By Tom Fote
(from Jersey Coast Anglers Association May 1995 Newsletter)
GLORY HALLELUJAH! - Striped Bass Regulations Changes
It’s been an interesting month which included a lot of travel. Since the last JCAA Newsletter, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) has had its annual spring meeting, ASA convened a meeting with recreational fishing groups from Maine to north Carolina to discuss striped bass strategy and Gary Caputi and I are sitting in Washington, DC at a meeting of the National Marine Manufacturers Association, at their annual Government Relations meeting. We’re only in the second week of May and things are moving fast.
The ASMFC spring meeting had the largest attendance of governors appointees and legislators that I can ever remember seeing at one of these events. I think there are two reasons why attendance was so great. The governors and legislative appointees voting power on every board and they feel they are much more a part of the actual plan and management process. This is bolstered by the simple fact that funding is now available for any appointee to attend any and all meetings that their state has a declared interest in. This allows all states to do what New Jersey has been doing for some time, providing for full participation at all levels by appointees. All it took was the money to be made available.
Most of the governor’s appointees have full time jobs. To take part in the actions of the commission, they had to do so by taking vacation time or simply neglecting their regular jobs. Just think- how would you like to spend your vacations attending fisheries management meetings? I didn’t think so!
The most controversial meeting that took place during the entire Annual Spring Meeting week was the one I chaired. I was appointed to oversee a newly created committee responsible for assembling "advisory panels" for various management plans. Under the direction of the management boards, we create advisory panels for specific species and, while this was done in a very simplistic manner with earlier plans, we were embarking on a totally new approach.
The old method was to locate and access a recreational and commercial advisor from each member state, but this was cumbersome, because we would often end up with as many as 30 advisors per species. It was far too expensive to convene a meeting with a large number of individuals, never mind find a date that fit into enough advisors schedules to make it work.
Our new "committee on advisors" was charged with forming an advisory panel for the lobster plan. After two hours of deliberations, we decided that having a recreational advisor for the lobster plan was simply not needed, but an approach had to be found that would cover all the different types of gear used to catch lobsters commercially. In order to accomplish this task, we came up with a new system. First, we drew up a list of all the gear types that needed representation. Then we approached all the governor’s appointees or the state and inquired about how many advisors they felt they needed from their state to cover the different gear types.
Unfortunately, the number of advisors we came up with using this method was somewhere between 25 and 30, still far too many to handle and fund. So deals were made to combine state representation between states for specific gear types. While my desire was to get the number of advisors down to 15, a much more manageable number, we did manage to narrow the number to 20.
In the search for a solution, our two hour meeting became a four hour meeting and we still had two more panels to assemble for other plans. But, using the format we established in setting up the lobster advisory panel, we put together the other two panels in about a half hour. When we finally finished our business, we not only assembled three complete advisory panels, but we had managed to create a working system to speed up the selection of all future advisory panels.
The governor’s and legislative appointees and the commissioners are putting in a lot of extra time to try and make this new system work.. The Atlantic States Conservation Act is a new bill that empowers the ASMFC and is going to require time to work out all the kinks, but I was really impressed with the effort some of the commissioners made to try and make the process fair and work for everyone involved. There will be mistakes made, like in Amendment 5 to the Striped Bass Plan when the commissioners failed to listen to their advisory panel’s council to proceed slowly with the reopening of the fishery, but I feel these mistakes are being addressed and should work better with future management plans.
The other noteworthy occurrence was a joint meeting between the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf Fisheries Management Commissions. We shared many of our common concerns and problems. Many of them revolved around how critical habitat loss has become and the negative impact it is having on fish stocks. It was interesting to find that overfishing was not the major cause of the decline of the salmon and steelhead stocks in the Pacific northwest, but habitat loss and mismanagement. The three commissions also brought the National Maine Fisheries Service and the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service in for special joint meetings. We spent an entire day trying to establish a better working relationship between the Commissions and the federal agencies. We discussed better communications and the need for greater cooperation to accomplish our mutual goals.
