Striped Bass Management: ASMFC Takes Action, Or Did They? - The Fisherman

Striped Bass Management: ASMFC Takes Action, Or Did They?

nick
Nick Rowe with a catch and release “over slot” striper from off Monmouth County during the fall run of ’24.

No change to striped bass regulations for 2025, but more than likely in 2026.

On December 16, 2024, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) and its Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board (Board) voted to send the striped bass regulatory efforts back through the full commission via an addendum to the striped bass management plan.  ASMFC and its Board will now look at ways to potentially reduce mortality in 2026 through a series public hearings and discussions scheduled in 2025, with a final decision expected at the ASMFC’s annual meeting in October.

The Fisherman first published a portion of this play-by-play analysis of the decision on our website the morning after, just prior to ASMFC issuing a press release explaining how the Board initiated Draft Addendum III to consider recreational and commercial management measures for 2026 to support rebuilding the stock by 2029.  According to the ASMFC, options will consider a range of reductions for both sectors, with recreational season and size limits, and an overall quota reduction for the commercial sector.

At issue for both the ASMFC and its Board is the need to rebuild spawning stock biomass (SSB) of striped bass to a 247-million-pound target by the 2029 deadline.  As per the ASMFC bulletin, the Board vote “responds to the results of the 2024 Stock Assessment Update, which indicates the resource remains overfished but is not experiencing overfishing.”

The current SSB for striped bass stands at roughly 191 million pounds, but until it attains that 247-million-pound mark it is designated as an “overfished.”  However, ASMFC also noted that there is no statutory “overfishing” occurring in the striped bass fishery at this time, with the latest stock assessment update showing the fishery is rebuilding to the 2029 goal with SSB levels this year expected to be the same as they were in 1995 when the fishery was last declared rebuilt.

The issue at hand is actually based on future predictions of increased angler effort and success in 2025.  “Short-term projections estimate an increase in fishing mortality in 2025 due to the above average 2018 year-class entering the current recreational ocean slot limit combined with the lack of strong year-classes behind it,” the ASMFC noted in its release.  In other words, the ASMFC technical folks believe that anglers will catch more striped bass in 2025, statistically leading above the “overfishing” threshold and negatively affecting the 2029 rebuilding trajectory.

This forecast prediction of increased recreational landings comes by way of the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP), the random survey which monitors recreational effort and fishing mortality.  MRIP surveys are conducted in five bimonthly waves from March through December; theoretically, MRIP Wave 1 would encompass January/February, but NOAA Fisheries doesn’t actually conduct MRIP surveys during those winter months.  Thus, Wave 2 (March/April) begins the annual MRIP process, with Wave 6 (November/December) constituting the final survey coverage for the year.

On August 7, 2023, NOAA Fisheries acknowledged that their Fishing Effort Survey (FES) portion of MRIP used to estimate recreational saltwater participation is likely overestimating angler effort by as much as 30 to 40%.   Since MRIP randomly tracks angler effort/harvest, it also contributes to the overall stock analysis; for that reason, any faulty overestimates or underestimates in MRIP become equally problematic in the management process in terms of management uncertainty and future predictions.

How It All Went Down

The final decision in December came down to a debate between two motions, one by Adam Nowalsky of New Jersey to send the decision to a full addendum for regulatory rollout in 2026, and a substitute motion by Nichola Meserve of Massachusetts to have the Board implement new regulations for 2025.  After 4 hours of discussion, debate and numerous amendments to the main motions, the Meserve option giving the Board authority to make immediate changes for 2025 failed 12-4, while the option presented by Nowalsky was approved 14-2 to allow for more comprehensive review during 2025, and to potentially take effect by 2026.

Specifically, what the Board approved was “to initiate an addendum to support striped bass rebuilding by 2029 in consideration of 2024 recreational and commercial mortality while balancing socioeconomic impacts.  Options should include, if needed, a range of overall reductions, consideration of rec vs comm contributions to the reductions, rec season and size changes taking into account regional variability of availability, and no harvest vs no target closures.  Final action shall be taken by the annual 2025 meeting to be in place for the 2026 rec and comm fisheries.”

In the final tallies the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Massachusetts voted in favor of the substitute motion by Meserve, with opposition votes cast by Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, District of Columbia, the Potomac River Commission, NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  As for the motion that passed, only Maine and New Hampshire voted in opposition.

Several Board members spoke in favor of the failed substitute motion, including New Hampshire’s Doug Grout who said he believed that something must be done immediately to address a forecasted overage in the recreational fishing community in 2025 by way of future MRIP, due in part to 2018 year class stripers entering the 28- to 31-inch slot range this year.  In opposing the failed motion for more immediate r action, New Jersey’s Joe Cimino said he would prefer to see the ASMFC take up the decision through a more comprehensive process of collecting data and public comment.

“I’m strictly opposed to this because the timing is such that I think we have to go through an addendum process,” Cimino added, a position supported by Maryland’s Mike Luisi.  “I’d rather have an addendum,” Luisi said, explaining his belief that more needs to be done with data collection and more recent management changes in order to develop a fuller understanding of the striped bass fishery. “What I’d like to do, and what I think the addendum does, is that it provides us with an opportunity to implement the things that we have learned over time,” Luisi added.

