

“This survey asks about many outdoor activities.  Some people enjoy many of these activities, while others aren’t interested in these activities.  It is very important that your household complete the survey, even in no one participates in these activities.

“This survey should be completed by an adult limit at this address.  We have included a small gift as a way of saying thank you for your help…”

The letter was signed by John Foster, Chief, Recreational Fisheries Statistics Branch, NOAA Fisheries Office of Science and Technology.  About the same time as I noticed that, two crisp new dollar bills slipped out from between the letter and the enclosed survey form.

At that point, things began to make a little more sense.  Once I started to take the survey, and got a look at the questions, everything made itself clear.

The package that I had received was part of the Fishing Effort Survey, that portion of the Marine Recreational Information Program that is mailed to households in coastal states, in an effort to gauge how many recreational fishing trips were taken in each two-month “wave.”

The Fishing Effort Survey is built around two so-called “frames” that are used to collect effort data.  The first frame is composed of addresses collected from each state’s saltwater fishing license (or registration), which guarantees that the surveys will reach saltwater anglers.  The second frame consists of surveys mailed to random addresses within the state, which is intended to reach anglers who, for whatever reason, never purchased a license. 

Although I have an up-to-date saltwater registration, my survey seemingly came from the frame that was sent to random residents.

Regardless of which frame a survey recipient belongs to, the two dollars that were enclosed were carefully calculated to maximize the chance that the survey would be completed and returned.  Apparently, studies have shown that amounts less than two dollars lead to fewer returned surveys, while higher amounts don’t materially improve the response.  Two dollars apparently sits at the Goldilocks point, where it is just right to encourage cooperation without adding undue cost.

A lot of thought goes into the surveys.  But sometimes, the thought processes backfire a bit.

Two years ago, a pilot study sponsored by the National Marine Fisheries Service discovered that there was an apparent flaw in the design of the Fishing Effort Survey, which might have resulted in fishing effort being overestimated by 30 to 40 percent (comments made at yesterday’s Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel meeting suggested that the actual overage is much smaller, at least with respect to anglers fishing from private boats).  Further research revealed that the overestimate seems to have arisen out of two questions asked of every angler covered by a survey:  How many times did they fish in the past two months, and how many times did they fish in the past calendar year?

It seems that a substantial number of anglers reported that they had fished more in the immediately preceding two months than they had in the previous year, which was an obvious impossibility.

The pilot study looked considered issue, and determined that such misreporting was the result of something called “telescoping error,” which occurs when

“a respondent misplaces an event in time, usually placing the event more recently in time than it actually occurred.”

There was also a suggestion that some anglers were reluctant to provide a negative response, saying that they either didn’t fish much or did not fish at all, and so exaggerated the number of trips taken rather than enter a zero.

The problem seemed to revolve around the order of the two questions.  Typically, in constructing a survey, designers ask the simplest and most easily-answered questions first, and then move on to questions of greater complexity.  Thus, the Fishing Effort Survey first asks each respondent how many times they have fished in the past two months, and then goes on to ask how many times they have fished in the previous year.

But somehow, many anglers were providing the seemingly the “wrong” answer—the higher number—in response to how many times they fished in the past two months, while entering a lower number in response to the question about how many times they fished over the last year.  That’s where the explanations of “telescoping error” as similar things came in.

I’m neither a statistician nor a designer of surveys, so I have to believe the experts when they tell us that’s where the Fishing Effort Survey went wrong.  But I have to believe that at least some of the error might have been due to something that we can call carelessness, or inadvertent error, or maybe just dumb mistakes.  Because I’ll confess right here—I never try to hide the truth from my readers—that I screwed up when answering my own questionnaire.

Maybe it happened because I’m a lawyer, and when faced with a series of questions, I tend to read all of them first, before answering any, because I’m trying to figure out if the questions are set out in a pattern designed to take me to a particular place. 

Maybe it was just a simple brain fart.

