Seasonal striped bass restrictions are in the pipeline for ’25.
On October 23, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (Commission) and its Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board (Board) voted to implement new regulations in 2025 aimed at reducing fishing mortality while also increasing probability that the spawning stock biomass of stripers will be rebuilt by 2029. What those reductions might look like won’t be known until December 5.
Based on projections from the latest stock assessment update, the Board agreed to hold a special meeting in December to consider a course of action aimed at reducing overall mortality in the striped bass fishery. Ahead of that meeting the Board also tasked the Commission’s Technical Committee with updating projections based on any additional 2024 catch data, while developing recreational size limit and seasonal closure management options for consideration.
In a nutshell, fisheries managers believe there’s a less than 50% chance of meeting the rebuild target of 247 million pounds of spawning stock biomass (SSB) by the 2029 deadline date. According to the Commission, female SSB was estimated at 191 million pounds as of 2023, below the overfishing threshold of 197 million pounds and roughly 23% short of the rebuild target.
After a 6-hour session before a webinar audience of about 200 people, the Board voted specifically “to schedule a special striped bass management board meeting in December 2024 to consider Board action in response to the 2024 stock assessment update. The Board will consider action to revise the 2025 recreational seasons and/or size limits, and 2025 commercial quotas, to achieve a 50% probability of rebuilding by 2029 under the low 2024 removals with F (mortality) increase in 2025 only projection.”
In other words, without having final results from the 2024 recreational harvest estimates from the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) to analyze – but assuming those mortality (F) numbers will be down this year, while also predicting that MRIP harvest estimates will increase next year – the Board vote 14-1 in favor of reducing catch and effort in 2025 in order to reduce mortality to have a 50% chance of rebuilding SSB by 2029.
For the record, the state of New Jersey cast the sole vote in opposition, while Delaware cast a “null” vote which is essentially an opposition vote. As with most every sociopolitical issue in America today, the “devil is in the details” with the sides hopelessly divided.
Emotions Run High
Nichola Meserve of Massachusetts offered up the primary motion, which was seconded by Martin Gary of New York. Several commissioners brought up points about the naturally cyclical nature of the fishery, and concern for “higher than reasonable reference points” that make up the 247-million-pound target goal (a number which could theoretically be revised lower during the next benchmark stock assessment coming out in 2026/2027). Recognizing the relative uncertainty in the fishery, Capt. Adam Nowalsky of New Jersey asked fellow members to consider a slight addendum to the Meserve/Gary motion by changing “The Board will consider action” to read “The Board may consider action.” That vote failed.
Mike Luisi of Maryland also offered a substitute motion to allow for the 2024 MRIP information to be presented in order to provide more time in 2025 to review management options with the public, for final implementation as of 2026. “I think we owe it to the public to be heavily involved in the addendum process, which is the norm, which is what they’re normally used to working with us,” Luisi said in making his motion to wait until 2026 for regulatory changes to allow stakeholder input and public comment in 2025.
“It would give us some time to think about and communicate with that same public what effects they might have to deal with as a result of the actions that we take,” said Luisi, adding “I think by taking our time, structuring the discussions, folding in all of the recreational release mortality work that we spent months on this summer, factoring all of that in, maybe even soliciting information from the public through a survey that we’ve discussed, all of that is going to take time.” That motion failed as well.
Historically, the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic striped bass requires a process of public comment and hearings, providing stakeholders with an opportunity to weigh in on proposed management measures. “This is not the public process that was established, and the public is being eliminated more and more,” said Tom Fote in response to the vote. The former New Jersey governor’s appointee to the Commission added, “We are now managing striped bass through an emergency action which does not allow for a full process and public hearings.”
