Summer Fishing Update and Release A Breeder Reminder
We hope you are getting out on the water this summer and enjoying the striper season. We’re hearing mixed reports from anglers and guides: some are finding good fishing, but must work hard to do so. Coast-wide the number of fish of all sizes seems to be declining, including an alarming absence of the large schools of 15” to 16” fish that should be found, given the reported near-record 2011 Chesapeake young of the year class. Fisheries managers have pinned a lot of hope on this particular year class and have dragged their feet implementing harvest reductions in anticipation of these fish. Whether there were ever as many as originally thought or if they have succumbed to myco is impossible to say, but their absence is a major concern.
All this makes our Stripers Forever Release A Breeder Club program even more important. Striped bass spawning success has always been unpredictable, and nature designed these fish to produce a lot of eggs over a long life to make up for it. One of the best things we can do for the population is to release these large breeders.
Click on this LINK to read about how the program works and by visiting the guide and angler pages you can see who has signed up and which anglers have been sent their release certificates. It is a decent start, but the striped bass need much more help than they have received so far.
Here is what you can do to help:
- Getting ready to book a trip with a guide? Check out the ones listed on the guide’s page. You’ll find handy links to their websites.
- If your favorite guide hasn’t registered yet on the site, contact him and ask him to go to the SF website and register now. It will help business!
- If you have released a fish of 36” or larger yourself this season, complete Angler Application form on the Release a Breeder Club home page. Register your fish and get a certificate and recognition of your catch.
Stripers need our help now, and if we aren’t a part of the solution we are a part of the problem. These magnificent fish are being driven to the edge by ineffective management, and we need to set a strong example with widespread, voluntary catch and release and to put pressure on the ASMFC to do the right thing.
As always, Stripers Forever will let you know how and when to make your comments to the fishery managers, and we’ll be consistently advocating for greater striped bass conservation, including the curtailment of the destructive commercial fisheries.
ASMFC Spring Meeting Coming Up Soon
On Tuesday May 13 the Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission will meet to discuss options to reduce the harvest of striped bass for 2015. Those proposed changes will then be taken to public hearing later in the year. If you go to your state info page on our website you will easily find your three state ASMFC commissioners. If you want them to vote for strong conservation measures for striped bass contact them and tell them so. They will be very interested in your opinion.
Stripers Forever submitted the written comments below to each ASMFC commissioner, and we will be following the results of the meeting closely. As it usually always happens, most recreational groups are asking for a substantial reduction in the catch while commercial interests want the smallest cut – if any – that they can get away with. Additionally, there will be attempts to stall this reduction until 2016.
The decline in the striped bass population is clear to anyone who spends time on the water and the time for action is now.
Here are the comments Stripers Forever submitted. Feel free to use any or all of this message in contacting your state ASMFC commissioners:
5/3/2014
Comments to the ASMFC Striped Bass Management Board Commissioners on
Addendum IV to the Striped Bass Management Plan
If the wild striped bass fishery is to recover, the ASMFC must mandate
both a coast wide reduction in fishing mortality of at least 50% in 2015,
and a significant reduction in the harvest of the remaining large prime
breeders.
The regulations in place up through 2002 allowed the striped bass
population to recover from serious overfishing. But since that
time there has been a steep and steady decline in the number of
stripers available in the fishery.
The tipping point was the 40 percent expansion of the coastal
commercial quota enacted in 2003. To those of us at Stripers
Forever and to everyone else who spends time on the water fishing
for striped bass, it is crystal clear that the population has
suffered an enormous decline since that quota enhancement.
An analysis of the Chesapeake YOY data shows that the average
count from 1992 through 2002 was 21.96. From 2003 to 2013 it was
11.85. And in the five year period from 2009 through 2013, the
number dropped to 10.91. The real decline is almost 50 percent (or
even greater) and is masked by the huge number of fish born in
2010 which may very well be an anomaly. A year class of that size
was supposed to send a large number of two-year-old stripers into
the coastal fishery. We have had no such reports. The 2010 year
class should now be evident as three-year-old fish, but so far
this season, stripers of that size are very scarce. We also know
that recent year classes in the Hudson River are not trending in a
positive direction.
Current regulations have encouraged the targeting of too many
large striped bass. No one really understands the relationship
between the size of the spawning stock biomass and the success of
striper year classes. We do know that these fish were designed by
nature to grow into the largest predators in their niche and that
they routinely lived and spawned repeatedly over a great number of
years. Our current management is certainly at odds with nature’s
plan.
In summary, spawning success as measured through the YOY index in the
Chesapeake Bay has been reduced by at least 50 percent. We need to have
more consistently successful year classes if we are to return this
fishery to its previous robust state.