But whatever the cause, when I answered the questions about how much I fished, I found myself writing down my annual trip total first, even though the question actually asked me how many trips I had taken over the past two months.  I knew that both questions were being asked, but somehow my mind decided to answer them in the wrong sequence.

In my case, I happened to catch—and correct—the error, but it led me to wonder how many people might have done the same thing that I had.  No telescoping error, no reporting of trips never made, but instead just a moment of mental lapse that led them to put the right numbers in the wrong boxes.

In the end, I sent the survey back with the answers all as right as I could get them, recognizing that, after a lifetime of salt water fishing, I had just participated in the Fishing Effort Survey for the first time.

Which led to another question:  How many other people, here in New York and elsewhere on the coast, have received a similar survey and, not knowing what it was, either pocketed the two bucks and tossed the rest in the trash or, hopefully, dutifully filled out the form and put it in the mail, without ever knowing that they were contributing to the MRIP data pool.

Because one thing we constantly hear, whether at fisheries meetings, in conversations, or on Internet chats, is anglers arguing that the Marine Recreational Information Programs data must be invalid, because such anglers have never been surveyed, and no one they know has been surveyed, so how can the information be any good?

Leaving aside the statistical side of things, which tells us that, so long as a survey reaches a representative sample of the population, it doesn’t need a very large number of responses to reach a reasonably accurate result, being the recipient of what I belatedly recognized as a Fishing Effort Survey questionnaire made me wonder how many anglers who received such a questionnaire never realized that they were being surveyed by MRIP at all.

After all, it’s easy for an angler to know whether they’re part of the Access Point Angler Intercept Survey—that portion of MRIP where surveyors make personal contact with anglers at marinas, piers, and shore access spots, speak with them, and physically count and measure their fish.  That can’t really be mistaken for anything else.

But a seemingly random bit of mail, that asks whether a person has had any recent experiences with severe weather conditions, whether they engage in outdoor activities, go to the beach, fish in fresh water and—after all that—whether they went salt water fishing, and how many times, and whether anyone else in the household might have done the same, might not leave as clear an impression.

I suspect that more than a few people might have responded to the Fishing Effort Survey without ever realizing that that’s what they were doing.

And so long as they responded, that’s probably OK.

But as my experience demonstrates, MRIP sometimes comes calling, whether we expect it or not, and I have to wonder whether it might not get a more effusive welcome if people could more easily recognize it for just what it was.

 

TIME FOR COMMENTS: ASMFC RELEASES STRIPED BASS ADDENDUM III

 

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has finally released its Draft Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass for Public Comment.  It’s a long, information dense document, that doesn't present all of the options as clearly as it might have, but it’s nonetheless important that anglers take the time to attend hearings and/or submit written comments, both for the sake of the striped bass and of themselves.

Public hearings on the Draft Addendum will be held all along the striper coast, beginning with a September 8 hearing in New Hampshire and ending with a September 30 hearing in Massachusetts.  For those who would like to speak, but for some reason can’t attend their local hearing, a general public hearing webinar will be held on September 29.  Hearings here in New York will be held on the evening of September 17, at the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Marine Division headquarters in Kings Park, and on the evening of September 22 at the DEC’s Region 3 Headquarters in New Paltz.

As is typically the case when an important addendum or amendment is out for public comment, this post will take a look at the Draft Addendum, and try to lay out the issues, provide some background, and perhaps answer some questions so that people may better understand the document and make more informed comments on its various options.

The critical issue

The Draft Addendum includes a number of different options, addressing a number of different aspects of striped bass management.  For reasons that aren’t completely clear, although the primary purpose of the proposed Addendum III is

“to support striped bass rebuilding by 2029 in consideration of 2024 recreational and commercial mortality while balancing socioeconomic impacts,”

the first three issues presented in the Draft Addendum have little or nothing to do with the rebuilding process.  Thus, in order to place the primary purpose of the Draft Addendum ahead of subordinate issues, I will begin near the end of Draft Addendum, with Section 3.4, Reduction in Fishery Removals to Support Stock Rebuilding, which begins on page 33.

