ASMFC Striped Bass Draft Addendum III - Plain English Summary

[OVERBORED]

@OVERBORED Why should anyone have the right to board you for no reason at all? You can't do that in Florida and there is finally some discussion about stopping it here. Also Florida's ocean facing shoreline is 10x that of NY. we're comparing apples to oranges.

Fishing regulations are basically an honor system. Either you follow the rules or you don't. No amount of enforcement will ever change that.

Besides, enforcement doesn't do anything to get us more fish. It only gives us less freedoms. It's not added in anywhere in any of the numbers. So sadly it just doesn't matter.

Freedoms......what a joke.

Stop and see frisk was the single biggest deterrent of crime in NYC but unfortunately couldn't survive the liberal axe.

Being stopped and questioned by a boat with 6 armed federalies in Panama was a fairly good deterrent.

Getting boarded is not such a big deal as you make it out to be. It's the only thing we have that could possibly prevent complete anarchy on the water.

But this is about Striped Bass and the inevitable closure that is being faced. In all the years of regulations were still at this point 30 years later. Who messed up the management and why do they continue calling the shots? Maybe that's the first question we should be asking.

 

[hawk375]

sorry overboard a commercial share is 168 fish for year

 

[OVERBORED]

sorry overboard a commercial share is 168 fish for year

I know many recs that take that many fish and more so what's your point?

 

[george]

@overboard You’re right. Let’s move the stop and frisk and enforcement talk into a new thread.

As for blame, that’s easy. It sits squarely with the fisheries managers who have let politics run the show. Instead of sticking with the science, which even at its best is a coin toss, they try to appease every side. Then they pick some arbitrary restoration date without the guts to follow through.

Kicking the can down the road is the easiest thing to do when nobody really knows what's happening in the ocean. If I had to bet, they will extend the plan again and keep the political games going until the resource is gone. It wouldn't be the first time. Just look at cod, mackerel, flounder, fluke, tog, and on and on.

Why would striped bass turn out any different?

Finally, I don't know any rec that takes 168 fish a year. That's a lot of fishing at 1 a day.

 

[hawk375]

the point is 168 for the year you said 1 net gets more the point the point is the recs and there politcal power has taken striped bass away from restaurants fish store and consumers so they could overfish a fish they took away from commercials because they overfished it

 

[pequa1]

Typo ? 168 fish BETWEEN April 15 and December 15 ? there are only 245 days in that span.

 

[george]

the point is 168 for the year you said 1 net gets more the point the point is the recs and there politcal power has taken striped bass away from restaurants fish store and consumers so they could overfish a fish they took away from commercials because they overfished it

It's funny, you think we have the power and I think you guys have the power. I guess that's how DEC wants it. But if we had power wouldn't we get more of the rest of fish in the ocean?

 

[pequa1]

Somewhere a billion chinese, russians and japanese are laughing.

 

[OVERBORED]

Somewhere a billion chinese, russians and japanese are laughing.

And fishing in a barren wasteland.

 

[captmike28]

Sorry captain mike you are wrong again when charter party fleet had 2 fish limit a party boat with 50 fares could catch more than a commercial boat in 1 day if they had 2 trips.A charter boat with 6 fares would get more in 8 days which was common practice at the time which led to great overfishing so why should your industry be rewarded for raping a resource

I was never an advocate for the 2 fish limit for the for-hire folks, and I still feel the same way today. You make it sound like only the for-hire folks and recreational anglers put us in the situation we are now facing when we both know it is more complicated than that, i.e. poor recruitment, lack of bait, pollution, environmental changes, overfishing, etc.

I have no problem with a tag system for all participants. What is your solution? Give all of the fish that are supposed to be a "shared resource" to only one participant group? George is correct when he observes that the fisheries managers have us just where they want us " at each other's throats". And what will that do but give them cause to simply shut down the fishery for everyone.

