That’s it. That’s the number. Two.
For thirty years, the entire Atlantic coast striped bass recreational fishery, a multi billion dollar industry and a way of life for millions, has been managed based on the ghosts of fish that never died. But it all started with two. Two small, 13 inch striped bass that were the only confirmed, observed catch and release mortalities in the infamous 1996 Diodati study.
Let’s tell their story, because in it lies the original sin of three decades of flawed fisheries management.
In 1996, researchers trapped over a thousand small striped bass, trucked them for hours, and dumped them into an artificial pond. They then had volunteers catch and release them. Out of a group of 44 fish caught on the first day, two of them died within 12 hours. The study authors watched them die. They confirmed it. That’s a 4.5% mortality rate. That is the only hard, undisputed, observed mortality from catch and release in the entire study.
So how did two dead fish become the 9% mortality rate that has haunted us for a generation? Through assumptions. And ghosts.
At the end of the experiment, eight weeks later, they drained the pond. They used a seine net to capture all the fish, then pumped the pond completely dry to make sure they got everything. They recovered 198 fish that had been hooked and released during the experiment. All 198 were alive. They examined them for tags and released them into the neighboring bay.
But about 15 fish that had been hooked were simply gone. They weren’t there. There were no bodies. No carcasses in the mud. Just empty spots in the tally sheet.
Instead of acknowledging that fish in an open pond can be eaten by birds, escape through sluice gates, or simply disappear, the study made a colossal leap of faith. They “presumed” that every single one of those missing fish had died as a direct result of being caught and released. They added those 15 phantom fish to the two real ones, did some math, and came up with their now infamous 9% predicted mortality rate.
Two dead fish became seventeen. And seventeen became the justification for a regulatory regime that has crippled the recreational fishing community. Every slot limit, every shortened season, every time a charter captain had to tell a client to throw back the fish of a lifetime, it was done in the name of saving fish that, in all likelihood, never even died.
And it wasn’t just the regulations. That inflated 9% number gave us a black eye that has lasted a generation. How many times have we heard it? “Recreational anglers kill more fish releasing them than commercial fishermen kill harvesting them.” We’ve been painted as the villains, the careless weekend warriors who are destroying the fishery one released fish at a time. That narrative was built on the backs of two dead fish and fifteen ghosts. We’ve been defending ourselves against a lie for thirty years.
Now, thirty years later, we have a new study. A modern, exhaustive effort by the Massachusetts DMF that tracked over 8,300 striped bass with acoustic tags in the real world. It is the gold standard of fisheries research. And what did it find? A release mortality rate of 4.5%.
The exact same number as the two dead fish from 1996.
We have been vindicated. The science has finally caught up to what anglers have known in their bones all along. The 9% was a phantom, a ghost number built on a foundation of two dead fish and a whole lot of assumptions. It’s time for fisheries managers to acknowledge this truth, discard the ghost, and start managing our fishery based on the reality of the two fish, not the phantoms of the fifteen.
For thirty years, the entire Atlantic coast striped bass recreational fishery, a multi billion dollar industry and a way of life for millions, has been managed based on the ghosts of fish that never died. But it all started with two. Two small, 13 inch striped bass that were the only confirmed, observed catch and release mortalities in the infamous 1996 Diodati study.
Let’s tell their story, because in it lies the original sin of three decades of flawed fisheries management.
In 1996, researchers trapped over a thousand small striped bass, trucked them for hours, and dumped them into an artificial pond. They then had volunteers catch and release them. Out of a group of 44 fish caught on the first day, two of them died within 12 hours. The study authors watched them die. They confirmed it. That’s a 4.5% mortality rate. That is the only hard, undisputed, observed mortality from catch and release in the entire study.
So how did two dead fish become the 9% mortality rate that has haunted us for a generation? Through assumptions. And ghosts.
At the end of the experiment, eight weeks later, they drained the pond. They used a seine net to capture all the fish, then pumped the pond completely dry to make sure they got everything. They recovered 198 fish that had been hooked and released during the experiment. All 198 were alive. They examined them for tags and released them into the neighboring bay.
But about 15 fish that had been hooked were simply gone. They weren’t there. There were no bodies. No carcasses in the mud. Just empty spots in the tally sheet.
Instead of acknowledging that fish in an open pond can be eaten by birds, escape through sluice gates, or simply disappear, the study made a colossal leap of faith. They “presumed” that every single one of those missing fish had died as a direct result of being caught and released. They added those 15 phantom fish to the two real ones, did some math, and came up with their now infamous 9% predicted mortality rate.
Two dead fish became seventeen. And seventeen became the justification for a regulatory regime that has crippled the recreational fishing community. Every slot limit, every shortened season, every time a charter captain had to tell a client to throw back the fish of a lifetime, it was done in the name of saving fish that, in all likelihood, never even died.
And it wasn’t just the regulations. That inflated 9% number gave us a black eye that has lasted a generation. How many times have we heard it? “Recreational anglers kill more fish releasing them than commercial fishermen kill harvesting them.” We’ve been painted as the villains, the careless weekend warriors who are destroying the fishery one released fish at a time. That narrative was built on the backs of two dead fish and fifteen ghosts. We’ve been defending ourselves against a lie for thirty years.
Now, thirty years later, we have a new study. A modern, exhaustive effort by the Massachusetts DMF that tracked over 8,300 striped bass with acoustic tags in the real world. It is the gold standard of fisheries research. And what did it find? A release mortality rate of 4.5%.
The exact same number as the two dead fish from 1996.
We have been vindicated. The science has finally caught up to what anglers have known in their bones all along. The 9% was a phantom, a ghost number built on a foundation of two dead fish and a whole lot of assumptions. It’s time for fisheries managers to acknowledge this truth, discard the ghost, and start managing our fishery based on the reality of the two fish, not the phantoms of the fifteen.
