I could write tens of thousands of words on this, but I’m going to keep it short as the weather is warm and the bass are in, and any editorial might ruin that wonderful feeling spring brings to anglers. So here’s the skinny, and I’ll try and just stick to the facts (Note: if you want more background on how this came about, see prior blogs NY’S LICENSE PROVISION FAILS IN ITS MOST IMPORTANT PURPOSE, and CCANY COMMENTS ON SW LICENSE).

There will be a salt water license, effective October 1, 2009. Here’s what we’ll get and here’s went down: The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which was reauthorized back in 2006, requires establishment of a federal registry of all saltwater anglers. Why? Quite simply because current system of gathering recreational fishing data sucks and we need better and more accurate data on recreational fishing. The current system, (Marine Recreational Fishing Statistics Survey, what most of us refer to as “MRFSS”,) is effective in showing trends on a coastwide basis, but it never was meant for managing fisheries by state and by season, and that’s exactly what we’ve been asking it to do. I mean, it relies on a bunch of folks cold-calling random households in hope of finding an angler. There are of course dock-side surveys as well, but they are really few and far between. The long and short of it is that the sample is way, way too small. Really, it’s hard to find anyone out there who believes MRFSS is a reliable way to gage recreational fishing mortality the way it’s being asked to. A review of MRFSS a few years ago by the National Research Council (NRC) found that MRFSS system was in need of extensive revisions if it were to properly fulfill its current role in fisheries management.

Based on the NRC report, when reauthorizing Magnusson, congress wanted to address the poor data problem. So along came the Angler Registry, which could give the number-crunchers an accurate count of anglers and a list of folks from which to survey. Now here’s the big problem with such a registry. While there wouldn’t be a fee associated with registering until 2011, it’s likely, and almost certain that the feds would charge anglers a $25 to $35 administration fee. And, there are no earmarks on that money, which means it would go into the black hole of the federal treasury. In other words, we wouldn’t see a dime. The act exempts from the registry requirement, anglers in states that have comprehensive saltwater license programs.

This was totally intentional of course. The last thing the National Marine Fisheries Service wants to deal with is administering a recreational fishing registry. They simply don’t have the resources. So, they really wanted to push the states into developing their own license.

So that brings us here. If you read the blogs below, you know that the Governor included such a license in his budget proposal. And you know that the money was not earmarked for the Marine Resources Bureau. The good news is that thanks to the good folks at CCA among others, and our good friend in the state legislature, Rep Bob Sweeny, we were able to get that changed. The current version has the money earmarked. We were also able to correct some of the other shortcomings. For example, there will be reciprocity provisions for residents of New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island, wherever they fish in state waters, rather than the locality specific language of the Governor’s bill. And, there will be an umbrella license, costing $400 per year, for for-hire vessels, so that individual anglers on such boats will not require licenses.

Now… Here’s the bad news. The cheaper-than-cheap folks managed to get the license fees bumped down considerably – from $19 per angler to $10. Being that the estimated cost of administering the license is approximately $10 per angler, it’s a total wash, and the DEC Marine Resource Bureau wouldn’t get the funding they desperately need for effective fisheries law enforcement, data collection, improved programs etc.

Wait… It gets worse… It may actually end up costing the DEC money. The idiots up in Albany saw that we were going to get some license fees this year and decided Marine Resource Bureau didn’t need the staff salaries and benefit funding that the Marine Resources Bureau gets from NY’s general-fund each year. Such a move, even with the license fees, is estimated to result in a 1 to 1.5 million deficit that will most certainly hurt the Marine Resources Bureau. We would not have had this problem if we had stuck to the original $19 fee in the Governor’s budget. Doing it on the cheap, despite what some folks think, is going to hurt the DEC and anglers. From what I understand, we were warned about this possibility before the decision to go to a $10 fee was made. Apparently, no one listened.

Now here’s some good news. Some folks in-the-know have told me that the current fee of $10 price is an ‘introductory price” that will increase over time to achieve parity with the freshwater license, which will be going to $29. If that’s the case, we’ll see the license fee go up over the years and we’ll see a better, stronger and more effective DEC Marine Resources Bureau. But can it survive a year or two on a severely decreased budget? Afraid I don’t have the answer to that question.

