Personally, I believe our federal fisheries law is broken. The Magnuson Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson) was a great law in 1976 as it kicked foreign fleets out of American waters while creating a framework for managing U.S. fish and fishermen. But fisheries management is like a pendulum, and as Americans suddenly became the sole culprit in overfishing, Congress enacted the 1996 Sustainable Fisheries Act and the ‘bob’ was pinned to the other extreme.
Magnuson was again reauthorized in early 2007, but instead of shifting the rod closer to center, saltwater anglers found themselves in crisis through mandatory annual catch limits (ACL) and accountability measure (AM). At face value, it’s hard to argue against catch limits and accountability, but as they say, the devil is always in the details. Rigid ACL measured in pounds of fish, monitored by a random angler effort survey that punishes on a pound-for-pound payback, has resulted in an industrial collapse.
Think “industrial collapse” is a little melodramatic? Perhaps you don’t remember what ports like Cape May, Barnegat Light, Atlantic Highlands or even Sheepshead Bay in New York looked like 20 years ago with throngs of ‘would be’ passengers along dock, and deckhands standing at the gangway playing carnival barker to attract “pay per head” customers for a day of fishing.
Our recreational fishing community has always been stronger, and better represented when we’ve stood together. Regrettably, petty bickering and finger pointing has effectively crippled our effectiveness to fight for all. And now, it appears the “powers that be” are poised to drive that wedge deeper into the heart of our “mixed-used fishery,” a term memorialized through the Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act of 2018, aka the Modern Fish Act.
The Modern Fish Act was designed to help anglers climb out the ACL/AM box while remaining federally compliant under Magnuson. It led to the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) initiating the recreational reform initiative and harvest control rule to provide the management stability our community had long desired. This framework was ultimately upheld by a U.S. District Court in 2024 when the judge found the survey-based system (MRIP) used to monitor recreational adherence to ACLs “has limitations.” Obvious understatements aside, the Modern Fish Act did some good!
However, the ‘‘mixed-use fishery’’ language contained within that federal law also puts us in a rather precarious new position (read: duck your head, the pendulum is swinging again). Whereas a decade ago there were only two recognized sectors in federal fisheries management, commercial and recreational, the Modern Fish Act “mixed-use fishery” language arguably establishes three – recreational fishing, commercial fishing, and charter fishing.
Which brings me to our latest deadline for angler input, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) public comment period for the Recreational Sector Separation and Data Collection Amendment for Summer Flounder, Scup, Black Sea Bass and Bluefish. An ASMFC/MAFMC joint effort, this amendment considers options for managing for-hire recreational fisheries separately from other recreational fishing modes (referred to as sector separation); it also addresses recreational data collection through private angler reporting and enhanced for-hire vessel trip reporting requirements.
Personally, and professionally, I’ve railed against this “sector separation” concept for years, but given federal law, the ridiculousness of random angler surveys, and strict for-hire vessel trip reporting requirements already in place for federally permitted for-hire operators, I fear my hands may be tied in this fight for unity. And in terms of salvaging our head boat community and “per head” fishing access for tourists, inner city and lower income Americans, and those who simply don’t own a boat, there may be no other option, short of course of true Magnuson reform in Congress.
However, if this plan ends up splitting our recreational harvest limits into two separate pieces of quota, then just do me a favor, the last one out please shut off the lights.
