On Tuesday August 1 at 1:45pm, the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board (Board) of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will meet to consider the next steps for striped bass management.
Click here to view the full meeting agenda and webinar log in information.
What’s next:
The Striped Bass Board meeting agenda includes:
- a review of the 2022 fishery results,
- Deciding what Draft Addendum II will include, and
- Determining if Draft Addendum II will be released for public comment.
Proposed timeline for Draft Addendum II:
If the Board releases Draft Addendum II at this meeting, the potential actions included will be shared via public meetings and online webinars that will be held in Sept through October. These will provide the public an opportunity to provide input on the actions under consideration and share the preferred changes to control fishing mortality.
Possible changes & what the data shows:
Options in the draft document include a wide array of choices from status quo to reductions for recreational fisheries, and max size limits for commercial fisheries. The Board will determine which of these will remain in the draft document, and if this document is ready for the public after Tuesday’s meeting.
Overall, the information provided shows that the 2022 coast-wide fishery harvested just over 6.8M fish, and to remain on track with rebuilding the population, approximately 986K less fish should be caught moving forward into 2024 if fishing mortality is held at proper levels.
This is largely due to the limited number of strong or above average year classes already in the fishery, (2015, 2017 and 2018), and four years straight of recruitment failure in the Chesapeake Bay (2019-2022). Environmental conditions during the 2023 Chesapeake spawn were not conducive to success, leaving most to assume that 2023 will be a fifth year in a row of poor recruitment from the coast’s most important breeding grounds.
The Chesapeake Bay fisheries rely upon age 3-7 year old fish, with the majority of catch being focused on 4-6 year old fish. This means that anglers are already seeing the impact of poor spawning in 2019, and will continue to notice a lack of abundance until a strong year class returns to the Bay.
Some skilled anglers and guides have already reported a 90-95% deficit in their catches in areas that should be holding fish.
Coastal fisheries rely more heavily on 6+ age fish, extending their timeline for feeling the impact of the Chesapeake’s failure to provide meaningful spawns out into 2026 and beyond.
While Hudson reproduction, and 3 good year classes buoy current fisheries from NJ through Mass, the writing is on the wall that a major gap in Chesapeake Bay fish is on its way to coastal fisheries.
Commercial fisheries in the Chesapeake continue to operate at 2015 levels, as managers ignore the impact that their harvest has on poor year classes already struggling to develop in the estuary. Add to this no reductions for the most effective and capable portions of the recreation fishery, the for-hire fleet, it’s plain to see that fishing mortality is too high in the Bay, if managers expect to achieve current fishery goals.
What to expect on Tuesday:
Some Board members may push for status quo measures, wanting to wait until the benchmark stock assessment is completed in the fall of 2024, including data through the 2023 fishing year. This may delay any coast-wide changes until the middle portion of the 2025 fishing year.
Maryland DNR representative Mike Luisi may likely fall in this camp, hoping to keep different rules for the public, and those who hire charter boats, and maintaining commercial quotas at 2015 harvest levels in Maryland’s portion of the Chesapeake.
Some for-hire/charter stakeholders hope to gain another mode-split, or different rules for different portions of the recreational fisheries in other states.
Due to the complexity of commercial maximum size limits provided to the Board and how differently they effect each state’s fishery, some Board members may want to remove this section of the addendum, while others prefer a simple quota reduction being advanced to maintain the path towards rebuilding.
Some Board members with commercial fisheries will push back against quota reductions, claiming that this was not the intention of this action, and that a max size limit was not intended to impact quota. Other Board members will disagree, focusing instead of fair and equitable reductions for all stakeholders to do their part in reducing the overall mortality.
A simple reduction of 14+% across all sectors and resetting of consistent recreational measures in the Bay is the most straight forward way to control fishing mortality, but something Maryland DNR and other state agencies may not support.
Background and more information:
The motion that initiated Draft Addendum II was:
Move to initiate an Addendum to implement commercial and recreational measures for the ocean and Chesapeake Bay fishery in 2024 that in aggregate are projected to achieve F-target from the 2022 stock assessment update (F= 0.17). Potential measures for the ocean recreational fishery should include modifications to the Addendum VI standard slot limit of 28”-35” with harvest season closures as a secondary non-preferred option. Potential measures for Chesapeake Bay recreational fisheries, as well as ocean and Bay commercial fisheries should include maximum size limits.
At the May meeting, and after the above motion was passed to initiate the Draft Addendum, an emergency action was passed and implemented, changing the coast-wide recreational slot limit to a 31″ maximum.
The level of fishery removals or fishing mortality for this emergency measure was not calculated and included in Draft Addendum II.
More details from the meeting materials:
The draft agenda for this meeting also includes meeting materials that provide information to the Board and the public.
Click here for the meeting agenda and materials which include:
- Page 1-4: August 1st meeting agenda and information
- Page 5 – 62 of 190 : May Board meeting minutes
- Page 63-84 of 190 : Emergency Action implementation & plans
- Page 85 – 135 : Draft Addendum II – 2024 measures for consideration.
- Page 136-190 : Public Comments
Click Here for Supplemental Materials Including:
- Page 1- 50 : Review of the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for the 2022 Fishing Year
- Page 51-119 : Public Comments