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by Ed Cherry
Chairman JCAA Striped Bass Committee
(from Jersey Coast Anglers Association December 2004 Newsletter)
On November 10, 2004 I attended the ASMFC Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board meeting. Below is a quick summary of what occurred.
The Striped Bass Management Board reviewed and accepted the stock assessment report for 2003. The female spawning stock biomass (30 million pounds) is estimated to be above the threshold of 28 million pounds. It is likely the 2003 fishing mortality rate increased given the increase in recreational and commercial landings and the regulatory changes due to the approval of Amendment 6. While the ADAPT virtual population analyses model estimates the 2003 fishing mortality rate to be 0.62, which was more than 50% over target, the Technical Committee could not say with certainty that over fishing was occurring on the coast-wide striped bass population during 2003. This number is somewhat misleading, as the over fishing appeared to be as high as 80% of the population of some age classes over age 7. The Technical Committee expressed considerable concern for the terminal year estimate in the VPA model. The terminal year data is regarded as the least accurate and there was no knee-jerk reaction to the mortality figures. The tagging studies, in contrast, were within normal recent parameters, close to mortality threshold, but not exceeding it.. The striped bass population is approximately 57 million fish, but up to 21.9 million of these fish appear to be from the very large 2003 year class. Thus, a large portion of the population consists of one-year-old fish. The complete meeting summary can be found at HTTP://www.JCAA.org/ .
The board voted not to change the recreational or commercial fisheries for 2005 due to the disparity in the mortality data.
Coast-wide recreational rules for 2005 remain at 2 fish at 28 inches or greater. This would allow New Jersey to change its regulation as per the approved options to 2 fish at 28 “ instead of one slot 24” to less than 28” and one fish over 34” as is the current 2004 New Jersey rule. The 2 fish at 28” was one of the approved conservationally equivalent choices approved for New Jersey. If any changes are to be made for New Jersey for 2005 it must be done by legislation. JCAA is currently looking into the options we can have for 2005 in New Jersey, as well as the status of the bonus program for 2005.
The board also had every opportunity to kill the proposal to open the EEZ to recreational and commercial fishing. However, it appeared that states that are leading the fight to open the EEZ were able to convince enough members of the board to basically await more definitive mortality figures to allow further consideration of the proposal. The current state of the EEZ proposal is in limbo but it does not appear at this time to be a viable option for 2005. I cannot fathom the reason DE, MD, and CT voted to open the EEZ! It is especially puzzling why Maryland would take this stance since the Maryland CCA, Maryland Sportfishing Association, Maryland Commercial fishermen and the RFA recommended against it. To whom was Maryland listening?
The states that voted for postponing the EEZ (6) opening were ME, NH, PA, NJ, NY and US Fish and Wildlife Service. The seven states that voted to open the EEZ were NC, Mass, CT, RI , MD, PRFC, and DE!
