This week’s report comes from Dewey Beach, DE where the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and its Striped Bass Management Board voted 13-3 in favor of “status quo” measures for striped bass. With that vote commissioners also agreed to establish a new Working Group comprised of stakeholders, scientists and fisheries managers to look more closely at the health of striped bass “in consideration of severely reduced reproductive success in the Chesapeake Bay.” That original “status quo” motion was made by reps from New Jersey and Delaware, with New York adding the Working Group concept to work proactively on future striped bass management goals. Reps from Massachusetts and Rhode Island tried substituting a 12% reduction motion to reduce allowable days of recreational striped bass fishing in 2026, but that motion failed by an 11-5 vote. We have the full breakdown from outside the room where it happened this, leading off this week’s New Jersey, Delaware Bay video fishing forecast with Tuesday’s 16-2 vote in favor of a 20% cut to the commercial menhaden harvest starting in 2026