Section 3.4 includes a suite of related issues, and each issue presents multiple options.  But of all the issues presented, none is more important than the first, when commenters are asked choose between Option A. Status Quo, which would leave both the commercial quota and the recreational management measures unchanged from what they are today—meaning that the striped bass spawning stock biomass will probably not be rebuilt to its target level by 2029—and Option B. Even Sector Reductions:  Commercial -12% and Recreational -12%.

Option B is the only acceptable choice, and it is important that anyone commenting on the Draft Addendum makes it completely clear that, regardless of what else the Management Board decides with respect to the other issues, it must adopt management measures that will have no less than a 50 percent probability of rebuilding the striped bass stock (unfortunately, measures that would have a 60 percent probability of rebuilding were removed at the August Management Board meeting), and must also require everyone, including the commercial sector, the recreational sector, and the for-hire fleet, to equally share the burden of rebuilding the striped bass stock, with none getting special treatment that shifts the burden onto other fishermen’s shoulders.

That last point is important, because even though an option that would have placed the entire burden of rebuilding on the recreational sector, requiring it to reduce fishing mortality by 14 percent while the commercial quota went unchanged, was deleted from the Draft Addendum in August, there is still the possibility that someone will propose reducing the commercial quota by less than 12 percent in the final Addendum III, thus forcing the recreational sector to take on a disproportionate share of the rebuilding, while also dropping the probability of rebuilding below 50 percent.

We saw the same sort of thing happen when Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass was adopted in January 2024.  We don’t need to see it happen again.

Are some anglers more equal than others?                              

The need for everyone to contribute to rebuilding probably faces its biggest challenge in the next set of options, where two options would require shore-based and private-boat anglers to cut back their fishing mortality by 13 percent, rather than 12, so that the small handful of anglers who fish from for-hire vessels will be able to kill even more striped bass than they do today.

Those options appear in the Draft Addendum as O2 Split For-Hire Exemption in the Option B. Ocean Recreational Fishery -12% table, and CB2 Split For-Hire Exemption in the Option B. Chesapeake Bay Recreational Fishery -12% table.

In the ocean fishery, Option O2 would retain the current 28- to 31-inch slot limit for shore-based and private-boat anglers, while gifting the favored group of anglers, who fish from for-hire vessels, with a new, more relaxed 28- to 33-inch slot. 

Because that would let for-hire anglers kill more striped bass, compared to their landings today, at the same time that the rest of the recreational fishermen, as well as the commercial sector, will be forced to cut back their harvest by at least 12 percent, the closed season for all recreational fishermen would have to be extended to make up for the extra fish granted to the for-hires. 

Forcing the shore-based and private-boat anglers to give up fishing, or at least harvesting, days—depending on whether no-target or no-harvest closures are adopted (we’ll get to those next)—just so the small handful of anglers fishing from for-hire vessels can kill more striped bass hardly seems equitable.  Yet a disconcertingly large number of Management Board members—including some who love to give lip service to “fairness” and “equity”—will undoubtedly support such an action.

Which is one reason why anglers need to come out to oppose it.

Other reasons are 1) that the number of for-hire striped bass trips is extremely small, and thus generate an extremely small proportion of the social and economic benefits gleaned from the fishery, and 2) that for-hire anglers already harvest a disproportionate share of the recreational striped bass landings.

If we look at the Marine Recreational Information Program data for 2024, we find that anglers made an estimated 15,576,673 trips primarily targeting striped bass.  Those trips can further be broken down into 8,037,342 (51.60%) trips made by shore-based anglers, 7,318,472 (46.98%) trips made by private-boat anglers, and just 220,859 (1.42%) trips made by anglers fishing from for-hire vessels.

Shutting down more than 98.5 percent of the fishery for longer than necessary, just to provide the other 1.5 percent a larger harvest, makes no sense at all, whether looking from a social, economic, or fairness perspective.