The other good news is that we’ll finally get back our proper allocation of Wallop-Breaux money. Wallop-Breaux legislation requires that we pay a 10% federal excise tax on anything fishing, boating or marine related we buy. A certain percentage of those funds get allocated back to the state based on the number of licensed anglers in the state. So, we won’t be getting back the usual small amount of money based on just the freshwater licensed anglers. Instead we’ll get back the amount we rightfully deserve. We’ll also, I’m sure, get more clout. If we’re footing a large portion of the DEC tab they’ll have an interest in providing services and adequately protecting fisheries so anglers will continue to buy licenses. We’ll also have some legislators who will be very interested to know how many anglers are in their district.

Despite the fact that we made a bad decision on the amount of the license, coupled with the fact that the Marine Resources Bureau got screwed by Albany, I still believe this license is a good thing. I could be deathly wrong though. The Marine Resource Bureau needs to survive these next couple of years with losing a good portion of their staff. Let’s hope they can swing it.

It’s likely that New York will have a very short season, very high minimum size and a very small bag limit for summer flounder (locally called fluke) in 2009, while in adjacent states’ regulations will be much more bearable. Party boat captains and the tackle industry in New York will undoubtedly suffer as anglers flock to such states with looser restrictions. It didn’t have to be that way.

Based on the best available science, fluke quotas are set by the Mid Atlantic Fishery Management Council each August, for implementation on January 1 of the following year. Currently, states are allocated a share of that quota based on their share of the catch in a single year, 1998, and each state must adopt regulations that will theoretically keep its harvest within its assigned share.

Unfortunately, there are big problems with that approach. In 2008, all but 3 states along the coast exceeded their share of the recreational summer flounder quota. Such overfishing under the current system is chronic. States inherently want to give their anglers the best possible fishing experience, which equates to adopting the most risky set of regulations that they can convince biologists to accept. Fishery managers now have plenty of real-world experience that shows the practical difficulty—and perhaps impossibility—of properly constraining harvest through that approach.

Furthermore, the data collection system used to determine quotas each year was never intended for state-by-state quota management, and lacks sufficient precision for such use. And fisheries biologists believe that the rebuilding summer flounder stock has redistributed itself northward during the summer, creating patterns of abundance far different than those of 1998, which gave rise to the current allocation.

The National Marine Fisheries Service and Mid Atlantic Council staff has acknowledged the abundant drawbacks of the current state-by-state system and have recommended standard coast-wide measures for summer flounder with a bag limit of two fish at 20” and season from May 1 to Sept 30th.

Such an approach would provide the opportunity to create a new baseline, in which state harvests are based on where the flounder are caught today, rather than where they were in 1998. Coastwide management would also improve the precision of catch estimates, employing the data collection system at its intended scale and making overfishing easier to curtail. It would also bring a modicum of fairness to anglers in New York, who have been forced to fish under the most stringent regulations on the coast simply because the flounder choose to summer here.

Such arguments were made at the Mid Atlantic Council meeting on December 9th. However, Council members rejected measures based upon the best scientific information available, are fair and equitable amongst states and that would better ensure the recreational harvest limits would not be exceeded in 2009. Instead, most voted solely for self-interest and the status quo.

New York remains stuck with a management system which is impossible to administer, fails to protect the summer flounder and causes significant hardship to its anglers and angling-related businesses.

The State of New York, through Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, is suing the National Marine Fisheries Service on behalf of the recreational fisherman of New York, to change the way fluke are managed. The judge hearing the case should heed New York’s call for better data and better management for the flounder and equity for New York’s anglers and related businesses.

West Babylon, NY—In comments addressed to New York Governor Patterson and provided to other leading administrative and legislative officials, Coastal Conservation Association New York recently recommended several improvements to the recreational salt water fishing license proposed by the Governor last month. Such comments are intended to help reshape the license proposal, which has been widely criticized by the state’s salt water angling community, into something that will clearly benefit the marine resources and salt water fishers of the State of New York.

“The big issue is and will always remain the use of the funds,” says Scott Emslie, CCA NY’s State Chair. “The current proposal provides that license revenues will be deposited in the general Conservation Fund. That is unacceptable to CCA New York, and to just about everyone else who fishes in salt water. We have recommended that all revenues from a salt water license be deposited directly into the Marine Resources Account. Our members have made it clear that they support licensing salt water anglers, but only if all of the license revenues are dedicated to marine resource conservation and the enforcement of fisheries regulations.”

In its letter to the Governor, CCA NY pointed out that New York’s salt water fisheries were based on naturally-reproducing stocks of fish native to the waters of the state. CCA NY argued that it makes more sense, from both a financial and an environmental perspective, to dedicate salt water license revenues to the conservation of native marine fish species, and the management of fisheries based on sustainable, naturally spawned fish populations, rather than to dump them into a fund used, in part, for the artificial reproduction of non-native species and the perpetuation of put-and-take fisheries that can’t survive without perpetual hatchery support.

