Fisheries Management & Legislative Report

We now have the date for New Jersey’s in person Striped Bass hearing. The in-person hearing will be held on December 5th, 6-8pm at the Stafford Township Municipal Building (260 East Bay Avenue, Manahawkin, NJ). I hope we will have a big turnout to let the ASMFC & New Jersey know our displeasure with this Addendum. Paul Haertel has included his thoughts on the proposed options, and we will be voting on a position at the upcoming JCAA General Meeting on Tuesday, November 28th. Below I will give you my thoughts on this addendum. I do not support any of the proposed options.

I attended NJ’s virtual striped bass hearing on November 15th. There was not a lot of support for what ASMFC is doing with striped bass. I did not comment on the options then and I will not comment on them now since they are totally unacceptable. I think we should go back to 28 – 35 but that is not listed as an option. Here are the reasons why:

1. I am still a member of MAFAC, and I attended their meeting virtually. The three executive directors of the three commissions always give a report. Bob Beal gave his report for ASMFC to describe what is being done with striped bass. He stated the reductions are being proposed because of a lack of recruitment. One of the MAFAC committee members asked if the spawning stock biomass is really having an impact on recruitment. Bob responded as I would have responded that it is not the size of the spawning stock biomass but environmental conditions that are having a negative impact on the recruitment. That is what I have been saying for years. Any manager on ASMFC knows that. But in order to placate the people who believe “the sky is falling” the managers continue to restrict the recreational catch.
2. The commissioners stated they want to protect the 2015-year class, but they did just the opposite. Again, history tells us what they should have been done was the same thing we did when we rebuilt the stocks in the 80’s and 90’s. At that time, we had a great year class coming up and we were counting on that year class to rebuild the stock. What we did was raise the size limit to keep protecting that specific year class from being harvested. During that time, I represented JCAA and testified in the NJ Legislature as they changed the striped bass regulations in order to meet the new requirements. In increments of 2 inches we went from 28 inches to 36 inches to make sure 95% of the females in that year class reached sexual maturity. The last two addendums have targeted the 2015 years class they claim to be protecting. If we were doing this right, we would have kept raising the recreational size limit to 36 inches or above to stop harvest a that year class. The commercial fishery should be at the same high level. That is not what we have been doing. Why have we not learned from experience?
3. What is proposed in this addendum by having separate size limits for party and charter boats and leaving the remains of the recreational community to fish on a much smaller slot. This is really an environmental justice issue. If NMFS was managing this fishery, they would be required to consider environmental justice. That would clearly consider to eliminate this option. The reason this is different from what was done with bluefish is NMFS and ASMFC allowed for the harvesting of the same size fish, just a different bag limit. This proposed regulation limits the opportunity for many anglers to catch even one fish to keep for food. ASMFC is telling us if you are poor and cannot afford to fish on a party boat, you are just out of luck. What this also does if this pits the party and charter boats against other recreational anglers and keeps us from working together. I have watched states do this and I have watched NMFS do this and I have always opposed this possibility. NJ has always opposed this type of regulation. This will also hurt the recreational fishing industry in NJ in tackle stores, private marinas, and tourism. This option will keep anglers from spending money to fish from the surf or private boats. This is against NJ law. The Governor and our Legislature has confirmed their commitment to regulations that consider environmental justice. We should consider suing if this comes to pass.
4. Years ago, when the striped bass board was meeting on Amendment 5, Bruce Freeman and I had to leave the meeting early to catch an 8 PM flight. When we left, the NY delegation proposed to eliminate the Delaware River and the Hudson River as producing areas. NJ was not consulted. Virginia, Maryland, and Potomac River all agreed. This was also supported by other states that did not want specific regulations on their producing areas. This change only restricted NJ, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New York. Since New York didn’t have a commercial fishery in the Hudson River due to PCBs, this served their needs as well. NJ realized we were being disadvantaged and we tried to make the change at the next board meeting and put Delaware and Hudson Rivers back as producing areas. Because we were trying to reverse a position taken at a previous meeting, we would need a 2/3 vote. We were unable to get that since many other states were advantaged by the earlier decision. New Jersey never proposed to manage the producing areas differently than the ocean. But we wanted to have credit for what we were producing. This had an interesting impact on how we allocated the 25% of the coastal fishery to the producing areas.