During a lengthy addendum process in 2023 the fishery plan for striped bass was amended to enable the Board to respond to stock assessment results by way of management action if the stock is not projected to rebuild by 2029 with a 50% or greater. This is essentially the trigger that allows the Board to take yet more immediate action on striped bass without public hearings for collecting community feedback.
| YOUNG-OF-THE-YEAR |
A chart shared by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission in October compiled the juvenile abundance indexes (JAI) from each state’s young-of-the-year research, with the Maryland and Virginia numbers from the Chesapeake, New Jersey’s seine work on the Delaware and New York’s Hudson River sampling all showing a downward trend in newly spawned striped bass. More information including webinar meeting schedule can be found at ASMFC.org. |
“The public comment process for the addendum is really clear,” said Mike Waine, Atlantic Fisheries Policy Director at the American Sportfishing Association (ASA). “Typically public hearings are held, the states encourage their constituents to participate in that process, and I think it’s something that the fishery knows well, the stakeholders know well.” During a public comment portion of the October 23rd meeting, Waine pointed out where the main motion was unclear about a public comment process and timeframe for public feedback.
“I would just encourage that those public comment guidelines be significantly clarified,” Waine told the Board, adding “This is a very diverse fishery as we’ve heard comments around the table indicate, and we want to make sure that everybody has the opportunity, that participates in this fishery, to participate in the process for how it’s managed.”
Effectively disregarding Waine’s suggestions – and despite efforts by Luisi and Nowalsky to allow more time for gathering data and incorporating public discussion – the Meserve/Gary was approved to expedite the regulatory process for striped bass, not too dissimilar from what happened with the emergency measures on striped bass to create a 28- to 31-inch slot limit.
The Commission will host a webinar on December 5 at 6 p.m. to review management options developed by the Technical Committee and to inform the public just 5 days ahead of a December 10th public comment deadline, and prior to the December 16th Board meeting in Arlington, VA.
What Are We Looking At
So, the latest stock assessment update for striped bass shows there’s roughly 191 million pounds of female spawning stock biomass as of 2023, and we have to rebuild to 247 million pounds by 2029 in order to deem the fishery as no longer overfished. At the current level of fishing through 2025, the Commission believes there’s less than a 50% chance of meeting the target in the timeframe. As such, another emergency meeting in December will determine just how much sacrifice it will take to reach what amounts to a roughly 15% reduction.
Obviously, constricting the slot size for a keeper any more than the current 3-inch ocean standard may not be practical. There’s been some buzz about a “moratorium” in terms of having zero fishery whatsoever, but many question whether that’s really necessary considering the size of the SSB today in relation to the highest of highs (target) and the lowest of lows (1980s moratorium). That said, one organization which generated a lot of public comment heading into the October 23rd meeting has openly called on a moratorium on recreational harvest of striped bass starting in 2025.
In a letter to the Commission one week before their October meeting, the American Saltwater Guides Association (ASGA) asked for no harvest closures to be initiated for the 2025 season. “Unlike no-targeting closures, these will have a measurable impact and are enforceable,” ASGA noted in their letter which included support from dozens of fly and light tackle businesses alongside the signatures of hundreds of individual anglers, including 90 from New Jersey, roughly 40 from Pennsylvania and another six from Delaware.
One major dilemma faced in the management of recreational fishing mortality with striped bass is with regard to an applied 9% mortality rate with released fish, meaning that one of every 11 stripers caught and released is considered a dead fish. In the recreational sector, data shows where roughly half of coastwide removals in the striper fishery comes from catch and release mortality, the other half from actual harvest. Thus, one option that the Board and Technical Committee could come up with in December is some type of seasonal closure on striped bass harvest, possibly leaving open a targeted catch and release fishery. “Direct statements on the record from the Law Enforcement Committee (LEC) consistently state that no targeting closures are entirely unenforceable,” ASGA noted in their letter, calling no target closures “utterly ineffective at reducing effort.”