Nor does it make sense when viewed from the perspective of landings.  In 2024, recreational fishermen harvested an estimated 1,728,743 striped bass, with shore-based anglers landing 201,038 (11.63%), private-boat anglers landing 1,356,008 (78.44%), and anglers on for-hire vessels landing 171,697 (9.93%).  

Not surprisingly, the shore-based component, which faces real handicaps when it comes to finding and catching bass, caught a relatively low proportion of fish—just 11.63 percent of the total--even though it accounted for more than half of all striped bass trips.  Still, it is somewhat startling that the anglers on for-hire vessels harvested nearly as many bass as the surfcasters did, even though the shore-based anglers made more than 35 times as many trips.

To present the data in another way, shore-based anglers averaged just 0.025 striped bass landed for every trip made.  Private-boat anglers, with their greater mobility, had a significantly higher harvest rate, at 0.185 bass per trip.  But anglers fishing from for-hire vessels dwarfed even that, landing an average of 0.777 striped bass per trip, a retention rate 4.2 times greater than that of private boat anglers, and 31.08 times greater than that of shore-based anglers.

Yet the for-hire fleet wants even more.

Clearly, given its relatively low contribution to the social and economic value of the recreational striped bass fishery, coupled with its already disproportionately high share of recreational striped bass landings, granting additional privileges to the for-hire fleet during a time of general sacrifice for everyone else would not be appropriate.

Commenters should explicitly support Sub-option O1 within Option B, which would retain the same size limits for everyone.

In the Chesapeake Bay, things are a little more complicated.  While, in the ocean fishery, there was no realistic size limit could achieve the needed 12 percent reduction, in the Bay, anglers have a choice of either changing the size limit, and leaving the season intact—Sub-option C1—or changing the season and leaving the current size limit in place—Sub-option C3. 

Either Sub-option C1 or Sub-option C3 provides a viable alternative, and anglers should feel free to choose among the two.  However, while doing so, anyone commenting on the Draft Amendment should also clearly and explicitly oppose Sub-option C2, which would, like Sub-option O2, elevate anglers fishing from for-hire vessels above what would then be the second-class recreational fishermen who fish from shore or from private vessels,  holding shore-based and private-boat fishermen to a new, narrow 19- to 22-inch slot, while allowing anglers fishing from for-hire boats to enjoy a much more liberal 19- to 25-inch slot size limit.

Seasons, and should catch and release be allowed when the season is closed?

One thing that everyone needs to understand about Addendum III is that, if it is adopted in any meaningful way, it is going to require a closed season in the recreational ocean fishery for striped bass.  In their long deliberations leading up to the initial draft of the addendum, the Plan Development Team and Striped Bass Technical Committee looked at many possible size limits, including both slot limits and traditional minimum sizes, that might achieve the minimum 12 percent reduction.  None met that goal. 

It quickly became clear that some sort of season was needed.

Just what that season should look like was the next big debate, which could be broken down into three distinct aspects: 1) Should states all adopt the same closures, 2) When should the closures occur, and 3) should catch-and-release striped bass fishing be permitted during the closed season?

All of those issues inspired intense debate.

In a perfect world, every state along the striper coast would have the same set of management measures.  But while that is relatively easy to do in the case of size and bag limits, it is virtually impossible to accomplish, in any meaningful way, with respect to seasons, because the recreational ocean striped bass fishery occurs at different times along different parts of the coast.  A July ocean  closure would be effectively meaningless of the Virginia coast, while a January closure would mean nothing in Maine.  

The trick was to adopt seasons that would effectively reduce recreational fishing mortality by at least 12 percent, while maintaining the benefits of consistent management across state borders, without placing an undue burden on any particular states while allowing others to remain unaffected.