“New York’s salt water fisheries are very different from those in fresh water,” observes Bill Raab, CCA NY’s President. “We manage our salt water fisheries by constraining harvest to sustainable levels, and the imposition of whatever bag limits, size limits and seasons are necessary to keep landings under control. But the research necessary to assess landing levels, to determine the health of each stock of fish and to calculate which regulations would best achieve conservation goals doesn’t come cheap. The Marine Bureau needs license money dedicated to the Marine Resources Account, in order to have a reliable and consistent source of funding for its day-to-day operations.”

However, funding should not be the driving force behind every provision of the license bill. Thought should also be given to the state’s party and charter boat fleet, which are an important part of the downstate tourism industry. The Governor’s proposal would require that any person fishing on such boats would have to be individually licensed. CCA NY believes that such a provision would be unduly burdensome, both to the tourists and the “occasional” anglers that make up a large portion of the party boats’ customer base, and to the boats themselves, which would be forced to deal with the paperwork involved in selling licenses to their unlicensed fares. The better approach, already adopted in many states, would be the creation of a separate “for-hire” license that would be purchased by the boat itself and cover all of its customers while on the vessel. Failure to take such an approach could well discourage new and “once-a-year” anglers from fishing.

“There is a real problem today with children not engaging in outdoor activities,” notes Guy Zummo, CCA NY’s Youth Committee Chair. “We run a family fishing trip out of Captree each year, to encourage kids to go fishing and try to get non-fishing parents to think about taking their children out on the water. Forcing non-fishing grandparents and soccer moms to buy a license just so they can take a young boy or girl fishing for four hours might well mean the end of the event; it would be so much easier and cheaper for them to just buy another video game.”

The tourism issue also touches upon another aspect of licensing—that of reciprocity with other states. The proposed license has very limited reciprocity provisions, which are restricted to specific, named bodies of water and differ depending on the residence of the out-of-state angler. Such provisions may be acceptable on inland waters, where anglers cannot easily run their boat from lake to lake, but on the broad and connected waters of the coast, and when applied to anglers who travel widely in the course of a fishing day, they make little sense.

“Salt water fishermen travel to where the fish are,” says Raab, “and the fish may move for miles over the course of a day, as tide and other conditions change. If reciprocity is to be extended to anglers from neighboring states—and we believe that it should be—it should apply to them wherever they fish in New York waters throughout the course of a day. Extending reciprocity to anglers from neighboring coastal states, regardless of where they fish along New York’s coast, will only benefit New York in the end, as similar provisions would probably be extended to New York residents when neighboring states adopt licenses of their own.”

CCA NY hopes that state officials will make its suggestions part of the license package ultimately considered by the Legislature, and that a license that will truly benefit New York’s salt water anglers is adopted in the current session. CCA NY recognizes that not everyone supports a salt water fishing license, but notes that such a license, in some form, has been adopted by every coastal state in the continental United States, except for a handful of jurisdictions in the northeast. It further notes that most sportsmen across the nation, whether anglers or hunters, have long embraced licensing as part of “doing their share” to help support the healthy fish and wildlife populations on which their sport depends, and sees no reason why the same philosophy shouldn’t be applied in this case.

“We know that some people have fished for a long time in New York waters without the need for a license,” explains Emslie, “and they don’t want to start buying one now. But times change, and realistically, we are going to have to start paying for either a state license or a federal registration in the next couple of years. While they may grumble, most anglers ultimately don’t care that much about paying $19 for a license, so long as the money is put back into salt water fisheries. When you realize that the license proposal came out a month ago, and the only real resistance is being organized out-of-state, by a New Jersey association with some industry affiliates here in New York, you come to appreciate how readily a properly-constructed license will be accepted by New York’s anglers.”

“However,” Emslie continues, “any license must provide real benefits for the salt water angler. If it does not, CCA NY and anglers throughout the Marine District will oppose it. We would rather pay a registration fee to the feds for a year or two, if it means getting a good license in the end, than see a bad license bill pass in Albany this session, and perhaps suffer the consequences for a generation.”###

Governor Patterson’s proposed 2009-10 budget bill includes a provision to establish a recreational salt water fishing license. Indeed such a license is long overdue and if properly administered, we should support it.

Such a pay-to-play system would immediately put a concrete figure on the number of saltwater anglers in New York. Not only would this improve the accuracy of recreational fishing data used to determine catch limits, it would give anglers much needed clout amongst decisionmakers.