Jack Dunigan and I pointed out a recent glaring example of how we have not been working together. That example was the recent quota, size and bag limit setting for summer flounder. When the council and commission both agreed that no season and an eight fish bag limit were the way to go for the recreational fishery, that should have been the end of the process. But, the Regional Director, Jon Rittgers, from the NMFS office in Gloucester decided to second guess the Council on a matter that had little or no conservation benefit to the fishery. All he did was confuse the recreational, party and charter fishermen involved. The Mid-Atlantic Council then bowed to the pressure and reversed its decision, reducing the recreational bag limit in federal waters to six fish, while it remained at eight fish in state waters under the plan passed by ASMFC. Confusion of this nature does nothing to bolster confidence in the management process. This could possibly be one of the reasons that the Council works so slowly to reach a decision, bouncing things back and forth between the decision making process and R.D. They should simply use the best available science, make their decision and stick to their guns. The Council often takes one to two years to develop management plans that should be clear cut and straight foreword. It will be interesting to see just how this issue finally plays out.
The next ASMFC meeting with be held in Providence, Rhode Island on June 5 through 8. I do not have a tentative agenda at this time.
The American Sportfishing Association sponsored a meeting on May 1 in Essington, Pennsylvania, where it brought together about 20 recreational fishing representatives from advocacy groups like JCAA from North Carolina to Maine. The topic of discussion was future plans and strategies for striped bass. This meeting was called because the direction ASMFC is taking with this fishery is to increase the commercial allocation with little regard to the continued recovery of the species or the equity with recreational fishermen.
It was also a meeting to explore ways to bring together these individual groups under the umbrella of ASA to work toward common goals in future fisheries plans and issues. In looking around the table, I was pleased to see representatives like John Koegler from Pennsylvania, George Scocca and Steve Sloan from New York, Dusty Rhodes from New Jersey, Bill Pride from Virginia and many others. Several there were representing clubs and organizations that are associated with of JCAA. It was also good to see Lou Truppi from the Northeast Tackle & Guns Reps Assn. (NETGRA and G.Loomis, Inc.) and Ed Mesunas from Penn Fishing Tackle Mfg. Company, Bert Kaplan, a tackle rep and vice president of the Northeast Region of ASA and Bob Marquardt, CEO of Gudebrod and president of the Northeast Region, all participating on behalf of the tackle industry. One of the primary concerns voiced at this meeting was the total opposition to what happened under Amendment 5 to the Striped Bass Plan with the grossly exaggerated commercial allocations it granted and the manner in which it was pushed through over the objections of their advisors.
Most states had public hearings that merely discussed the "possibility" of increasing the commercial quota to 50% of the base years, but when all was said and done, the final quota was an outrageous 70% of the base years. This will not be allowed to be repeated. All state representatives at the meeting pledged to work together to prevent the further commercialization of the striped bass fishery.
As this is being penned, Gary and I are in Washington attending the National Marine Manufacturers Association’s annual Governmental Affairs Meetings, which will continue tomorrow. At a dinner on Tuesday, it was refreshing to hear comments by Senator Chafee (R-RI) and Congressman Saxton (R-NJ) concerning their firm resolve to prevent further weakening of the Clean Water Act. Both politicians agreed that the majority of the success we have experienced with a few species under management probably had more to do with improved water conditions in their estuary environment than it did with sound management policies. Congressman Saxton pointed out that he was going to amend the Act to be a more environmentally friendly bill. Chafee pointed out, "lest we forget where we were in the 1970’s when this act was passed, when we had rivers actually catching fire due to the intense pollution, we must never let this happen again." They both agreed that the act had to be less cumbersome in the paper work, more directed to the major problems, but we can not take a step backwards and give up the gains we have already achieved.
