The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Striped Bass Board will meet from 1:15-5:15 PM on Thursday, May 6th, 2025. The meeting will take place at Westin Crystal City, 1800 Richmond Highway, Arlington, VA or those interested may attend via webinar. The big item on the agenda will be whether to release Draft Addendum III to the public and if so, when to release it. It should be an interesting discussion as some board members believe no action is necessary since there is still close to a 50% chance that the goal of achieving rebuilt stocks by 2029 will be accomplished without changing the regulations at all. However, it is more likely that the Board will take some type of action to give the stripers a better chance of recovering by the 2029 deadline. The Draft Addendum has been prepared by the Plan Development Team (PDT) and it is possible that the Board could decide to release it for public comment at this time. However, they could opt to send it back to the PDP for further refinement and then release it for public comment at their August meeting. Should the Board decide to mandate further reductions, they would be required to go into effect prior to the 2026 season. The Board will likely consider options that will reduce the removals of striped bass from the biomass by about 10%. The options will include reductions for fishing in the Ocean and Chesapeake Bay as well as for the commercial sector. The Board will consider seasonal closures with and without no targeting provisions for ocean fishing. There will also be a myriad of slot sizes, including more lenient size slot sizes for the for-hire fleet in both the Ocean and Chesapeake Bay. Regarding ocean fishing, there could be coastwide regulations of separate regions.
Other topics that will be discussed are an update on the 2027 benchmark stock assessment, stock assessment terms of reference, commercial tagging, creating a standard way to measure striped bass and Maryland’s proposal for a recreational season baseline.
To register for the webinar, please visit this link. If available, JCAA Club representatives should look over these materials before the JCAA General meeting so we can discuss them at the April 29th JCAA General meeting. Below is the agenda and the ASMFC overview posted on their website.
1:15 – 5:15 p.m. Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board
ASMFC Overview: Atlantic Striped Bass
Atlantic striped bass was declared overfished in 2019 and is subject to a rebuilding plan that requires the stock to be rebuilt to its spawning stock biomass target by 2029. The 2024 Stock Assessment Update completed in October 2024 and the follow-up projection updates completed in December 2024 provided the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board the latest current information on stock status and rebuilding. The Board has put more restrictive measures in place since 2019 to address overfishing and contribute to stock rebuilding based on the assessment and projections. While the 2024 Stock Assessment Update indicates the resource is no longer experiencing overfishing, it remains overfished. Short-term projections in the assessment estimate the probability of rebuilding by 2029 is less than 50%, with an estimated increase in fishing mortality in 2025 due to the above-average 2018 year-class entering the current recreational ocean slot limit combined with the lack of strong year-classes behind it.
In response to the 2024 Stock Assessment Update and the updated projections, the Board initiated Draft Addendum III to consider recreational and commercial management measures for 2026 to support rebuilding the stock by 2029. This action is intended to increase the probability of rebuilding the stock by adjusting 2026 management measures to ensure the stock is on the necessary rebuilding trajectory. A range of reductions for the recreational and commercial fisheries will be considered. Recreational fishery reductions will consider season and size limits that account for regional differences, including no-harvest and no-targeting closures. Commercial fishery reductions will consider quota reductions. The Board intends to take final action no later than October 2025 with implementation in early 2026.