5. How do we allocate the ocean striped bass fisheries? The states that fish in ocean waters get 75% of the quota of the migratory stock since the mature striped bass spend 25% of their time in the producing areas and the rest in the ocean. When the addendum was passed to eliminate the Delaware and Hudson Rivers as producing areas, the Chesapeake Bay producing areas go the entire 25% for their use. That was many years ago when we were estimating that 75% of the coastal migratory stocks were coming from the Chesapeake and only 25% from the other producing areas. The Delaware River just started recuperating from the oxygen block from Camden and Philadelphia sewer systems. The stocks in the Delaware River have risen significantly. The Hudson River has always been a good producing area and has not seen the recruitment problems the Chesapeake Bay is currently experiencing. Tagging studies in the last 10 years have shown that at least 40% of the coastal migratory stock is coming from areas other than the Chesapeake Bay. We can use DNA from the Hudson River stock to prove where certain fish come from. Because of the canal between Delaware and Maryland, there is a greater mixing of stocks. If you contribute less, you should get less.
6. Because of climate change and other conditions in the Chesapeake Bay, I think other areas are producing a greater percentage of the striped bass. Because of the warming of the water, this may continue to increase. I have been waiting to see what happens to the stocks in the Kennebeck River since that has always been considered a producing area. It is also interesting to see if Connecticut’s waters are becoming producing areas. We know that Canada is having a problem with wild Atlantic Salmon being eaten by striped bass and that may indicate more production further north. We need to do the research to find out what is happening with the coastal migratory stocks and not just continue to see the Chesapeake as the only producing area. At the last striped bass board meeting I attended as a commissioner, I requested we include Delaware and Hudson Rivers as producing areas. I wasn’t a commissioner at the August meeting and I didn’t attend because of health problems. There was no one there to champion that cause. Why am I not surprised.
7. One of the biggest problems we are having with striped bass is hook-and-release mortality. It has been as high as 51% of the overall mortality including both the commercial and recreational fisheries. Nowhere in this addendum does it address this issue. Could it be that the catch and release anglers are dead set against even discussing this issue? I found it extremely interesting that a release by Stripers Forever included this quote, Striper Forever Action release on 11/15/23: To be honest, we still believe that an equitable (commercial and recreational) harvest moratorium is the most efficient and full proof way to rebuild the Striped Bass stock to abundance. Why was I not surprised? I helped start Stripers Forever and was the first vice president. After a few years I resigned because they were becoming elitist, just wanting catch and release and not considering subsistence fishermen. The catch and release guys know they have been able to stop seasons being put in and they continue to fish even if there is a moratorium. They will say they are fishing for bluefish or another species with their light tackle and causing the same catch-and-release mortality. They are selfish and don’t care about the rest of the community. They have no regard for subsistence fishermen and everyday anglers who just want to take home a fish for dinner. They want to privatize a catch-and-release fishery for their enjoyment while eliminating everyone else. Years ago, at a meeting with a number of environmental groups, as we were introducing ourselves, the ASA representative stated that there were 40 million anglers in the United States. One of the representatives from an environmental group stated we had so many recreational anglers was because the United States is a rich country. When I had a chance, I said the reason we have 40 million anglers is not because we are rich but because the fish do not belong to the royalty or the wealthy. The fish belong to the public. The catch and release anglers seem to have forgotten that.

In closing, on paper this addendum looks like it will accomplish something but in reality, it will just make things worse. It will needlessly penalize both the commercial and recreational fisheries without protecting the long-term health of the striped bass stocks. I can’t believe we strayed this far from the original plan.

