BLUEFISH UPDATE
Bag Limits to Remain at 10 Fish For 1998by Gary Caputi
(from Jersey Coast Anglers Association September 1997Newsletter)
The combined Bluefish Board of the ASMFC and Coastal Migratory Committee from the Mid-Atlantic Council gathered in Philadelphia last week to determine the annual specifications for bluefish commercial quotas and recreational bag limits for 1998 and to further discuss Amendment 1 to the Bluefish Management Plan.
The 1998 specifications were determined under the original plan and had nothing to do with what was being considered for the upcoming plan amendment. I attended the Monitoring Committee meeting, which was held on Monday, August 11 and was pleased to see the committee and audience members seriously questioning the stock assessment results. While the assessment would lead one to believe bluefish were in a seriously depleted state and in need of major fishing mortality reductions, the vast amount of anecdotal data presented indicating the opposite was taken very seriously. The Monitoring Committee came to the conclusion that absent of any new management tools, they would fly in the face of the scientific data and recommend bag limits and commercial quotas stay status quo in 1998.
The ASMFC Bluefish Board and the Council met in joint session the next day and over a two hour period, going back and forth with the Regional Administrator, approved the Monitoring Committee’s recommendations. The status quo vote was overwhelming, but not unanimous. The manner in which the final proposal was worded prevents NMFS and the RA from denying the proposal, so the bag limit remains at 10 fish for another year.
Next came continuing discussions on Amendment 1 to the plan. The problem with this amendment is not so much expanding the management options to include possible seasonal closures and size limits, as it is the manner in which the stock is being assessed and what it could drive the management process to do in future years. The stock assessments are horribly inaccurate. Stock assessment scientists readily agree that they do not properly assess the stock’s health when the fish are ranging further offshore, as has been common in recent years. The scientists conceded that the MRFSS survey, which gauges recreational landings and harvest, is dominated by recreational trips that take place inside three miles of shore, while bluefish can range to over 100 miles offshore. Once bluefish move beyond 10 miles out, recreational trips targeting them plummet. They also recognize that recreational effort associated with bluefish has dropped dramatically in recent years, indicating a further "decline" in supposed bluefish stock size. The bottom trawl survey conducted by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center is a poor way to judge stock size for bluefish, and this is also conceded to. But the bottom line is these stock assessment tools are being used to drive the management system and until the science is corrected to adequately gauge bluefish stock size, it could force the system to take draconian measures to improve a stock that very well might not need any help, while hurting the recreational and commercial users who depend upon it.
Now, add to all this the base years being used to establish stock size includes the early and mid 1980s, when bluefish stocks were at all time historic size. We recognize that stocks have declined from those years, but with such a short time frame being used for comparison purposes in the plan, 1979 through the present, the decline seems far greater than it probably is when compared to historic stock sizes over the past 50 or 100 years. Which brings us to the question of just how large a stock are we aiming for in the plan? What constitutes a healthy bluefish biomass? These questions have not been answered, so we are left to wander around in the darkness of indecision and the current amendment provides very few answers in its present form. The future of the bluefish amendment is still at question and the variables driving management, especially the stock assessment component, is very much a Catch 22 scenario. We’ll keep you posted on developments.