2013 Annual Angler Survey results
The results of the Stripers Forever 2013 Annual Fishing Survey are attached below. In 2013 we received a near record 1020 responses to our annual survey. 752, or 83% of the respondents, have fished for stripers for more than 10 years, and many of these people fished through both the last striped bass collapse and the recovery of the late 1980s and 1990s. This is a very experienced sample of the angling population. This year’s survey has again produced a good representative sampling of sentiments from fishers all along the striper’s migratory range, and as usual MA and NJ vied for the greatest contributions with 227 and 222 completed surveys respectively.
Without a reasonable doubt the fishery is continuing to decline. 78% of fishers report catching fewer fish compared to 4% reporting catching more. Also, 60% said they were catching smaller fish compared to only 18% claiming they were larger. Most of the older, larger fish from the great year classes of the 1990s and early 2000s have been removed from the population leaving us with smaller fish and many less fish from the poor year classes that have generally characterized the fishery since 2003.
We had survey results from 89 guides, which is one of our best years. Without a doubt the decline in striper fishing is hurting this valuable industry as well as the related fishing tourism and tackle businesses. The guides know how to fish their areas, though, and can usually produce the best results possible from their home waters. If you are thinking about a guided trip please check out the guides and tackle shops listed on the Stripers Forever website.
We will send this information to the press and to fishery policy makers everywhere. We hope that you will use this information personally to help us advocate for the goal of coast-wide striped bass game fish. Please share the results with your local fishing club, home town newspaper, and elected officials that you may know.
The PDF contains both survey totals and the questions and the responses, the answers have not been edited. Another PDF is entitled Key Comparisons and graphs out the answers to some particularly important questions. The questions that we use have been the same for the ten years we have been doing the survey.
Massachusetts to circumvent ASMFC tagging program…
OUTRAGE AT THE ATTEMPT BY MASSACHUSETTS TO CIRCUMVENT THE INTENT AND UNDERMINE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE NEW ASMFC COMMERCIAL STRIPED BASS TAGGING PROGRAM
In February at the 2012 ASMFC Striped Bass Management Board Meeting, the Board moved to incorporate recommendations by the Interstate Watershed Task Force (IWTF) and ASMFC Law Enforcement Committee (LEC) on reducing illegal commercial harvest of striped bass.
It was the unanimous recommendation of the IWTF and the LEC that all fish harvested for sale be required to be tagged immediately upon possession. The LEC presented the persuasive argument that the longer the fish remain untagged, the harder it is to enforce harvesting rules and the easier it is for illegal activity to occur.
Unfortunately the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries is proposing that in Massachusetts commercially caught stripers need not be tagged when harvested but later when they are sold. Doing so will effectively undermine the intent of the tagging program as outlined by the Law Enforcement Committee of the ASMFC. The purpose of tagging at capture is for law enforcement to quickly determine harvesting compliance, to avoid tag sharing and high grading and to reduce the under-reporting of both fish and weights.
If the Law Enforcement Committee recommendations were adopted a commercial fisherman in possession of a fish that is not tagged would be breaking the law. The proposal by the MDMF to not have to tag a commercially harvested fish until it is sold – if it is ever sold – is an open invitation to circumvent harvesting rules and contradicts the intent and goals of the ASMFC recommendations.
This is an outrage that we must do our best to correct. There are two public hearings coming up soon that will give each of us (you) an opportunity to express our (your) feelings on this proposed rule change. Please attend the hearing nearest you and speak up in favor of tagging at point of capture. Stripers Forever will submit organizational testimony. Each of you should write/speak as an individual, interested party. If you can’t get to a meeting then please email: jared.silva@state.ma.us and ask the MDMF to follow the ASMFC tagging recommendations. Insist that commercially caught stripers be tagged immediately when they are caught.
MDMF Public Hearings
Feb.11, 2014 6: PM Feb. 12, 2014 6: PM
Plymouth Harbor Radisson Gloucester High School Auditorium
180 Water Street 32 Leslie O. Johnson Road
Plymouth, MA Gloucester, MA
Two Bad News Tidbits
It would be a mistake to draw scientific conclusions from only one example showing a severe reduction in the striped bass fishery. However, the following is one of thousands of real-time fishing reports that cannot be ignored. This report is condensed from an article by Bill Cochran on Jan. 15, 2014 that appeared in the Roanoke (VA) Times newspaper.