So, to address the first issue, the Management Board decided to split the coast into two separate regions, each with its own closures, although it couldn’t decide where the dividing line ought to be.  The Draft Addendum thus offers two options, the consequences of which are set forth in tables 10 and 11.  One would set the border between Massachusetts and Rhode Island as the dividing line, which makes some sort of sense, because the timing of the Rhode Island fishery is very different from the timing of the fishery up in New Hampshire and Maine.  The other would divide the regions at the Rhode Island/Connecticut border, which also makes sense, since the beginning and end of the Rhode Island fishery bears little resemblance to that in the New York Bight and points south.

Anyone who has strong feelings on the issue ought to make them known to the Management Board, but the debate is likely to be esoteric enough that public comment won’t have too much impact on the outcome.

Much the same can probably be said about the second aspect of the debate: when the closed season—or seasons—should occur.  They need to happen at times when they can achieve the needed reductions, but also at times when they won'[t cause particular pain to one or two states’ anglers, while allowing anglers in other states to experience only a trivial burden. 

Once again, this is an issue that is probably going to be decided by the internal politics of the Management Board, where we will undoubtedly see substantial maneuvering by at least a few managers who will seek to adopt closures that will have a minimum impact on their own states, while shifting the conservation impact to others.  

Public comment will probably have little impact on a debate that will most likely be decided by a relatively slender majority, which will probably pick the option that, in their eyes, will cause their anglers and their angler-related businesses the least amount of pain—and, unfortunately, very possibly the option that allows for the greatest degree of gamesmanship with respect to when a closure occurs (e.g., the last 25 days of December, off the New Jersey shore), even if that gamesmanship impairs the effectiveness of the closed season.

Folks may comment on the issue if they feel compelled to do so, but they will probably have a de minimis impact on the outcome.

But the third and final aspect of the seasons debate is one that demands both anglers’ attention and their response, because it could determine whether Addendum III succeeds or fails.

It is the issue of whether catch-and-release should be allowed during any closed season.

The Management Board, and ultimately the Draft Addendum, has defined the two options in terms of “no-harvest” versus “no-target” closures.

A no-harvest closure is just what its name suggests:  Anglers could engage in a catch-and-release striped bass fishery during the closure, but would have to immediately release any bass caught.  During a no-target closure, even catch-and-release fishing would be outlawed.

A no-target closure might, at first glance, seem attractive to some.  After all, the striped bass stock assessment assumes that nine percent of all released bass die, so a no-target closure would seem to provide a more effective way of reducing fishing mortality, which would lead to a shorter closed season.

And that might be the case, except for a very important real-world truth:  No-target closures just aren’t enforceable.

That’s not just speculation.  It’s the expressed view of the ASMFC’s Law Enforcement Committee, which listed no-target closures dead last on a list of 27 potential enforcement measures, from the point of view of enforceability.  

At the August 6 Management Board meeting, a member of that Committee, Lt. Jeff Mercer of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management’s Division of Law Enforcement, explicitly stated that

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

and noted that, although targeting striped bass in federal waters has been illegal since the mid-1980s, he was not aware of a single instance in which a violation of the no-target regulation was successfully prosecuted unless the violator also had a striped bass in their possession.

When multiple species of fish can be caught in the same place using the same techniques, it’s practically impossible to convince a judge, beyond reasonable doubt, that someone was illegally fishing for bass. 

Consider these two scenarios, which could take place on any beach between New Jersey and Maine at any time during the striper season:

SCENARIO ONE:  The striped bass season is closed, with a prohibition on targeting in effect.  A surfcaster stands by the shore, tossing a lure—maybe a tin squid, maybe a popper, maybe something else—into the white water foaming around an offshore bar.  As he works his lure through the water, he repeatedly hooks, beaches, and releases bluefish.  A law enforcement officer, seeing the action from afar, stops by and asks, “Any luck?”  The angler responds, “No, it’s been pretty bad.  I’m trying to catch a striped bass, but all I can hook are some bluefish.”  Having heard an explicit admission that the angler is breaking the no-targeting law, the officer hands the angler a summons.