More importantly, however, is the dire need for funds to support New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation Bureau of Marine Resources. The Marine Bureau has long been understaffed and overworked, without the basic funding needed to understand and reverse the decline in populations of winter flounder, weakfish, shad, river herring and other species important to recreational and commercial fishing. In Brooklyn and Western Nassau, where I run my charter business, poachers operate in broad daylight because the state doesn’t have the funding for Environmental Conservation officers to adequately police the area.

If New York does not implement a saltwater licensing system, a federal mandate will require that anglers pay a “saltwater registry” fee in 2011, and the funds generated will go directly into the federal treasury. A state license effectively keeps the money in state, and if property overseen, restricts it to the managing agencies that deal with fisheries. Furthermore, such a license would dramatically increase New York’s share of federal matching funds generated by the federal tax on all marine and fishing products.

Yet, there are problems with the way the current license provision is written. It does not provide for exclusive funding of the Marine Bureau. The language of the bill specifically excludes all of the revenues from the license from the dedicated marine resources account, and instead relegates them to the general coffers of the Conservation Fund, where they may be spent on any fish and wildlife project anywhere in the state.

The Conservation Fund is currently suffering through a period of reduced revenues and has less money available to fund existing programs. That raises the distinct possibility that most, if not all, of the salt water license revenues raised will be spent upstate on freshwater stocking and stream access programs, or to manage deer and upland game, leaving the marine resources and saltwater anglers of the state no better off than they would have been if no license had been imposed.
While there are many arguments for a saltwater license in NY, the most compelling is the need to provide adequate and reliable funding for marine resource management and for enhanced law enforcement in the marine district. Yet, by specifically excluding license revenues from the marine resources account, the current proposal raises the likelihood that the license will fail in its most important purpose.

While I firmly believe that salt water anglers should do their fair share to support the management of marine resources, asking us to pay for upstate budget shortfalls while marine resources remain underfunded is unjust. There is still time to amend the license bill so that the funds are earmarked for marine resources. New York’s saltwater anglers should be encouraging their local representatives to insist on such changes.

If you are one of the skeptics, consider the below passage taken from a University of New Hampshire Department of Natural Resources document titled A Guide to Fisheries Stock Assessment. This is the document used to educate members of the fisheries management councils on how fisheries stock assessments are conducted:

“Fishermen will actively seek out areas with greater fish concentrations. As a result, their catch-per-unit effort could remain stable in the face of a declining stock. Consider a stock that contracts its range as the population shrinks, or increases its range as the population grows. Despite the changing range, catch-per-unit effort may remain relatively constant if the fishermen focus their effort on the center of the range, where fish density remains relatively stable.”

Complaints about the lack of quality fish are wide spread, and the voices are indeed becoming louder. In light of this, I offer the below letter to the ASMFC Striped Bass Management Board from Maine Charter Boat Captain Dave Pecci.

From Capt. Dave Pecc
To: Striped Bass Management Board

“I apologize for not being able to present this information in person. The reason is that because of the drastic downturn in the striped bass stock here in the Northeast, my charter business suffered a 40 percent drop this year. So I am working overtime these days in my off season carpentry business to try and recoup my losses. Many other Maine charter captains are also struggling to make up income lost during a disastrous striped bass season.

As I mentioned at the last striped bass advisory panel meeting, there has been a steady and marked downturn in Maine’s striped bass migration over the past five years– most especially in the greatly reduced numbers of trophy size stripers. In 2008, my average catch per trip dropped 80 percent! Not surprisingly, Maine’s resident anglers and our highly valued destination anglers chose to fish elsewhere, thus seriously crippling Maine’s 140 boat charter fleet and its $4 to $5 million contribution to the state’s economy.

The drastic striped bass downturn in 2008 cannot be blamed on local conditions. There was an above average, season-long presence of baitfish in Maine waters this year. For the first time in more than 15 years, we had schools and schools of adult menhaden. And as you know, the most robust populations of river herring available anywhere along the East Coast continue to thrive in Maine waters.

