FISHERIES MANAGEMENT & LEGISLATIVE REPORT

By Tom Fote

(from Jersey Coast Anglers Association February 1995 Newsletter)

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is now in the final stages of adoption of Amendment 5 to the Striped Bass Management Plan. The last two public hearings in New Jersey to make your opinion known concerning Amendment 5 will be as follows:

February 21, 1995 --Cape May Extension Building
February 24, 1995 --Brookdale Community College

The Striped Bass Board and Advisors met on January 24 through 26 in Alexandria, Virginia. At the Advisors meeting on the 24th, the advisors voted to support the use of numbers of fish rather than pounds in determining allocation and for future scientific research and stock monitoring. They also decided that the Chesapeake Bay producing area should split the allowable harvest of Chesapeake bass 50/50 between the Bay and the Coastal states. The Advisors were unable to decide a single size limit between the coast and bays, the size limit receiving the greatest number of votes was the 24/24 inch split limit. The Striped Bass Board met in conjunction with the Advisors on the 25th and the advisors provided board members with the results of their work. The Board met on the 26th to make the hard decisions. The Board decided that the preferred option to take to public hearing will be a 20 inch size limit for producing areas and a 28 inch size limit for coastal areas. They also decided that even under the equivalency procedures, no state can implement a size limit smaller than 18 inches. The issue of such high concern at recent meetings of North Carolina's tagging survey that showed a large migration of mature striped bass moving back into the Chesapeake Bay was left hanging due to insufficient data and questions concerning the extent of the intrusion. The opinion agreed upon by the technical committee was that the intrusion rate was somewhere between 2% and 6%, so the Board simply adopted a 4% value for this intrusion and adjusted the tables accordingly. Other points made at the meeting were that the target F was a ceiling not to be exceeded and that the geometric mean would be used for determining Young of the Year, not the arithmetic mean and that there would be no implementation of new commercial fisheries until after 1997.

I remember during a recent presidential campaign repeatedly hearing the question, "Are you better off now then you were now then you were four years ago?" Let's ask that same question of the recreational sector with regard to how Amendment 5 affects it. During the "base years" (1972 through 1979), recreational anglers were allowed to harvest bass of 16 inches along the coast and 12 inches in the Bay. Only one state had a bag limit (10 fish per day), so most anglers had no limits on the number of fish they were allowed to harvest in a day. When fishing was good, it was common for anglers to take home 20 or more striped bass in a single day. While we are not asking to return to the days of unrestricted recreational harvest, Amendment 5 delivers the recreational sector a knock out blow as far as fair allocation of the allowable harvest. If the preferred option is permitted to stand at one fish per day at 28 inches on the coast and one fish per day at 20 inches in the bays, these figures equate to only a minute percentage of what recreational anglers harvested during the "base years." I can remember days when the fishing was good, returning home with 25 bass between 18 and 25 inches to give away to my neighbors and family for personal consumption. Friends who fished during that time in Chesapeake Bay were taking home upwards of 40 fish in a day at 12 inches and above for similar use. To match the number of fish I was permitted to harvest in one day of fishing during that time period, I would have to fish for 25 days and find a fish larger than 28 inches to harvest each day, a difficult proposition in my home coastal waters in New Jersey. An angler in the Chesapeake Bay would take half the season to be able to retain the number of fish they could keep in a single day during that time period. We can clearly see that the recreational sector is far from being better off now under Amendment 5, than it was during the base years. Recreational anglers and the recreational fishing industry are taking it on the chin again, big time! Now, let us look at where the commercial sector is under Amendment 5. Since this is February 12 and I still do not have the final tables in my hands, I must use the last tables presented by the Technical Committee. The tables show that the coastal commercial sector will experience over a 300% increase in harvest quota in 1995 alone! The figures continue to rise in 1996 and 1997 to staggering proportions! If Amendment 5 is put in place in its present form, the ASMFC will be restricting the recreational sector to a token fishery, while the coastal commercial fishery will be close to its full harvest levels during the base years by 1996 and well beyond those harvest levels in 1997. This plan is nothing more than the commercialization of the striped bass fishery to the detriment of the largest user group, the recreational sector. Lets look at the Massachusetts commercial harvest figures as an example. During the base years, this state was harvesting 1,159,750 lb. of striped bass. In 1994, it harvested 231,950 lb. of bass under Amendment 4. In 1995, under the proposed Amendment 5 tables I have in hand, they will be allowed to harvest 727,137 lb. of bass, a more than 300% increase. This quota will rise again in 1996 to even greater levels, approaching the quota they were permitted during the base years. There are additional increases slated for 1997. WHERE IS THE EQUITY IN THIS PLAN? HOW CAN THE ASMFC INSINUATE THAT THEY ARE TREATING RECREATIONAL AND COMMERCIAL SECTORS FAIRLY? What can we do to force changes in Amendment 5 before the final vote is taken by the full Commission in March? The Striped Bass Board has already ignored the advice from the advisors by going to a 20/28 inch preferred option. As I pointed out to the Board, if they can not allow the recreational sector an allocation large enough to permit one fish at 18 inches in the bays and one fish at 18 inches on the coast, how can they declare the fishery restored? What possible justification can they have to allow the enormous harvest increases to the commercial sector while ignoring the largest historic user group, the recreational sector. If the recreational sector can not be permitted to increase its harvest by a substantial amount, there is no justification for permitting the astronomical increases in commercial harvest that will be permitted under Amendment 5! At the most, the commercial sector should receive no more than an increase to 40% of their base years harvest in 1995 and 50% in 1996, with a hold at that point until similar increases can be made to the recreational sector.