SCENARIO TWO:  The striped bass season is closed, with a prohibition on targeting in effect.  A surfcaster stands by the shore, tossing a lure—maybe a tin squid, maybe a popper, maybe something else—into the white water foaming around an offshore bar.  As he works his lure through the water, he repeatedly hooks, beaches, and releases striped bass.  A law enforcement officer, seeing the action from afar, stops by and asks, “Any luck?”  The angler responds, “No, it’s been pretty bad.  I’m trying to catch a bluefish, but all I can hook are striped bass.”  The officer, understanding that no provable violation has been committed, says “Have a good day,” and walks on.

Ridiculous?

Of course.

But so is adopting no-target closures that will inevitably lead to such results—and worse, provide the illusion of reducing fishing mortality, when the no-target aspect is doing nothing of the sort.  Mistaking such illusion for reality could result in fishing mortality being reduced less than required to rebuild the stock, causing Addendum III to fail.

In addition, adopting a clearly ineffective, unpopular, and unenforceable no-target closure could easily erode anglers’ support for needed management measures, along with their respect for the regulatory process.  

At the August 6 Management Board meeting, Emerson Hasbrouck, New York’s Governor’s Appointee, admitted that no-target closures were unenforceable, then supported their adoption, claiming that 80 percent of anglers would obey the law anyway.  It was an impossibly naïve comment from someone trusted to manage striped bass, for even if many anglers started out honoring no-target closures, after spending some time watching less ethical fishermen illegally catching and releasing striped bass with impunity, many of the initially law-abiding anglers who initially refrained from fishing would begin asking themselves why they were seemingly being punished for doing the right thing, while others enjoyed the fishery, ignoring the no-target rule without any adverse consequences.

They would begin to consider their abstinence foolish.

Yet despite the obvious flaws of a no-target approach, it still has many supporters.  On August 6, Joseph Cimino, a New Jersey fisheries manager, said that he was unhappy that the question of enforceability entered the debate, as it shouldn’t determine whether no-target closures are adopted.  

Worse, Michael Luisi, a Maryland fisheries manager, explicitly suggested that no-target closures might not be needed—if otherwise conservation-minded anglers would only be willing to lower the spawning stock biomass target and settle for a smaller striped bass population, so making “rebuilding” easier to achieve while also allowing larger harvests.

The advocates of no-target closures are going to make them a part of the final version of Addendum III.  Thus, anglers should, in their comments, be adamantly opposed to no-target closures in the ocean fishery, making it clear that they are unenforceable, that their benefits are illusory, and that they would erode respect for the management and regulatory processes.

In the Chesapeake Bay fishery, things aren’t quite so clear.  While no-target closures remain unenforceable, high summer water temperatures, severely reduced dissolved oxygen, and the documented tendency of Bay striped bass to die after release when air temperatures get too high might, arguably, justify managers using such closures as a means to reduce recreational effort.  

It is an issue that Chesapeake Bay striped bass anglers ought to comment on based on their own experiences in the fishery.

The other issues

The other three issues included in the Draft Addendum are only of local application, and don’t directly impact most striped bass anglers.  Still, they do have at least a theoretical effect on the bass population as a whole, and so are deserving of some discussion and comment.

Section 3.1.  Method to Measure Total Length of a Striped Bass, if adopted, would establish the rule that, in every state,

“Total length means the greatest straight line length in inches as measured on a fish (laid flat on its side on top of the measuring device) with its mouth closed from the anterior most tip of the jaw or snout to the farthest extremity of the tail with the upper and lower fork of the tail squeezed together.”

Many states already have a similar rule in place, but others don’t, and a study conducted by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, referenced in the Draft Addendum, revealed that

“while there is a minor difference between a natural and a pinched tail measurement (estimated 0.25”), there is a more substantial difference between a natural and forcibly fanned tail measurement which also depends on fish size (e.g., a 32.8” fish measures 31” when the tail is forcibly fanned, a difference of 1.38”…).  Consequently, loosely defined measures of [total length] measurement or where anglers have discretion whether to forcefully fan the tail to make the fish shorter can effectively allow harvest of striped bass that are over the maximum size limit…”

The Draft Addendum also noted that

“Further review of the states’ regulatory definitions of total length for striped bass demonstrated several other inconsistencies that may be of interest to address.  First, not all states establish that the length measurement be taken in a straight line (as opposed to over the curve of the fish’ [sic] body).  Second, some states specify that the fish needs to be laid on its side and/or be laid as flat as possible.  Third, not all states specify that the mouth of the fish must be closed.”