We in Maine have been saying for years that the coast-wide striped bass stocks are dwindling at a rate much higher than the stock assessment trends suggest. I urge you to consider the following measures which would help to correct this downturn and preserve the charter industry and the private angler fishery in Maine and along the entire Northeast coast:

1. Widen the gap between target and threshold mortality to allow for the dynamic changes typical in an 80 percent recreationally utilized stock. This would provide the cushion needed to absorb the possibility of higher species mortality due to unanticipated increases in the numbers of recreational fishermen without allowing over-fishing to occur.
2. Lower the overall mortality on striped bass to allow for a true complete restoration of age structure and to provide stock population increases throughout the historic range of the fishery.
3. Provide odelith study funding so the coast-wide age structure and population of older, trophy size striped bass can be scientifically assessed.
4. Provide MRFSS wave 1 sampling of the winter striped bass fisheries in North Carolina and Virginia. The current estimates used by the Technical Committee on landing and mortality data in these very dynamic fisheries are incomplete and most likely flawed drastically.
5. Provide mechanisms to address and reduce both commercial and recreational discard mortality.

It is my opinion that the coast-wide striped bass fishery –which is 80 percent recreationally utilized – should not be managed using the typical commercial maximum sustainable yield methodology. Recreational hook-and-line fishing is fundamentally inefficient when compared to commercial harvesting practices. For that reason a predominantly recreational fishery such as striped bass should have a larger overall biomass than a typical commercial fishery.

We should also manage our striped bass stocks to provide a true quality recreational fishery throughout the species’ historic range – a quality fishery in which trophy size fish are accessible to sport fishermen.
The five bullets listed above would help greatly to achieve a truly recovered and successful coast-wide striped bass fishery.

Thank you for your time. Again, I would have much preferred to present this to you in person, but I have to work to make up for a lost season.”

I couldn’t agree more. I think Dave his hit the nail on the head here. While I hope I’m wrong, I’m beginning to strongly believe that Maine is the bellwether state. Only time will tell. In the meantime, I would hope that managers would proceed with extreme caution when managing striped bass. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case as sates like Delaware, Pennsylvania and Virginia seek to increase harvest.

Sounds like pretty serious stuff right? But, of course it’s not entirely true. Indeed similar action happened, but the New England Council was certainly not “dissolved” like the author of the letter would lead his readers to believe. The letter is a major spin on the actual events of that day.

I had since forgotten about the letter as really, it wasn’t worthy of remembering, but after reading the many Presidential campaign articles in this morning’s paper, it got me thinking about spin. Thus, I offer the following “spin” regarding the actions of that day. I can’t take credit for this one. It came from a friend who wishes to remain nameless. And, as a Mid Atlantic Council Member I need to say that the views expressed in this letter are not my own. But indeed it is worth sharing. So, check it out:

“NMFS Regional Administrator Recognizes Obligation to Restore Fisheries”

“In a courageous and unprecedented move, The National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Regional Administrator ignored the self-serving advice of the New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC) at the Council’s most recent meeting in Providence, RI. After days of discussing ways to frustrate the intent of the Magnuson Act while protecting their own financial interests, the Council approved a set of measures developed by the National Seafood Coalition that would delay needed rebuilding efforts and continue the chronic overfishing of groundfish stocks, until a way to permanently avoid conservation obligations could be conceived. In a 15-1 vote, the Council approved the Coalition proposal, the only dissenting vote being cast by the NMFS Regional Administrator, Pat Kurkul. Ms. Kurkul subsequently announced that, in the face of the Council’s failure to live up to their responsibilities under the law, she would be compelled to develop and implement an interim set of measures designed to begin the conservation and restoration of New England fish stocks. What is truly remarkable about this watershed event is that, for the first time, the National Marine Fisheries Service has taken a firm stand against the chronic cronyism and mutual back-scratching that has been endemic to the Council since its inception, and is acting decisively to protect the public interest in healthy and restored marine fisheries. Although the Council members, feeling financially threatened by the manifest need to reduce harvest that is evidenced in the GARM III report, came together to oppose any meaningful conservation measures, the Regional Administrator was cognizant of the fact that the Council’s role is advisory, and acted decisively to fulfill her agency’s obligations under the Magnuson Act. While Council and stakeholder input is certainly important to the fisheries management process, when such input is purely self-serving, and ignores both the best scientific evidence and the mandate of law, NMFS only responsible course is to ignore such comment and act in the greater public interest. The fishing industry is now undoubtedly in consultation with their lobbyists and calling in favors for past campaign contributions, in an attempt to foment a legislative assault on the agency’s management efforts. It is time for Americans to realize that the nation’s marine resources belong equally to all of us, and are not the special property of those who profited from the depletion of one of the world’s great fishing grounds. We all should contact our legislators and encourage them to support the agency action and, by extension, the public interest in having healthy and restored marine fish populations.”

See, it’s all about spin.

