On August 6th, the ASMFC met to work out the details of Addendum III to the Striped Bass Management Plan, an official press release, found at ASMFC.org will give you the nuts and bolts. Readers might remember that ASMFC set a rebuild goal back in 2019, giving themselves 10 years to rebuild to the striped bass stock. Since that time, spawning success has plummeted and, with a little more than four years to go, the Board estimates that there is less than a 50% chance that they can meet this goal by 2029. With that in mind, further changes to the striped bass regulations, both recreational and commercial, can be expected in 2026.
Make no mistake about it, we are going to see some kind of temporary closure for striped bass in 2026, these closures may run anywhere from 36 to 61 days. (The current assumption is that Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts will see a 41-day closure in July/August and states from Rhode Island, south, will see a 36-day closure in November/December.) A vote taken by the Board, eliminated one of the two options for a “No-Target” closure. The details of each of the two “No-Target” options boil down to the way the Board assumes anglers will react to the closure. They eliminated the option that assumes that trips that would have been made for stripers would not be taken, the idea being that striper fishermen would cancel or move their trips because targeting striped bass would not be allowed. The remaining option assumes that the trips will still take place, targeting a different species and releasing any stripers caught at an incidental rate.
This leads us to the “No-Harvest” option. There has been some confusion about exactly how to define a “No-Harvest” closure. There are some that claim that “No-Harvest” is basically a “No-Target” in disguise, citing the idea that, with the accepted 9% mortality rate for catch-and-release stripers, the very act for fishing for them undermines the purpose of the closure and therefore anglers won’t be allowed to target striped bass during the closure. That didn’t sound right to me, so, I decided to call in an expert; I exchanged a few emails with Emilie Franke the ASMFC’s Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, to get a black and white explanation.
Our conversation was quite eye-opening, as my own assumptions and the many assumptions that had been presented to me by other interested parties were essentially all – partially – incorrect. Which is not hard to believe given the length of the meeting and all the charts and dialogue that a person would need to digest and analyze to get it 100% correct.
Emilie confirmed what I wrote above, that one of the “No-Target” options was off the table and the other was still in play. She affirmed my notion that the confusion on the part of the many anglers and stakeholders I spoke with had to do with the assumptions the board attached to the two “No-Target” options: “no striped bass trips would occur” vs. “the trips would occur with a different target species”. Along with the fact that a motion was made to eliminate all “No-Target” options, but was later amended to eliminate only one, (this information can be found at the bottom of Page 13 and the top of Page 14 in the meeting summary, at asmfc.org).
Furthermore, she pointed out that that the wording for the “No-Harvest” option is pretty black and white: “No-Harvest Closure: Assumes all striped bass trips still occur and previous harvest estimates are calculated as new releases.”
And just to be extra thorough (redundant) I asked her directly: “And just so I’m explicitly clear and correct, if a No-Harvest closure were to be implemented, during the closure, in the affected wave, targeted catch and release fishing for striped bass would be legal and all stripers landed – regardless of size – would have to be released. Is that correct?”
Her response, “Yes, that is correct.”
There is still a long way to go before any of this is made into law. There will be public hearings, opportunities to submit written commentary and another long meeting in October where the final decisions will be made. Somewhere in between now and that meeting we will get the 2025 Chesapeake Bay Young of the Year index, which may add another layer to this onion and with a commercial reduction also looming, this onion may grow to State Fair proportions.
Popcorn anyone?
