On Tuesday, June 20, the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council (Council) is expected to convene an emergency hearing via webinar to vote on new striped bass regulations.
As reported in the June edition of The Fisherman, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) made an emergency decision on May 2 to tighten recreational fishing regulations on striped bass (one fish, 28 to 31 inches), but did so without public comment or open discussion with stakeholders, scientists, and managers.
At a May 11th meeting in Stafford Township, the Council responded with by 6-1 vote to table an emergency regulatory vote in order to collect more input from New Jersey’s recreational fishing community. In offering up the motion to delay final vote, Council member Pat Donnelly said, “I don’t feel comfortable about taking a vote until we talk to our Striped Bass Advisory folks.”
Donnelly said the ASMFC’s disregard for the public process should not be the process by which the Council conducts its own business. “I’m supposed to be a conduit from and to the anglers,” Donnelly said, adding “the process involves public comment and public input.”
The Council assembled its Striped Bass Advisory Committee by webinar on Thursday, June 1. According to Donnelly who chaired the advisory committee meeting, stakeholders mostly agreed that (A) the way ASMFC instituted the emergency declaration was horrible, and (B) virtually nobody wanted to see the state striper fishery shut down due to being found out of compliance.
As reported in our June edition, going the “noncompliance” route by thumbing our collective noses at ASMFC could ultimately lead to a federally enforced closure of the state’s entire striped bass fishery, which would include the striped bass bonus program. “Come into compliance by July or have no fall fishery,” warned New Jersey Marine Fisheries administrator Joe Cimino.
“As a scientist I don’t know how I can vote on this without science,” said councilor Dr. Eleanor Bochenek at the May 11th meeting, with the former director of the Fisheries Cooperative Center of the Haskin Shellfish Laboratory at Rutgers University adding “There are questions we really need answers to, and there’s no public comment anywhere.”
Theoretically, public comment from the Stafford Township meeting coupled with stakeholder feedback through the Striped Bass Advisory Committee will weigh heavily on the Council’s final vote this Tuesday.
The final vote will come down to eight current and active voting members of the Council including Dr. Bochenek (Public), Donnelly (Sportfish), Warren Hollinger (Delaware Bay Shellfish Council), Jeff Kaelin (Processor), John Maxwell (Atlantic Coast Shellfish Council), Joe Rizzo (Commercial), Bob Rush, Jr. (Sportfish) and Kevin Wark (Commercial). The other Sportfish representative, Dick Herb, is acting chairman of the Council and only votes in the case of a tie. There are also two vacancies on the Council dating back 3 years, one Sportfish representative and another a Public member.
I’ve had a lot of phone calls from friends out of state asking about the direction that New Jersey is heading, with rumors circulating throughout the Long Island and New England regions that the Council will vote to go the noncompliance route. The last time New Jersey opted to go out of compliance with an ASMFC mandate was in 2017 after the state was forced into a collective regulatory arrangement with Connecticut and New York under the Obama administration that would’ve required Garden State anglers to fish on a 19-inch size limit.
While ASMFC was adamant that New Jersey stick with the tristate regional fluke limits in 2017, then Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross under President Trump found that we were well within our required reduction range for the season, even if it didn’t force New Jersey to abide by New York’s higher size limit. But that was then, this is now; and striped bass is no fluke.
Get meeting details at dep.nj.gov/njfw/marine-council-meetings.