 

[Snapprhead27]

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://asmfc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AtlStripedBassDraftAddIII_PublicComment_Aug2025.pdf

 

[hawk375]

asmfc has failed to address any of the problems with recruitment and catch and release mortality we need to unite rec and comm to stop this cut and make commerce department aware of this agency total failure maybe dodge should have got rid of them or maybe replaced with abetter system that doesn't use only harvest reduction as a tool

 

[OVERBORED]

When I went to meetings back when, I always found it astonishing that all the commercial and for hire data was never used. Even today, the manner of data collection is almost primitive. Asking recs, what did you catch? That's like standing outside of Bloomingdale's and asking everyone woman, what do you weigh? Will you ever get an honest answer?

Meanwhile, scientists continue towing nets over their mapped out grids, ignoring 2 simple facts: 90%of fish congregate in 10% of the ocean and they have fins

 

[george]

asmfc has failed to address any of the problems with recruitment and catch and release mortality we need to unite rec and comm to stop this cut and make commerce department aware of this agency total failure maybe dodge should have got rid of them or maybe replaced with abetter system that doesn't use only harvest reduction as a tool

You are 100% correct Hawk. Striped Bass was their one so-called "success" It was the only one that they could point to.

Again, my guess is that the commission will find some excuse - whether that be "new data" or whatever they come up with - to extend the deadline. I actually think many of us are untied in the handling of this self-imposed deadline. We all agree that the science is bad and that we need to find a way to protect the fishery, while keeping us all fishing. That should be enough for politicians to find their way in and "save the day"

The commission is made up entirely of political appointees, and they will get it done. Maybe

 

[Roccus7]

I'm so disgusted with ASMFC's Striped Bass Board that I see no value in attending or participating the the Addendum III process. I did send the following email to Meghan Ware, the chairman of that board, and a Maine member:

Megan:

I know it's out of character, but I will not be attending either of the hearings because of my total disgust and disillusionment with the ASMFC Striped Bass Board. The Board's consistent MO of kicking the can down the road now presents us with multiple options that may or may not save the bass for only a short time. Regrettably the time for decisive action was 2 seasons ago. On the other hand, the elephant in the room that nobody is addressing is the continued Chesapeake YOY failures. The Striped Bass Board may get things up to desired levels in 2029, but unless the root cause of the spawning failure is identified and rectified, it will quickly crash again.

If it makes any difference, I quit fishing for stripers in mid-July as I wasn't even seeing a fish on my daily trips starting late June. I caught a total of 10 fish this year, down from 140 last season, with an average size of 27" as opposed to 2024's 25" mean and median length. I dined on striped bass 2 times this year. Yes, we are now seeing the result of the Chesapeake failures. So without any new regulations, I've personally helped things by significantly reducing my dead discards and have reduced both my retention and days fishing. Of course none of this was done by choice, just the total lack of fish which provided absolutely no incentive to get out there.

I know that you and the rest of the Maine contingent have always been on the fish's side, and am confident that you will continue to do so. The first time that the "Axis of Evil", MD, MJ & RI complain about the lack of striped bass you might want to remind them that "you reap what you sow."

Take care,
Dom

 

[Pangaroo]

Maryland did little to protect the bunker and I don't trust them with the Striped Bass. NY protected the Bunker and the Hudson Striped Bass . I wish State Waters went out 12 miles instead of 3, it would discourage the North Carolina fleet sailing up North .Ban all nets and only allow Fish Traps/Pens where the commercials can cull the fish they want and release the fish they don't want unharmed. You wonder how many Striped Bass get hauled up dead in nets and the commercials dump them overboard?

 

[Pangaroo]

If there's Striped Bass mortality then don't allow fishermen to use bait.

 

[Pangaroo]

We've always said that enforcement is a big part of the problem. LI has 25 DEC officers (278 statewide). What are the odds of getting boarded?

By contrast, Florida has 700 enforcement officers statewide!

When was the last time you saw the DEC stop a moving boat to search it ? I've been out there over 50 years and have never seen a moving boat get stopped. They putt putt around going from boat to boat. Poachers know that.

 

[hawk375]

Too bad its not that easy recs and spawning survival are biggest problem if they cant reproduce nothing will work

 

[longcast]

Too bad its not that easy recs and spawning survival are biggest problem if they cant reproduce nothing will work

Did you mean “regs” ?