609-494-5739 Today December 16th, 2024 the four and a half hours long ASMFC Striped Bass Mgmt Board meeting concluded with action but maybe not the action everyone wanted. Long story short, final action will take place at the annual 2025 meeting, to be in place for the 2026 fisheries. So the current regulations roll on for 2025…
One fish bag, a 28-31″ slot size and a back bay season open March 1 to December 31st (ocean state waters open year round).
Public comments submitted before the meeting were overwhelmingly in favor of board action in the way of reductions for 2025 regulations. That didn’t happen but management measures most likely will change in 2026. Since you can’t really have a smaller slot than 3” expect closures of no harvest and possibly no target.
More Info…
Striped bass are not in great shape; however, there is debatably not a crisis. Current regulations are very restrictive. But are they restrictive enough to meet the 2029 rebuilding deadline?
All three of the scenarios that were on the table are shown in this graph below detailing that SSB in 2029 would be close to the target in all of the options. It was presented by the Technical Committee and mentioned that a 10% change is nearly indistinguishable in the data. Also TC said an additional year of the same regulations helps them with upcoming assessments because of more consistent data.
I believe, the current one fish slot 28 to 31” management measures (implemented via emergency action in 05/2023 which NJ adopted in 07/2023) are working to control fishing mortality. The 2024 assessment indicates SSB (spawning stock biomass) is currently below the threshold so the stock is considered overfished but not experiencing overfishing.
It all boils down to two things…
- Angler effort (F) – MRIP data gauges recreational angler effort and the estimated fish we catch, removals.
- Recruitment – Young Of the Year (YOY) Data gauges success of natural reproduction, it’s complex and heavily influenced by natural and environmental factors which are out of the board’s control.
Marine Recreational Information Program
Recreational fishing effort is calculated by MRIP which has fluctuations and a great deal of uncertainty. The statistical model is notorious for big swings and NOAA Fisheries acknowledges issues with the methods, but it’s all we got.
An important answer will be, was our 2024 fishing effort within the estimated range? We will most likely have that answer in the final 2024 MRIP data which should be released in April, 2025.
What will be the board’s risk appetite come summer 2025? What’s the public’s opinion on their risk profile in order to balance the fishery and socioeconomics?
STRIPED BASS RECRUITMENT
The young of the year spawning data has been poor. The Chesapeake Bay has had 6 bad years in a row. It is considered and believed to be the primary producer responsible for 70-80% of the coast wide stock. Is it still? If a northern shift is occurring one would think the Delaware and Hudson would be booming. Maybe there is a shift in stock distribution but not spawning. Atleast science has yet to pick up, as the Hudson River Young Of The Year data had two bad years in a row. If the northern shift was happening we would expect to see an increased in the Hudson’s YOY numbers
The fish pipeline isn’t promising; however, history tells us that we can have successful strong spawns with critically low SSB. Thankfully we have a much larger SSB now than we had in the past which was able to pull us out of the moratorium.
Fortunately, the updated fishing mortality reference points took into account the period of low recruitment the stock has experienced in recent years. But for how long will these poor recruitment trends play out?
IN CONCLUSION MY TAKE
Without getting new news and fresh updated data. My take at this point is we must keep the current 28-31” slot, which we will have for 2025. As the TC presented, an “additional year of data under the same management regulations would inform a better estimate of selectivity for upcoming assessments.” My comments to ASMFC were published on the previous blog post but I’ll share a little more on where my head is at. Maybe you agree. Maybe you don’t.
Come 2026, based on updated data, necessary changes / reductions should be made to protect the movement of pre-spawn striped bass in the spring (Wave 1 & Wave 2) with seasonal no harvest closures at the many important spawning areas. During this time commercial harvest should be prohibited. SSB must get their best shot at spawning! Furthermore there should be a resurgence to make Striped Bass a coastwide no sale gamefish like it is here in New Jersey. I understand there are generational watermen who depend on striped bass. Those in NJ shafted gears. I feel the recreational tackle industry should subsidize these select watermen for five years so they can shift gears and not target striped bass. The Massachusetts open access commercial fishery must be reformed; limited access, lottery or close it all together. Ballers fun fishing and selling striped bass has gone on for far too long. Especially the out of state anglers cashing in on it.
Most of the environmental factors which plague striped bass spawning are out of the Striped Bass Mgmt Board’s control; water quality, flow, temperature, dissolved oxygen, zooplankton, timing (anglers anecdotal info report large females are moving into spawning areas a month or more earlier than a few years ago) and invasive species among a myriad of other factors. But what about bunker and river herring? I hypothesize the lack of river herring and the abundance of menhaden in the lower bays are keeping striped bass in these lower areas. Fix one and maybe the other improves too. I think these two anadromous species have an indispensable link. The starting point must be fish passage restoration removing old dams to restore habitat, research and possibly explore river herring hatcheries to help.
We can not lower the slot and target immature fish. These fish are not abundant and are very important as they are the few who persevered amidst poor environmental conditions.
We can not increase the slot limit and target larger female striped bass. Any fish that outgrew the slot must be protected as they are the lifeblood of the coast-wide fishery. The larger fish 34” are all breeding size (SSB) and the larger they are the better their fecundity.
If the spring no harvest closures suggested above do not meet the reductions necessary at that time… The next step would be more broad no harvest closures. I feel during this time, federally inspected for hire vessels (think party boats, not the average 6 pack charter) should be granted limited access. Explore creative ways to allow this dying sub-sector which gets a bad rap (however is accountable for a small portion of removals) to fish in a limited way. Spit balling ideas, maybe just give them two days a week, Saturday and Sunday. This will protect their business/boat as well as help reduce a large shift in effort to other target species which also happen to have their own challenges.
At absolute last resort we must accept and explore lower reference points and/or no target closures (hopefully in a very limited, not broad regional way). Done on a micro level, state by state would be best to focus on when and where the fish are and how to best protect.
The balance of new mortality vs new recruit uncertainty is critical.
MORE STRIPED BASS INFO
ASMFC Atlantic Striped Bass Mgmt Board Meeting 12/16/24
Striped Bass Technical Committee Report Update Webinar December 5, 2024
Striped Bass Advisory Panel Memo December 12, 2024