“The Jan. 9-11 Mid-Atlantic Rockfish Shootout is an 11-year old event offering more than $217,000 in prizes for big fish. It has the reputation of being the largest striper tournament in the country.
The stripers were a no-show. The shootout, organized in 2004 to highlight what the sponsors said was some of the finest striper fishing on the East Coast, was telling a different story:
Thursday, no fish weighed in. Friday, skunked again. Saturday the tournament ended with no fish being weighed in for all three days!”
How much longer or what more is needed to “prove” to the regulators that wild striped bass are in trouble. These fish need game fish status to protect them from over-zealous managers that are fixated by their myopic goal of maximum sustained yield instead of maximizing conservation.
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There are preliminary reports that wild Striped Bass, especially fish greater than 34 inches, are not to be consumed because they may have unsafe levels of mercury. Although the Health Department of our neighboring State of Rhode Island still claims they are low in mercury they nevertheless advise against eating wild striped bass at all!
“Avoid eating bass, pike, tilefish, king mackerel fish, and pickerel. Swordfish, shark, bluefish, striped bass, and freshwater fish (with the exception of stocked trout) that are caught in Rhode Island should also not be eaten. Although mercury levels in bluefish and striped bass are low, the Food and Drug Administration cautions against eating these fish because of the presence of other contaminants known as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs” RI Dept. Public Health 2014,
In Massachusetts, the lobbying arm of the commercial striped bass fishermen must have a very persuasive presence. According to Massachusetts officials the same fish that Rhode Islanders are being told not to eat are being touted as great table fare once they swim into Massachusetts waters!
This lack of official concern for the public safety, especially for the unborn, the innocent children and pregnant women is strong evidence of the myopic greed that a commercial market place creates. Given the scientifically accepted effects of mercury exposure on some fetuses, pregnant women and women who are planning pregnancies should be particularly advised to not eat fish that have high levels of mercury or PCB’s.
This is but one more example of the dark side to having a commercial striped bass fishery anywhere but especially here in Massachusetts. These wild stripers are valuable as a sport or recreational only fish (game fish) but as a commercial fish they are a danger to our health and should not be sold to the public… at least not without strong and well publicized warnings everywhere it is for sale or is served.
These posts by Dean Clark, MA Co-Chair, Stripers Forever
Stripers Forever comments on ASMFC Strategic Plan and Striped Bass Stock Assessment.
Recently the Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission “ASMFC”, a compact between East Coast States with effective regulatory power over state water’s fisheries including striped bass, accepted comments on its new 5-Year Strategic Plan as well as the recently adopted Striped Bass Stock Assessment that shows overfishing has been occurring on a regular basis for striped bass. Stripers Forever board member and ASMFC policy coordinator Ken Hastings follows these things closely and conferred with other SF board members to produce the testimony that you will find here: SF FINAL PLAN COMMENTS 010414, SF ASSESSMENT COMMENTS 010414.
Parts of this are fairly heavy reading. You can go the ASMFC website and find the draft strategic plan as well as the striped bass stock assessment if you want to delve into it. Here is the most basic thrust, though, of our testimony:
- Striped bass are the most valuable inshore recreational fishery on the East Coast. This fishery should be managed very conservatively to ensure abundance for the enjoyment of the millions of recreational participants, and for the very valuable industry that they support. Instead of this the ASMFC is managing striped bass as they are all commercial species – not far from the edge of disaster.
- The ASMFC needs to change its management priorities away from the outdated and unworkable concept of MSY or Maximum Sustainable Yield – which always proves to be unsustainable. More emphasis should be placed on conservation. This is not only good for the species being managed, but it would also maximize the economic impact of the recreational fishery which requires robust fish populations to attain its potential.
- The ASMFC often uses essentially theoretical and otherwise inadequate data to make management decisions that allow maximum harvest to occur. Issues such as unknown mortality from diseases and the effects of poaching or unreported catch are simply ignored because they can’t be accurately quantified. In order to allow for these hard to quantify but very real sources of mortality a more conservative management outlook is called for.
Ken will be attending most upcoming ASMFC meetings on striped bass management and the strategic plan, and we will continually press for better conservation, more conservative management, and greater recognition of rights and values of the recreational fishing public.
PS If you are not a member already, while you are here please go to the Membership button at the top right of the page and take a few seconds to join Stripers Forever. There is no cost.