We now have exact days during MAFMC meeting week that the Joint Meeting will take place to set the recreational limits on Summer Flounder, Black Sea Bass and Scup. This meeting will take place December 12th through December 14th at the Notary Hotel in Philadelphia (21 North Juniper Street). It will be an in-person meeting with a virtual option. Council members, other meeting participants, and members of the public will have the option to participate in person at The Notary Hotel or virtually via Webex webinar. Webinar connection instructions and briefing materials are available at this link. The final agenda can be found at this link.

I am not expecting any good news and no relaxing of the regulations. I will be attending the two days of meetings for JCAA. Below are my comments from last month’s JCAA Newspaper. If you cannot make the meeting, you can attend online. If you can make the meeting, please use our voice. Don’t just listen. Let them know your displeasure with how they are regulating these species. We should remind them of our thoughts and concerns on how ASMFC & MAFMC are destroying the recreational industry for summer flounder, black sea bass and scup.

1. These regulations have not improved recruitment and just do not work since even after peer review stock assessments for summer flounder has stated the low requirement have nothing to do with size of spawning biomass since it much higher than need to produce great recruitment it is not happening. You think the managers would realize they need to do something different like what I put forward below.
2. They don’t produce the results that modelers say that models will. The computer simulation models are only as good as the information they use, and we do not spend the money needed to get accurate information. Computer simulation modeling only works when models have accurate data that does not continually change.
3. After more the 15 years we have not seen a relaxing of regulations. It does not help that all these years of tweaking with recreational surveys and models for recreational data gathering has not solved the problem. The data collection is still not trusted and reliable. It continues to either overestimate or underestimate recreational catches. This causes the recreational anglers to lose quota when adjustments are made and face more reductions. Look what happened in the Gulf of Mexico when Congress appropriated the necessary funds to do a in depth study of the number of red snappers there. They discovered that NMFS was greatly underestimating the size of stock. Spend the money and get better information.
4. The biggest problem is that Congress and the Administration did not give NMFS the fifty million dollars requested in 2007 in order to correct these problems. We need to spend the money to get better recreational data.

Even when the data shows that the recreational quota should be increased, the overwhelming commercial makeup of MAFMC and ASMFC Boards keep it from happening. A couple of years ago the Council and Commission were supposed to do quota adjustment that invested couple of years to compile the data. Even then when they got the necessary information, they did almost no quota transfers.

Summer flounder is the perfect example of the problem. Just look at this year’s regulations and next year is going to be worse for summer flounder. The MAFMC and ASMFC reviewed the Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) recommendations using both approaches and ultimately selected the constant approach, resulting in an ABC of 19.32 million pounds for both years. This represents a 42% decrease compared to the 2023 ABC. The reasons given were:

Again, changing the data and model information has yearly consequences. How many more times can we raise the size limit, cut the bag limits and shorten the season to increase the spawning stock biomass to getting an increase recruitment when it has not worked. This has not had any effect on increasing recruitment since MAFMC and ASMFC went down this road.

Just the opposite has taken place. They do not pay attention to their own stock assessment reports that state over years that the size of the spawning stock mass in not the problem with recruitment. The Board and the Council just keep putting more and more restrictive management in place, killing both the recreational and the commercial fishing industry. They keep denying recreational anglers fishing opportunities from stocks that have grown. The Council and Board should refuse to keep doing this at the direction NOAA through the NMFS. If this was business and managers kept making the same mistake repeatedly, they would have been fired. Halibut, a flat fish on the west coast, was having the same problem and scientists told the manager to try fishing the spawning stock down and see what happens since it might have reached a bell shape curve. It was a novel idea and took a couple of years to convince the managers to give it a try but since what they were doing was not working, they did. Low and Behold it Worked!!!! We know the effects of climate change and pollution on the environment are causing significant problems with every species so NMFS needs to start thinking outside the box if the recreational and commercial industries are going to survive.

Click here to see the Summary of the August Joint Meeting. Presentations, briefing materials, motions, and webinar recordings from the Council’s August Meeting are available at this link.