Readers of this blog may or may not read my column in Fly Fishing in Saltwaters Magazine (FFSW). I’m not trying to promote it here, but I do want to point out the recent column on bluefin tuna: (http://www.flyfishinsalt.com/species/conservation/the-bluefin-dilemma-1000064910.html ) I’m told by the editors over at FFSW that it’s generating quite a bit of mail, some of it in support and some of it, well, not so nice. So, I wanted to justify some things here.

If you read the piece you may have been dismayed that I suggested a 5 year moratorium on the species when perhaps to you they seem abundant (particularly if you fish in Cape Cod). However, just because you may have some infrequent concentrations of bluefin in your neck of the woods, it does not mean the stock is abundant and healthy. Such localized concentrations only serve to highlight the lack of the species elsewhere.

Here are the facts. Every single piece of peer-reviewed science out there on bluefin indicates that they are in trouble. Bad trouble… As I mention in the article, our western fish are only 10% of what they were in the 70’s and they are still declining. The commercial bluefin industry has not been able to meet their quota because there simply aren’t enough fish around anymore. Many scientists are suggesting that the western Atlantic bluefin is on a path to extinction, and that’s no joke.

All indicators are pointing to a population collapse in the near future unless something drastic is done immediately. So, absolutely, I think we need a 5 year moratorium if there is to be any hope for a recovery. And I’ll stand by that statement with conviction.

If you are an angler that regularly targets bluefin, you might be saying that it’s not you, but the commercial folks that cause all the problems. This is simply not true anymore. As I pointed out in the article, recreational catches now make up 70% of the total U.S. catch by weight, and by number anglers account for about 90% of the fishing mortality! Bluefin that spawn in the Gulf of Mexico don’t mature until about age12 so the reality is that with every fish killed below 90” anglers are “robbing the cradle”. Juveniles are now crucial to rebuilding the bluefin population and we are generally the ones preventing such a rebuild.

You may now be saying that the stock decline wasn’t the fault of anglers. On this, you are entirely correct. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do what it takes to insure that it rebuilds. If we don’t it’s very possible, in fact likely, that we will lose them forever. I certainly don’t want that to happen on my watch. Do you?

I’m not suggesting anglers immediately give up all bluefin fishing because I wrote some stupid article in FFSW. I’m suggesting managers take notice of the bluefin decline and seriously consider a 5 year moratorium along with a complete closure of the Gulf of Mexico spawning areas. Until such action is taken, I don’t hold it against anglers for doing what is completely legal, although I do believe that releasing bluefin is possible and a much better choice than keeping them. I know that’s difficult to do, given their excellent taste and the hard fact that a lot don’t survive the fight. But just remember that with proper tackle and handling, it can be done.

Now, I want to address those folks who feel that with such an article, I’m selling anglers down the river. Certainly that is not my intention. My intention is to insure that my kids will be able to target these fish when they are old enough to do so. If that means I can’t fish them for 5 years, I’m willing to make that sacrifice… Are you???

Important note on “Flexability in American Fishery Law” Bills as they relate to bluefin tuna:

Over the years ICCAT has managed to disregard the science on bluefin at almost every turn. Time and time again, history tells us that when the advice of scientists is not heeded, problems worsen, sometimes catastrophically. Fisheries managers are notorious for ignoring scientific advice, and this has caused major problems for fish and fishermen. Thus, it’s worthy of noting here that the current “Flexibility in America’s Fishery Law” being pushed by commercial and some recreational fishing advocacy groups would most certainly serve to worsen this situation. These bills are nothing less than efforts to elevate short-term business interests above the long term health of the resource and should be opposed at every turn. I’m surprised and dismayed that some local groups that include the word “conservation” in their title support such unwise and reckless bills. (CCA rightfully opposes the bills, so I’m not speaking of them). When all is said and done, those who spend any time at all thinking about the issues will realize that bluefin exemplify the inevitable result of such an industry-first approach to management.

First, if you are totally unfamiliar with the system you may be asking “What the H is a reference point?” Biological reference points are parameters that are useful benchmarks for guiding management decisions. Typically they are limits set by the best available science at the time.

Several new models were developed for use in the 2007 benchmark stock assessment which was released back in February, including the Forward-Projecting Statistical-Catch-at-Age model (SCA). The SCA is a significant departure from the virtual population analysis that had been used to assess striped bass stock status since 1997. It is an aged-based model that projects the population numbers-at-age forward through time, rather than backwards, as had been the case with the VPA.

So, without getting into too much detail and confusing not only readers but myself, my understanding is that the new SCA model indicates that a lower level of fishing mortality (“F”) at Maximum Sustainable Yield (the highest rate at which bass can be taken out of the stock without impairing its renewability through natural growth or replenishment).