All of those inconsistencies can allow anglers to expand the slot limit, to allow them to land bass either under or over the 28- to 31-inch slot.  Thus, in the interests of uniformity across states and to avoid the harvest of out-of-slot bass, commenters should support Option B.  Mandatory Elements for Total Length Definition.

The next section is Section 3.2. Commercial Tagging:  Point of Tagging, which would require bass to be tagged either immediately after capture or before offloading the fish/removing the vessel from the water.

The logic behind the proposal is that, if tags don’t have to be applied to commercially-caught fish before the point of first sale—that is, when the fish are sold to a fish house or other licensed buyer—there is an opportunity for the fisherman to divert a portion of the catch to the black market, and so sell fish in excess of the state quota.  Only three states, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and North Carolina, currently allow fishermen to forego tagging until the bass are sold.

The matter was included in the Draft Addendum largely at the behest of Delaware fisheries administrator John Clark, who was trying to convince the Management Board that so many fish were being diverted prior to tagging that banning point-of-sale tagging might serve as an alternative to commercial quota cuts.  While the Management Board didn’t buy his argument, a majority of the Law Enforcement Committee thought that tagging at some point prior to offloading was a good idea, although a minority disagreed.

An interesting aspect to the proposal is that, if it passes, it might well drive major changes to Massachusetts’ commercial striped bass fishery.  Currently, that fishery is open-access, meaning that anyone who can plunk down a modest fee can become a Massachusetts commercial striped bass fisherman, with no limit on how many commercial bass licenses might be issued.  As a result, a lot of the permits are sold to so-called “recremercials,” who want to recover some of their gas, fishing tackle, and beer money by selling striped bass, and perhaps by others looking for a way to sidestep the 1-fish bag limit and/or the 28- to 31-inch slot.  Massachusetts can currently accommodate the resulting large number of supposedly “commercial” bass fishermen, because they only need to issue licenses to a relatively small universe of fish buyers, and not to the many fishermen themselves.  If the tag-before-landing provision was put into place, Massachusetts would almost certainly be unable to provide tags to all of the people who currently hold commercial permits, and would have to limit the number of such permits in some way—perhaps by selling them only to those with reported commercial landings, or to those who make a majority—or at least a specified percentage—of their earnings from commercial fishing, and can prove it with their tax returns.

If for no other reason than to clean up Massachusetts’ commercial fishery, and to limit bass sales to people who really do make a living selling fish, it makes sense to support either Option B.  Commercial Tagging At the Point of Harvest, or Option C. Commercial Tagging By the First Point of Landing.  

If the primary concern is limiting fishermen’s ability to divert fish into the black market, Option B, which would place some restrictions on their ability to make on-water transfers, would be the better choice.

Finally, the Draft Addendum includes Section 3.3.  Maryland Chesapeake Bay Recreational Season Baseline.

The best way to describe Section 3.3 is to say that, over the past decade, Maryland gone so far out of its way to benefit its commercial and for-hire fleets, at the expense of its shore-based and private-boat anglers, that it has had to make all sorts of complicated changes to its recreational season structure to get the job done.  Now, with the likely adoption of Addendum III, which will require still more changes, Maryland finds itself snarled in a web of its own creation, and is trying to untangle things and create a more workable structure.

In the course of doing that, it has eliminated a spring no-target closure and replaced it with a no-harvest closure in April and an open season in the first half of May, while moving the current summer no-target closure from the last two weeks in July to the entire month of August, when the water is warmest and will have its most adverse impact on the survival of released bass. 