By the time you read this, the regulations for striped bass will be changed and you will be permitted to fish at two fish at 28 inches and the trophy tag fish size will remain at 38 inches. Sometime later this year, the trophy tag size limit will be reconsidered for possible reduction. If you take a trophy fish until that change is made, remember, it must be a 38 inch fish and you must have a trophy tag in advance.
While I hate to keep a fishing log, this year I will start keeping an honest record of all my trips, the number of fish caught, size and whether they were released or retained for consumption. We must keep honest records for submission to the state at the end of the season to make the trophy tag program become the scientific monitoring system it should be. In this manner, New Jersey will be the only state to compile information about the harvest impact of fishing at the higher bag limit of three fish per day. This information will be invaluable for determining the impact of continued relaxation of recreational bag limits for all states.
New Jersey is unique among most member states in ASMFC, because all segments of the recreational fishing community, from surf and private boat anglers to party and charter operators, boat builders, tackle industry representatives and the state Marine Trades Association, have been working together toward a common goal of creating quality sport fishing opportunities.
This is not the case in other states, where there are civil wars waging between sport fishermen, fishing advocacy group members, party and charter boat representatives all fighting, rather than trying to find common ground and approaching the fishery in a unified fashion. This occurs when one segment or group disregards the needs of another and often fragile coalitions are permitted to fall apart, to the benefit of commercial fishing interest who are there ready to pick up the pieces for themselves.
Commercial fishermen realize they are in business to make money. Every dead fish is money in the bank as it is shipped to market. Not all segments of the recreational community realize that they are also dealing with a business, a marine recreational fishing industry that generates thousands of jobs, incomes and benefits their local and state economies. They sometimes look at fisheries issues like striped bass with tunnel vision and how decisions will affect them personally, but don’t widen the scope of their views to see how those decisions will impact other segments of the sport fishing business. It all comes down to dollars and cents and we all know that a dead fish can only be sold once, but a recreationally caught fish that is released can be captured several times, each time generating additional economic benefit.
We sometimes don’t give sport fishermen the credit they are due. We have instilled a strong conservation ethic in the vast majority, but some groups are afraid to relax bag limits and size limits, not trusting that very ethic they worked so hard to promote. Open the fishery so business interests can prosper and understand that the vast majority of anglers will exercise restraint and only keep the fish they plan to use.
The marine recreational fishing industry must not only remain strong and healthy, but be allowed to grow and prosper, not only to fight the small battles of fisheries allocation, but to fight the major battles. The big fights are mostly environmental and revolve around habitat issues. The stronger the marine recreational fishing industry becomes, the greater its voice on legislation like the Clean Water Act, Wetland Protection & Water Conservation Act and other key habitat issues.
The Sunday Clamming Bill has, once again, moved out of the State Senate. There were only two votes cast against it. It was interesting to hear commentary on 101.5 FM how ludicrous this entire thing was, since most shore area residents and visitors don’t even know they are prohibited from clamming on Sunday. This bill still has to pass the Assembly and the JCAA and the New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs will be working hard to ensure its passage. We will contact clubs regarding how they can help, but in the meantime, you can call or write your state assemblyperson and ask "why can’t I go clamming on Sunday?"
The Clean Water Act (otherwise known by the environmental community as the "Dirty Water Act") has finally passed through the House of Representatives. This bill could undo 25 years of progress toward cleaning up the environment and our critically important water resources in the United States. Congressman Jim Saxton (R-NJ) lead a strong opposition to the bill in its present form, joined by Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and other congressmen from New Jersey, but their effort failed. The only congressman from New Jersey that voted for the "Dirty Water Act" was Congressman Bob Franks (R-NJ), who has been actively campaigning to permit the dumping of dioxin in near shore ocean waters. Nice job, Bob!
We hope that Senator Chafee, along with the help of Senators Lautenberg and Bradley from New Jersey, will be able to clean up the "Dirty Water Act" in the Senate.