Since the Board will have its final vote on Amendment 5 on March 8 and the Policy Board and the full Commission will vote on March 9, you still have time to contact your governors and state commissioners to amend Amendment 5 accordingly. We have all worked hard and suffered under restrictive management regimes to bring this fishery back to a semblance of its former stature. ASMFC can not be permitted to commercialize the fishery with a swipe of its pen under Amendment 5. The striped bass fishery was never commercially dominated in the past and should not be allowed to be commercially dominated in the future. As the analysis of the coastal tag return data showed, the historic harvest level was 90% recreational and 10% commercial. Amendment 5 and its supporters would have you believe that the commercial sector was the dominant harvester of these fish and they should be again. It just not true!

OPTIONS UNDER AMENDMENT 5

As I write this report on February 12, 1995, I see several options for New Jersey anglers under Amendment 5 as proposed.

Option 1: If the final size limits remains at the preferred option of 20/28, by using equivalencies and their corresponding savings, we could allow the recreational harvest of two fish per day at 28 inches in producer areas, e.g., the Hudson and Delaware River estuaries. Since I do not have the new tables at this writing, I do not know if it would require a shortened season to accomplish this in the Delaware River/Bay, but I am sure it would not require a shortened season in the Hudson/Raritan Bay area. Since both producer areas could conceivable be permit the harvest of two fish at 28 inches, we can now use the Trophy Tag Program allocation to allow a second fish to be harvested along the coast at a greatly reduced size as presently required under the Trophy Tag Program. I can imagine this program operating in the following manner. The initial Trophy Tag size limit could be equal to the regular coastal size limit of 28 inches. Under the strict monitoring system this program will require, if early tag returns indicate that we are harvesting at a pace that would close the season early in the year, the size limit could be raised to slow the rate of harvest. Correspondingly, if we are not harvesting at a pace that would fill the additional quota by year end, the size limit could be reduced. For all intents and purposes, these two options would bring the New Jersey recreational harvest level to two fish per person per day at 28 inches. It must be understood that under this revised trophy tag program, catch levels would have to be closely monitored and the use of tags or a comparative reporting system for the extra coastal fish would have to be put in place.