| STRIPER STOCK STATUS |
As per the latest stock assessment update, the striped bass fishery is considered “overfished” until the female SSB (spawning stock biomass) reaches the dotted target reference point, while any active fishery that takes us above the red threshold in the mortality chart (based primarily on survey results from the Marine Recreational Information Program or MRIP) would mean “overfishing” is taking place and therefore jeopardizes meeting the SSB goal and deadline. Fisheries managers are predicting a good season for striped bass anglers in 2025, which they forecast will take us above the red line resulting in yet another “emergency” action of sorts to curtail angler effort. |
One Board member commented during the October 23 meeting that there’s never been a conviction in the striped bass fishery simply for illegal targeting. Yet in New Jersey where the targeting of striped bass is prohibited in the back bays and rivers during the months of January and February – as well as along certain stretches of the Delaware River during the spring spawn – the New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife has indeed issued citations and collected fines. “From 2017 to present day, there have been seven summonses (six written during closed season in the Delaware River and one in COLREGS) and four written warnings,” said New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection press officer Vincent Grassi, adding that more than $1,000 in fines have been collected for these targeting infractions. It’s not a lot, but it’s not nothing, nor is it never.
It’s entirely possible the ASGA’s lobbying efforts could influence the Board into implementing a full recreational harvest moratorium in 2025. While such draconian measures seem unlikely, anything is possible when it comes to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission based on the past 2 years of “emergency” actions without public comment. That’s especially true when some are openly supporting a nuclear option to effectively divide the recreational community into the haves and have nots, those who catch and release as many stripers as they can, versus others who wish only to keep just one and call it a day.
“Because they failed in making striped bass a game fish in their states, some of these groups started attacking subsistence anglers and those who want to take home a fish to eat,” Fote said of the ASGA, which he says fails as an organization to openly address the large commercial striper quotas in states like Massachusetts and New York where the organization appears to have its largest, most vocal member base. “Instead of going after the commercial fishermen in their states, they focus the attention on other recreational anglers who want to take home a fish to eat,” Fote added.
With most of the “public comment” at this point in the process being unsolicited appeals by those seeking a harvest ban, it’s hard to even guess at what the Board and Technical Committee could decide in December.
But I Digress
As for the commercial sector, data shows that the market fishery accounts for 10% of total striper removals coastwide whereas recreational fishing is responsible for the other 90%. In other words, calling out commercial fishermen for doing the most damage to the striper stock is not evidenced by data used by fisheries managers. In terms of our ability to meet the target goal in the established deadline, it’s clear that the MRIP effort data is impacting the probability scenario.
| ANGLER EFFORT |
While anglers are quick to blame to the commercial sector for harming striper stocks, the stats used by the fisheries management community show that angler were responsible for almost 90% of the overall mortality of striped bass in 2023, with recreational harvest accounting for 47% of the dead stripers tabulated last year, with catch and release mortality making up another 42% of the annual removals of striped bass. |
In addition to meeting the SSB target by 2029, poor recruitment numbers coming from the Chesapeake, Delaware and Hudson river complexes in recent years is another major concern with fisheries managers, and one which anglers should be equally distressed about. Without enough juvenile stripers in the pipeline, we may be seeing a few lean years ahead with smaller stripers and those reaching the slot size. It’s believed that the 2018 year class of striped bass was the last quality nursery year; the fact that those fish are about to enter the 28- to 31-inch slot range is apparently why the Commission believes we’ll see a spike in recreational mortality in 2025.
So while the Board and Technical Committee rattle their brains leading up to the December meeting, devising ways to restrict our ability to access striped bass next year, it remains to be seen what kind of striper fishery we’re going to see in the future. The next full-bore benchmark striped bass assessment will be coordinated in 2025, with results to be discussed again by the Commission and its Board sometime in 2026 and 2027. If those lean recruitment years from spawning estuaries are indeed fact, then we’ll naturally have fewer stripers reaching SSB status as we near the end of the rebuilding timeframe.
And if that is indeed the case, then perhaps that 247-million-pound target goal really is just a pipe dream after all, which could prompt the technical folks to revisit and potentially lower the rebuild target, which in a way would make much of this current management discussion altogether moot. To put it another way, if the present rebuild target is biologically and statistically impossible to reach and needs to revised downward, it’s entirely possible we’re not really overfishing the striped bass stock right now because the reference points should be lower.
And that’s why public discussion and community discourse is so important. At least, it should be.