While those generally seem like beneficial changes, there is one concern:  Maryland claims that the changes won’t increase fishing effort, and will actually lead to a trivial decrease in recreational fishing mortality, even though it seems very likely that converting a 45-day no-target closure into 30 days of catch-and-release season and 15 days of harvest is going to increase both effort and fishing mortality, and that extending the summer closure from two weeks to 31 days, and pushing back its start from July 16 to August 1, isn’t likely to make up the difference.

The Draft Addendum notes that the scientists on the Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee

“could not develop a quantitative assumption about how effort would change when the season is opened from no-targeting to catch-and-release that was any more defensible than the assumption of constant effort, and so it accepted the use of that assumption in this case.”

Thus, even though the Technical Committee recognized the substantial uncertainty inherent in the Maryland proposal, they were unable to come up with any better numbers that could be used to challenge the Maryland assumptions.

To address those concerns, the Plan Development Team originally proposed two alternatives that included “uncertainty buffers” of 10 and 25 percent.  However, the 25 percent option was removed from the Draft Addendum at the August 6 meeting, after at least one recreational representative from Maryland whined that it constituted a “punitive” measure.

Yet, even without the 25 percent uncertainty buffer, the Maryland proposal seems to offer some real benefits, and shouldn’t be rejected out of hand.  The best way to address the issue during the comment period is probably to PROVISIONALLY support Option C. New Chesapeake Bay Recreational Season Baseline Plus 10% Uncertainty Buffer, and then ask that the Management Board consider increasing the buffer to some higher percentage such as 15 or 20 percent.

No, such 15 or 20 percent uncertainty buffers are not now, and never were, in any draft of Addendum III, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be considered.  After all, at the August 6 Management Board meeting, the Board eliminated the option that would have required recreational fishermen to reduce fishing mortality by 14 percent while the commercial quotas remained unchanged, leaving only the option requiring both recreational and commercial fishermen to face a 12 percent reduction.  Yet right after that was done, Board members acknowledged the possibility of reducing recreational landings by the full 12 percent, while reducing the commercial quota by some lesser amount—even though such action was not included a one of the options in the Draft Addendum.

Thus, if the Management Board can ultimately settle on an management measure that would lead to more dead striped bass and reduce the likelihood that the stock will rebuild by the end of 2029, even though it did not appear in the Draft Addendum, it only follows that the Board can also adopt a 15 or 20 percent buffer for Maryland, even though that was not a published option, in order to keep a few more fish alive and make rebuilding more likely.

The next step

The next step is, quite simply, for people to get out to the hearings, and send in written comments.

For the sake of the striped bass, the Management Board needs to hear an outpouring of support for the 12 percent reduction, and a similar outpouring of opposition toward any suggestion that commercial fishermen, or anyone else, should be allowed to take a lesser landings cut.

For the sake of themselves, anglers must turn out and provide an outpouring of opposition to proposals that would allow anglers patronizing the for-hire fleet to increase their landings, at a time when everyone else--both anglers and commercial fishermen--are going to have to accept a significant landings cut, and make the shore-based and private-boat anglers pay for that increase in the form of a longer closed season.

And, for the sake of themselves, anglers must oppose the senseless support of no-target closures in the ocean fishery, which would deny them the opportunity to catch and release striped bass and deny coastal towns and angling related businesses the economic benefits that the catch-and-release fishery provides, while eking the greatest level of benefits out of a declining fishery. 

It’s not clear what the final version of Addendum III is going to look like.

It will probably contain a substantial harvest reduction, and some or all of the lesser proposals will most likely be approved.  But the fight against special privileges for the for-hire sector, at the expense of everyone else, and the battle against pointless no-target closures, are going to be intense, with the outcome probably decided by just one or two votes.

So while it’s impossible to predict what the final version of Addendum III is going to look like, it’s very easy to predict that it’s going to look a lot worse if anglers fail to show up—in big numbers—to be heard.