Option 2: There is a second way we can deal with the proposals under Amendment 5. I've watched other states come up with all types of different "equivalencies" that are accomplished by adjusting size limits, bag limits and season lengths to attain the specified level of harvest mortality under whatever plan is in place. New Jersey could make use of conservation equivalencies, too. We can opt for a 24 inches size limit in the Hudson and Delaware producing areas, even though the new regulations would permit a 20 inch size limit, and then apply the savings attained under the 24 inch size to the coastal catch. The state of Maryland was allowed a spring fishery under the consideration that the coastal migratory stocks of fish are in the Bay for three months out of the year. They then applied that portion of their coastal allotment to an extra harvest for anglers in the Bay. We can use a similar hypothesis to adjust our coastal and estuary allotments. The coastal migratory stocks are found in their Hudson and Delaware estuaries for three months out of the year. Since we do not want to set up a special fishery to harvest those fish in their estuaries, we can request permission to reallocate that portion of our allotment back to the total allowable coastal harvest. Hopefully, between both combinations, it would allow us to reduce the size limit along the coast to 24 inches, therefore attaining a uniform size limit for both producer and coastal areas at one fish per day.

The Trophy Tag Program would stay in place as it is in both the coastal and producer areas, with a probable reduction in size to 32 inches instead of 38 inches, with similar adjustments being made in season, should monitoring show we are taking fish at too great or too little a rate of harvest. These two options are the best case scenarios I can come up with under the presently proposed Amendment 5. Since a bill to implement these regulations, whichever we choose as greatest benefit to New Jersey anglers, must be accomplished through the state legislation in a very short period of time, it would be helpful if anyone with comments or suggestions would fax or write me immediately. As of the writing of this column, JCAA is scheduled to have a Board Meeting on February 17 to discuss these options and other positions. Let your club rep how important this meeting is and just how you feel about these proposals. You can fax your comments to the JCAA office (908-506-6975) prior to the meeting for inclusion.

ALL OTHER SPECIES COMBINED:

In the last couple of newsletters, you've seen a lot about striped bass, but little about other species. This will not be true in the March Newsletter. On February 28, the Summer Flounder Monitoring Committee will be meeting at 10 AM at the Philadelphia Airport Hilton to present harvest figures for 1994. These figures will be important for determining the harvest allocations for 1995. The Summer Flounder Board will have a meeting to determine this on March 14 in a joint meeting with the Mid Atlantic Council's Dimersal Committee at the Philadelphia Holiday Inn, Center City. There will also be a blackfish and a weakfish meeting on March 7 and 8 in Norfolk, VA. As you can see, there will be much to report on those species in the next Newsletter. Representatives from JCAA will be meeting with representatives from the American Sportfishing Association to set priorities for how we plan to handle the yellowfin tuna situation.

TOM'S SURPRISE .......... TABLE 4

I thought it would be pretty hard to surprise me in Amendment 5, but I was mistaken. I received table 4 on February 13. Now was the time to study the table and see what the actual increase for the recreational anglers would be. I had spent the last two weeks going over options with the state scientist to help me come up with plan that might be viable. Sunday was spent trying to put these options on paper.. Surprise, I was to learn the lesson that I have learned many times before in fisheries management......Do not assume anything! Just because the ASMFC stated that this fishery was restored and the recreational fishery was going to feel a relaxing of the regulations did not mean that it was going to happen. New Jersey fished in the Delaware Bay at 28 inches for 300 days last year, so what did Table 4 allow the recreational anglers to do. Table 4 stated that at 20 inches you can have a season of 114 days, at 24 inches you can have a season of 125 days, and at 28 inches the season would be 131 days. This means in a relaxed fishery to maintain you current size limit you would have cut the number of days you will be allowed to fish by 169 days. The table also stated that if you fish in Virginia you will be allowed two fish but for all the other states it meant only one fish. In the same document, the commercial quota for New Jersey was raised from 63,800 pound to 201,730 pounds. This is over a 315% increase. As I had suspected all along that only real relaxed fishery was going to be the commercial fishery. Remember in New Jersey we had been fishing at 28 inch size limit along the coast until 1994 when the ASMFC forced us to go to a 34 inch size limit.

I am writing this last section on February 18 and I was supposed to have received new tables for the Delaware and Hudson River, but I have not. I do not even know if the state will have the finished table for the hearing in Cape May on the 21st. These tables are supposed to address some of my concerns. I hope the ASMFC does this but from past experience I am not very optimistic. What has really happened here is the commercial community is getting a huge increase at the expense of the recreational community. This is what I have been warning the recreational community about. I hope I will be pleasantly surprised.

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