Striped bass fishing is managed by target and threshold parameters (those reference points we were just talking about). Regulations are set so that fishing mortality does not exceed a fishing mortality target which is lower than the fishing mortality threshold. The fishing mortality threshold is essentially Maximum Sustainable Yield in this case. Such management provides a precautionary buffer which allows catch to exceed the target (which it has in many years) without ever exceeded the overfishing threshold.

So, the only thing particularly noteworthy with the new reference points is that the Threshold has changed. (As mentioned, fishing mortality at maximum sustainable yield has been lowered.) The target, the fishing mortality number that managers shoot for has not changed at all. The failure to move the target in conjunction with the lowered threshold makes the difference between the two quite a bit smaller, meaning that a harvest that is only a little over the target could violate the threshold.

Since the threshold figure is the one used to mandate changes in regulations, the change brings the thresholds closer to current harvest levels. Although we are not overfishing yet, this makes future “overfishing” quite bit more likely.

Indeed, there seems to be abundant concern right now with the striped bass fishery, and quite honestly I share in that concern. The flyfishers and the light tackle crowd are experiencing it to a greater effect than others and those poor folks in Maine have had the worst consecutive two seasons since the 80’s.
But given the prevalence of localized pods of large fish (e.g. VA in the winter, Northern NJ in the Spring, Rhode Island in the Summer) and the widely accepted science which indicates that the stock is at a high level and, compared to other stocks, is doing well, I’m almost certain that managers will not change any aspect of striped bass management until we exceed the threshold in the coming years. These new biological reference points make that quite a bit more likely.

While indeed I would like to see more precaution exercised with the striped bass fishery (e.g. higher size, mandatory circlehooks in bait fisheries, the banning of Yo-Yoing etc.), managers are much more apt to concentrate their resources on fisheries which are truly in trouble and in which overfishing continues, and leave striped bass alone for the time being. And, if readers think the commercial fishing community and/or the charter/headboat fleet are going to voluntarily agree to stricter limits when there is no science indicating that they should be making such cutbacks, then they are sadly mistaken, especially in light of the hits such folks have taken on summer flounder, black sea-bass, scup etc.

I also think in large part angler’s attitudes have changed, mostly because of the anit-enviro propaganda perpetuated by the local fishing press. Because of the decidedly anti-conservation movement by a New Jersey-based coalition of commercial and recreational fishing industries to weaken the Magnuson Steven Act, any sort of precaution these days is looked on as “alarmist” and “radical” or “elitist.” I don’t think we could fill a room these days with anglers preaching conservation with striped bass like we did five years ago with the Amendment 6 hearings.

In short, I do think we’re seeing the signs of trouble with striped bass, but I don’t think there is much anyone can do about it at the moment, save getting folks to talk about it. If or when the ASMFC is forced to act in the coming years, I just hope it’s not too little too late. I truly hope we don’t travel down that same road.
For more info on bass, see my July/Aug 2008 Flyfishing in Saltwaters column: http://www.nycflyfishing.com/2008%20Status%20of%20the%20Striper.htm

So, if you’ve been following the summer flounder issue at all, you know that by law the fluke population has to reach a certain level (a scientifically determined rebuilding goal) by the year 2013. Reaching this goal was requiring some very significant cuts in landings and the commercial and recreational fishing industries weren’t very happy about that.

So now, with the natural mortality estimate significantly increased, the rebuilding goal is significantly reduced, thus, according to the new model we are closer to the rebuilding goal than we initially thought. The Jersey fishing press is screaming victory, saying they were right all along, but my interpretation is there isn’t much for those folks to celebrate about, and really they weren’t right at all. I’ll get to that in a second.

A long time industry supporter told the Asbury Park Press “We’ve been fishing under this system for all this time, and they suddenly sat down and used different numbers, What a hoax!” Well, let’s be honest here. It’s likely that the natural mortality number wouldn’t have changed if those industry reps didn’t secure one of their scientists a seat at the stock assessment table.

There are already a good number of folks who believe that the increase in the natural mortality variable was political. I spoke to one scientist today who said that natural mortality estimate is pretty darn high on the scale, and went on to describe it as “absurd”. I’m not sure I agree with such strong words, especially in light of all the supporting documentation that the higher mortality rate is indeed plausible. But, there has been a ton of political pressure on managers to increase harvest, so I can understand this view. According to insiders, NOAA wasn’t happy about the natural mortality tweak nor was it wholeheartedly endorsed by the review committee, but they didn’t think it was inappropriate, and saw no reason to reject the option. But indeed I have to say that it appears politics is playing a role in a system that is supposed to rely on un-bias science. With all this being said however, the option did pass a peer review. If NOAA Fisheries says this is the best available science, then we need to follow it, and I’ll wholeheartedly support it.