Stripers Forever feels that the new ASMFC management plan should mandate a
reduction in fishing mortality in excess of 50 percent — and that the
burden of the fishery should be shifted away from the harvest of large
fish which are so valuable to the striped bass gene pool.
Board of directors of Stripers Forever
Massachusetts Striped Bass Legislation Update
Our Massachusetts lobbyist, Henri Rauschenbach, has been working hard over this legislative session to build support for making striped bass a game fish in MA. We are working towards this goal not only by direct legislative attempts to end the commercial fishery in one fell swoop, but in the shorter run to achieve interim measures that will reduce the commercial fishing quota, educate consumers as to the levels of mercury and PCB contaminants that exist in these fish, and to eliminate recreational anglers who sell their catch from the commercial fishery. At the same time we are doing everything possible to educate legislators about the superior socio-economic value of the recreational striped bass fishery, and to make them aware of the need to conserve the large, breeding female bass.
Those of you who have tried to influence the political process know how difficult a path it can be, but we have made significant progress. Here is a report from Henri:
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We have been very busy at the State House and have been making progress in this legislative session with our allies in the Legislature assisting. We have 2 bills in play as we head towards the end of the Legislative Formal Sessions (JULY 31ST).
We were able to move a bill dealing with Food Labeling (SB1059) in fish for dangerous substances (mercury, PCB’s etc.) out of the Joint Committee on Public Health. This bill was filed by Senator Moore and co-sponsored by Rep. Kimberly Ferguson and has now gone to Senate Ways and Means. We are thankful to the two committee Chairs: Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez (D – Boston) and Senator John Keenan (D – Quincy) as well as to Senator Richard Moore (D – Uxbridge). The second bill (HB660) that we have successfully moved out of the Joint Committee on the Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture as a rewrite was our Act Relative to the Conservation of Striped Bass. While there is tremendous opposition to the bill in the Committee, the Senate Chairman, Senator Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton), pushed very hard to redraft our bill and create a Special Commission to focus on our issues. While this isn’t exactly what we wanted, it does show that we are growing in strength. Your efforts on behalf of the Striped Bass are starting to pay off. Of great assistance with this in Committee was Rep. Matt Beaton (R. Shrewsbury) who is carrying the bill out of Committee. We should also say a special thanks to our long time and consistent supporters: Senator James Timilty (D -Walpole), Rep. Tom Stanley (D – Waltham) and Rep. Kimberley Ferguson (R-Holden).
With four months left in the formal Legislative Session and with the Budget coming out in the House on April 9th to be debated at the end of April, we are preparing to offer the Rep. Beaton language on the Striped Bass Special Commission as an amendment to the budget. This is not easy to do and we will be asking you to support our cause at the appropriate time. Remember – it is an election year and legislators do respond to constituents.
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There will come a time later this spring when Henri will ask for our help in contacting legislators to ask for their support on these measures. That will be the time when every member will be needed. In the meantime, though, if you have a close relationship with a MA legislator and are willing to speak to them in advance on striped bass conservation, please send us an e-mail at stripers@stripersforever.org.
Also, this link will take you to a current article that shows how members of the American Sport fishing Association are working to make national legislators aware of the tremendous socio-economic impact of recreational fishing in America.
Boston Globe “Podium” piece published Monday 3/10
Stripers Forever has an important article in the Boston Globe that begs for an immediate response from our concerned membership. This is a simple opportunity for you to send a strong and clear message to our legislators, many of whom until now have ignored our pleas to save wild striped bass. This article brings the debate into the public arena and public opinion matters to politicians.
If you sincerely care about the future of wild striped bass-and you should-you need to add your comments in agreement to this article and express your support for saving striped bass. Follow this link to the article and please share and leave your comments.
Clicking the “Comments” button at the conclusion of the Globe article is your opportunity to weigh in with your opinion. Your message should be clear and respectful. Be succinct and focus on the premise that the Legislature needs to step in and declare striped bass off limits to commercial harvesting. Without the temptation of market dollars to encourage over-harvesting which is what’s ruining this fishery, and with protection of game fish status, the regulators will instead manage stripers for recreational success. That means more, not fewer, fish in the ocean, resulting in a healthier and more robust fishery.
By clicking on the “Share” button at the top of the article you can easily email a copy of the article to your state senator and state representative so that Beacon Hill takes note of this issue. This is equally important.
Game fish designation for striped bass means a restoration of our billion-dollar recreational striped bass fishing economy and associated jobs; it means protecting striped bass for future generations; and it means that striped bass will no longer be overexploited, undervalued and under appreciated. But it depends on each of us making sure our voice is heard.
One, simple, short letter from you will have a direct and positive impact on the welfare of wild striped bass. Please do it now and as always thank you for your support.
Fred Jennings and Dean Clark, Co-Chairs, MA Stripers Forever
