I’ll apologize up front if you’re getting sick of all this shark coverage, but this is a developing issue that has direct ties to striped bass, the effectiveness of how stripers are being regulated and the numbers of fish headed up their natal rivers each spring with the hope of producing a robust spawn. And a robust spawn hasn’t happened in 8 years!
The good news is, there actually is something we can do to contribute to righting the ship with regard to this sudden surge of brown sharks in New England waters. The bad news is that we are seeing way too many irresponsible striped bass fishermen right now, who will just keep fishing even after repeated attacks on hooked stripers. This has to stop.
NOAA has acknowledged that sharks have exhibited the ability to learn to associate fishing boats with a feeding opportunity and all this “training” that striper anglers are giving them is cementing the fact that a floating boat will soon have compromised stripers beneath it that the sharks can and will take advantage of. It’s no longer a random act of nature, it’s a premeditated attack and striped bass fishermen have become the key facilitator in making these attacks possible. As soon as it happens once, we have to be bigger than our egos, reel up and relocate, even if the biggest school of giant bass you’ve even seen is showing on the screen. Even if you’ve been into a crazy blitz of giant fish for two hours… once the sharks arrive, you have recognize your role in the situation, realistically calculate your impact and move on. Anything less is, quite simply, not good enough. And I don’t care if you don’t agree.
The biggest obstacle in seeing our way back to a time when brown sharks were just an occasional summertime nuisance is that these sharks are federally protected. You might remember from a previous editorial that the timeframe set for rebuilding the sandbar shark stock ends in 2070! Odds are I won’t even be alive at that time and I’d bet most of you reading this won’t be around to see it either!
But there may be a light at the end of this unfathomable tunnel. A stock assessment is set for 2027, and if we trust the system to work the way it’s supposed to work, (which has become increasingly difficult to believe in) it would seem that a major regulatory change should be imminent after this assessment. But I’ve seen it go the other way so many times, across a long list of species that experience has taught me that it takes more than just common sense to enact change.
Recently a concerned reader and Connecticut angler by the name of David Walsh brought something interesting to my attention. Just like other stock assessments, the coming brown (sandbar) shark stock assessment brings with it a seemingly underpublicized public comment period. At the time of his sharing this with me, there were 241 comments submitted, all but three of them were submitted by anglers well below the Mason Dixon Line; the three from the Northeast were submitted by David Walsh, our partner New London shop AW Marina, and me.
It’s very important that Northeast anglers highlight the fact that brown sharks are not just a Southeast problem, NOAA and SEDAR (SouthEast Data And Research) need to know that we’re seeing an unprecedented surge in the numbers of sandbar sharks across Northeast and Mid-Atlantic waters. They need to hear, from a huge number of Northeast anglers, that their numbers have ballooned to the point that striper depredation is not only making it impossible in some places to fish for striped bass, but also that the numbers of bass they are taking is likely having an impact on their spawning numbers. They need to know that their attempts to recover the brown shark stock has done its job, ahead of schedule, and that sandbar sharks need to be taken off the protected list so that anglers may target and harvest them, if they want to.
Please take a moment to submit your comment at the web address below, these regulation changes – admittedly – will barley move the needle, but if these sharks remain protected, there will be nothing stopping them from taking over our inshore fisheries, and none of us want to see that.
Please submit your comments at this address tinyurl.com/SharkComments or scan the QR code below: production add QR.png here