What is paramount in all of this is the integrity of the peer-review process. I spent the last couple of years supporting the prior rebuilding target of 197-million-pounds, and the resultant management measures, because they reflected the best available science, as represented by a peer-reviewed stock assessment. A faction of the recreational fishing industry and the commercial fishing industry attacked the science as “bad” without offering anything else in its place, and I opposed that approach because I believed it was wrong. Now, we’re looking at a significantly lowered target and folks are cheering, because they feel that their attack on the prior target of 197 million pounds was vindicated. Some folks on the other side of the spectrum are upset, because they feel that the 197 million pound target was improperly undercut. Both are overlooking the fact that the essential process remains the same, and that both the prior 197 million pound and the present 131 million pound targets reflect the best available science at the time the calculations were made.

We always have to remember that, if researchers are doing their jobs, every year brings additional data and additional knowledge. In 2011, we’ll have even more information, and can probably expect additional tuning of the reference points. Undoubtedly that’s a good thing, and it shows that indeed the system does work and that it is already sufficiently “flexible.” Thus, there is absolutely no need for a “Flexibility” Amendment to fisheries management law currently being pushed by some. Such an amendment is shortsighted and would essentially bring us back to the pre-1996 days of perpetual overfishing.

Now, back to the victory celebration columns. As mentioned, if natural mortality has been underestimated and the fishery is less productive than previously thought, that will lower the rebuilding goal. The bottom line is that, while the rebuilding target is lower, harvest is ultimately also lower than it would be under the old rules.

In other words, if the fishery is eventually declared fully rebuilt with the lower goal, we won’t see much looser regulations than what we have now, where as if the stock had been rebuilt to what scientists had said it could be rebuilt to under the old system, anglers could have enjoyed far more liberal size and bag limits had the initial rebuilding goal been met. Of course this begs the question, could that prior goal have been achieved if we had followed the plan and didn’t overfish every year. Guess we’ll never know.

Anyone who has ever done any live bait fishing knows that stripers, especially the big ones, inhale the bait. Thus, if you are using a J-hook, just about every fish gets it in the belly. That’s fine if you are planning on keeping your two fish and going home. Menhaden are big baits and rarely does a short eat one. But if you keep fishing after that, as most anglers do, THEN USE A DARN CIRCLEHOOK FOR GOD’S SAKE!

I’m not going to explain how circlehooks work as I believe most know already, and if you don’t you can find many a detailed explanation by Googleing it. In my experience, as well as just about everyone I know who uses them, they result in a perfect lip hooked fish 90% of the time. And it’s not just anecdotal. There is a ton of science out there that shows that circlehooks in bait fisheries dramatically reduce release mortality.

Yet despite all this, the overwhelming majority of anglers continue to use J-hooks! I went on a charter for a bachelor party two years ago and this dumbass Captain was using treble hooks to live-line bunker! I couldn’t believe it! Talk about lack of foresight.

Thus, this is the time of the year that I usually see a good number of dead bass floating on the surface on my way back to the marina each morning. And these are the ones that don’t skink. I’m sure there are a lot more. And when you multiply my small area by all those areas that have vibrant live and dead bait fisheries for striped bass, it really adds up. And it’s not just my dumb-ass saying it. It’s a fact. According to the most recent striped bass stock assessment, recreational discards account for 34% of the total catch! To put that into perspective, that’s double what the total commercial landing are! Kinda hard to justify gamefish with those numbers don’t ya think? Yet still, folks foolishly resist new hook technology that could dramatically reduce this number.

I’ve got to say, the fact that circlehooks aren’t required in those fisheries that are prone to excessive release mortality (fish that die as a result of angling related trauma) isn’t required by now angers me. Why the H wouldn’t we require them!? That’s a question I asked during the last ASMFC Striped Bass Advisory Panel meeting. All the panel had the nerve to muster up was to recommend increased “education” on circle hooks. Like that’s gonna do anything? There was the usual talk about agencies being unable to enforce such a regulation, yet if it was a law, for sure most folks would follow it. Then there was the knucklehead who said that his charter clients wouldn’t be able to figure out how to use the. Uhm, what!? All you do is come tight on the fish. What could be easier than that?

We really need circle hook regulations. It’s absurd not to have them. Until we reduce that release mortality percentage, we just don’t have any credibility.