Delaware’s John Clark noted how the failed option only provided a “prescriptive next step” without take a more “holistic” look at the entire fishery.   “Let’s learn what we’ve experienced in the past and let’s use some type of creative outlook to the future,” Clark said, noting that his support for the option that ultimately passed was that it would allow managers to look at more data including all of the 2024 MRIP data before making a decision.

Addendum “Is” Action

While some members of the public wanted to see the Board act immediately on 2025 regulations and have already criticized the final vote as taking no action to support the rebuilding of the striped bass SSB, Nowalsky pointed out that the Board’s final decision “is not a no action alternative.”

“By going ahead and taking action for 2025 to be deliberative about how these reductions should take place if needed in 2026 still gives us time to achieve that rebuilding,” Nowalsky said.  He went on to point out where preliminary MRIP data from March through October was already indicating a lower amount of striped bass mortality than was originally predicted.  “So, I would submit that having the full suite of data about those 2024 removals through Wave 6 (November/December) puts this Board in the best possible scientific position to make a decision on how to keep rebuilding on track for 2029,” Nowalsky added.

For many anglers who wanted the Board to act with more immediacy, the failure of the Massachusetts-led substitute motion was met with some anger and frustration.  “We understand that many will be disappointed in the Board’s decision to initiate an addendum versus taking immediate action,” said Board Chair Megan Ware from Maine, adding “However, after deliberating for more than three hours about the path forward, the Board came to the conclusion that the best course of action is to proceed with an addendum which will allow for clarity on 2024 removals and additional analyses.”

In terms of the ASMFC process, the Board actually did take action in voting to initiate Draft Addendum III; of the two possible paths presented, the Board voted 14-2 in favor of a longer, more comprehensive process.  “Ultimately, the Board chose the second path by initiating an addendum that would provide the Board more time to develop a fuller suite of management options, allow for the incorporation of full 2024 fishery removals data, and afford the public with a more robust opportunity to provide input,” ASMFC noted in their follow-up press release.

What’s To Come?

In terms of the failed substitute motion, the ASMFC may again propose similar seasonal restrictions over the course of 2025 for implementation during the 2026 season.  For example, for anglers fishing in a region from Connecticut to North Carolina, the Meserve motion would have resulted in a choice of “no-harvest closures and/or no targeting closures in Wave 2 (March/April) and Wave 6 (November/December) to achieve a combined 9% reduction across both waves, to be implemented in uniform dates across the region.”

For anglers fishing from Maine to Rhode Island, that would’ve resulted in either “no-harvest closures and/or no targeting closures in Wave 3 (May/June) plus the number of days needed in Wave 5 (September/October) to achieve a combined 9% reduction across both waves, to be implemented in uniform dates across the region.”  This particular motion also would’ve implemented recreational season closures in 2025 to achieve a 9% reduction, while only decreasing commercial striped bass quotas by 5%.

These types of management options may still may be coming for 2026 – along with additional restrictions throughout the Chesapeake and seasonal closures or size limit changes in area-specific fisheries in New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware, coupled with commercial quota reductions.  But in 2025 the limits remain the same as they were in 2024.

One final thought related to the “no harvest” vs. “no targeting” closures presented by the Board.  With roughly 50% of the total removals (i.e., dead stripers) in the recreational community coming from the 9% mortality rate on released striped bass – the other 50% from those fish actually taken home by anglers – the Board acknowledged in a 9-5 vote that both “no harvest” and “no targeting” options should be included for discussion.  Essentially, given the 50/50 split in recreational mortality, a “no targeting” closure (similar to the January/February restrictions west of the COLREGS in New Jersey) would be shorter than a “no harvest” only prohibition.

The striped bass community could very well get their first taste of what’s in store for our 2025 striped bass discussions when the ASMFC holds their Winter Meeting from February 4-6 at the Westin Crystal City in Arlington, VA.

BY THE NUMBERS

Charts provided by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) and its Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board (Board) using the latest stock assessment data will contribute to the Draft Addendum III deliberations in 2025 for rebuilding spawning stock biomass (SSB).

In the Atlantic Striped Bass Female Stock Biomass and Recruitment chart the dotted horizontal blue line is the 2029 SSB target, the dark blue mass is the SSB from the 1980s through 2024, while the vertical red lines (recruitment) represent age 1 fish.  Current ASMFC projections indicate SSB will reach the original 1995 rebuild level – denoted by the solid horizontal blue line -as of 2025.

The Atlantic Striped Bass Commercial Landings and Discards & Recreational Landings and Release Mortality chart indicate where 90% of the overall mortality in the striped bass fishery comes from the recreational sector, whereas just 10% is by way of removals in the commercial sector.  In accounting for overall recreational removals, the darker blue in the vertical lines of the graph show catch and release mortality, while the lighter blue indicates fish retained by anglers.

Finally, the Atlantic Striped Bass Recreational Removals by Mode chart indicates that overall removals within the recreational fishing community come primarily from Private/Shore anglers in dark blue as opposed to anglers aboard For-Hire trips in green.

For more details go to ASMFC.org.

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