Lately, I feel like I’m hearing as much about striped bass regulations as I am the government shutdown and, I have to admit, at times it feels like trying to take a sip from a fire hose. And there is a lot to talk about on this subject and there will be in depth coverage of what went on at the ASMFC’s annual meeting last month in the December issue. But today, I want to talk about the latest news coming out of Massachusetts.
I feel like it’s safe to assume that most readers that love to fish for striped bass have at least read some of the late Frank Daignault’s articles in this magazine and many others have read some (or perhaps all) of his books. And what is detailed in so many of those incredible stories is a way of life afforded by commercial fishing. Frank, his wife Joyce, and their three children lived their summers on the beaches of Cape Cod, surfcasting for money and subsidizing their way of life with what they made off of their catch. It’s an intoxicating scenario that it’s impossible not to imagine living.
Since those days in the 1960s and 70s, things have changed a lot. At that time, nearly everyone was keeping every legal striper they caught and a large percentage of those taking part in the fishery, were selling their catch. We’ve had a moratorium and a stock recovery in the time since, and a lot of striped bass anglers have come to see their quarry through a different lens. Not seeing them as dollar signs and instead seeing them as something that’s more valuable as a sportfish that should be harvested responsibly.
Commercial fishing for stripers has lived on, but it’s become much more of a boat fishermen’s endeavor, and lot of those that do it, are professional commercial fishermen who also dig clams, pull lobster pots and pinhook sea bass and tog. For a lot, but not all; there is also a contingent of commercial fishermen who buy the license to, as one online poster put it, “pay for their toys.” I might be more inclined to call it subsidizing their income, but that’s how it goes in the hot-button world of the open internet. And that part of the commercial fishery might be set to slowly disappear, as Massachusetts enacted emergency legislation last month to weed the fair-weather commercial fishermen out of the game.
The legislation states that anglers who did not hold a commercial striped bass permit in 2024 or 2025 will not be eligible to purchase one in the future. Similar to Rhode Island, this would effectively freeze the number of permits where it is. The second line item is something that I found to be surprising was ever legal: that the permit holder must be present on the boat when fishing for striped bass commercially. Call me a stickler, but I can’t see my way to any scenario where someone, who isn’t the permit holder, should be allowed to fish under commercial limits simply because he or she was running a boat owned by a permitted commercial fisherman.
As for the longevity of the existing permits, it sounds like there will be transferability in the future, but the state has not yet agreed on language to facilitate these transfers, so – at least for 2026 – transferring a ‘grandfathered’ commercial striped bass permit will be illegal. But, the state is also working to establish an exit-entry program to manage attrition, inactivity and new entrants; in essence matching hopeful commercial fishermen with permit holders who are no longer using them.
The last line item on the legislation moves the ‘control date’ for the commercial striped bass fishery from June 14, 2022 to December 31, 2025. The control date basically draws a line in the sand as a benchmark to assess future changes to the commercial striped bass regulations. As the press release states, “Therefore, should [the MA Department of Marine Fisheries] move to further restrict access into the commercial striped bass fishery in the future, the more current control date allows for the inclusion of fishing activity through the end of the 2025 commercial striped bass season.”
These new laws have been adopted in concept but recreational anglers and commercial fishermen will still have an opportunity to ‘say their piece’ on the matter, as DMF will hold a public hearing via Zoom at 6 p.m. on December 2. You can register for the meeting by clicking HERE. I have felt, for a long time, that the commercial fishery needed a haircut. And I know this might not be popular with everyone reading this, but I’ve always felt that the ease of availability of the commercial striped bass permit in Massachusetts made it possible for too many rec guys to cosplay as a commercial fisherman, and if I were a commercial fisherman, making my entire living fishing and shellfishing, I know that would bother me. Furthermore, the fishery has changed immensely since the Daignault Family was ‘living the dream’ on the Cape, and updating this ‘wild west’ version of a commercial permitting process was long overdue. I think they did the right thing.
