We're Live From The Bass Hearing

[Capt13]

if they were REALLY smart and aggressive they'd go to a slot of like 22 - 26"

I think this is the smartest route to go, but I think you still need some sort of trophy tag system in place along with this. We have tags for deer, turkey and bear. Why not bass ?

 

[Roccus7]

I think this is the smartest route to go, but I think you still need some sort of trophy tag system in place along with this. We have tags for deer, turkey and bear. Why not bass ?

Absolutely, but the Fed Fishcrats are having trouble wrapping their hands around a slot. It would be wise for them to allow individual states to enact some sort of Trophy Tag system via a conservation equivalency petition.

Of course, if NY shows any cajones they will SHUT DOWN trophy fishing on the Hudson during the spawn. Why they've continued to allow that escapes all logic...

 

[Jack_Daniels]

Remember, Comments are due by 5 PM, this Sunday.

Send them to: [email protected]

Here is my submission:


Dear Commission,

My comments on the Striped Bass Draft Addendum VI are as follows:

I believe that striped bass regulations should remain status quo. This is based on the fact the ASMFC has just changed the models they’ve used to estimate abundance, and in doing so has manipulated the “science” to manufacture a problem.

In 1995, when the stock was declared to be rebuilt, SSB was estimated to about 14,000 mt. This was the threshold level that was set, with a target of 17,500 mt. The fisheries management models used these numbers to continue to grow the entire stock to an all time high of more than 100,000 mt, and the fishery remained strong, and healthy for the next 15 years. Until you decided to start changing your models.

Now, 24 years later, you preposterously propose that you now know that the SSB level in 1995 was actually 6.5x higher than it was estimated by the scientists at the time, ~91,000 mt, and that’s what it should be now. You should all be embarrassed and ashamed at yourselves for proposing that you and your fellow “scientists” were ever so incompetent that their estimates were so far off. However, I don’t believe that the science at the time was so wrong. Management under that model was successful at rebuilding and maintaining a healthy stock and fishery for more than 15 years. It’s only since you started manipulating the models, in 2010, 2014 and now again, in 2018, that a “problem” has developed. Each time you “played” with your “science” you increased the SSB thresholds and targets, exasperating a declining trend in the stock, until finally, in 2018, you achieved your apparent goal of demonstrating overfishing is occurring and the stock is over fished.

There is no way that any management decisions should be based on this new model, which has only just been implemented, and so wildly differs in number from the successful management model used from 1995 to 2010. You all decided to create this model, and in doing so, created this problem. Just as you chose to use the current model, you could go back and use the prior model from 1995. Don’t tell us this is the “best available science” and use that a poor excuse for why you are proposing cuts. You just created the science yourselves. Fix it. Only in Govt, would this level of incompetence ever be tolerated. It’s shameful.

What is even more shameful, is that your “science model” shows that 48% of striped bass are killed due to recreational dead discards. To fix that problem, you suggest further restricting regulations to the size and season of the fishery, which will only serve to increase the number of fish that have to be released, therefore, further increasing the dead discard mortality. Only a “scientist” with his/her face planted squarely into a Bunsen burner could see that as an effective or ethical solution to a such a problem. If a reduction is needed, and about half of the fish being killed, are simply being wasted because they are being caught and thrown back to die, that is where the reduction needs to come from.

No reductions to harvest should be made at this time. Any changes to seasons or size limits, will only serve to further increase discard mortality. Instead, studies should be done on how to reduce discard mortality, and measures should only be implemented there. The use of circle hooks have been proposed. However, the ASMFC doesn’t recognize any reduction in mortality from using them because there aren’t any studies to demonstrate the efficacy of their use. So do those studies. Study the use of circle hooks and other release mechanisms. Stop wasting your time, and ours, manipulating management models, and do some actual science that will be beneficial to all stakeholders and the fish themselves (so that half of the fish being killed are not just being thrown back into the ocean to rot).

Study the use of circle hooks
Study the use of various dehooking devices
Study the efficacy of outreach to anglers on how to better fight, handle and release fish

Additionally, further study release mortality and apply it to different size fish, different methods of fishing (surf, boat, bait, lure, fly fishing) and across all the various conditions found in the areas these fish migrate through. The cool, rushing waters found around Cape Cod and the east end of Long Island are vastly different then the warm embayments found in the Chesapeake and Delaware Bay areas and release mortality is likely very different too.

Bigger fish fight harder, and are fought longer and therefore, experience more stress, increasing the likelihood of dying after being released. A slot limit, prohibiting keeping larger fish, is just going to kill more big fish through release mortality. Raising the minimum size limit is just going to increase discard mortality while people fish to catch a fish to keep. Reducing the season length will just increase the number of fish that are caught out of season, and have to be released, increasing release mortality. Reductions in harvest is not the answer. Reductions in release mortality is the only logical and ethical answer to the current problem with the fishery.

 

[Jack_Daniels]

Remember, Comments are due by 5 PM, this Sunday.

Send them to: [email protected]

Here is my submission:


Dear Commission,

My comments on the Striped Bass Draft Addendum VI are as follows:

I believe that striped bass regulations should remain status quo. This is based on the fact the ASMFC has just changed the models they’ve used to estimate abundance, and in doing so has manipulated the “science” to manufacture a problem.

In 1995, when the stock was declared to be rebuilt, SSB was estimated to about 14,000 mt. This was the threshold level that was set, with a target of 17,500 mt. The fisheries management models used these numbers to continue to grow the entire stock to an all time high of more than 100,000 mt, and the fishery remained strong, and healthy for the next 15 years. Until you decided to start changing your models.

Now, 24 years later, you preposterously propose that you now know that the SSB level in 1995 was actually 6.5x higher than it was estimated by the scientists at the time, ~91,000 mt, and that’s what it should be now. You should all be embarrassed and ashamed at yourselves for proposing that you and your fellow “scientists” were ever so incompetent that their estimates were so far off. However, I don’t believe that the science at the time was so wrong. Management under that model was successful at rebuilding and maintaining a healthy stock and fishery for more than 15 years. It’s only since you started manipulating the models, in 2010, 2014 and now again, in 2018, that a “problem” has developed. Each time you “played” with your “science” you increased the SSB thresholds and targets, exasperating a declining trend in the stock, until finally, in 2018, you achieved your apparent goal of demonstrating overfishing is occurring and the stock is over fished.

There is no way that any management decisions should be based on this new model, which has only just been implemented, and so wildly differs in number from the successful management model used from 1995 to 2010. You all decided to create this model, and in doing so, created this problem. Just as you chose to use the current model, you could go back and use the prior model from 1995. Don’t tell us this is the “best available science” and use that a poor excuse for why you are proposing cuts. You just created the science yourselves. Fix it. Only in Govt, would this level of incompetence ever be tolerated. It’s shameful.

What is even more shameful, is that your “science model” shows that 48% of striped bass are killed due to recreational dead discards. To fix that problem, you suggest further restricting regulations to the size and season of the fishery, which will only serve to increase the number of fish that have to be released, therefore, further increasing the dead discard mortality. Only a “scientist” with his/her face planted squarely into a Bunsen burner could see that as an effective or ethical solution to a such a problem. If a reduction is needed, and about half of the fish being killed, are simply being wasted because they are being caught and thrown back to die, that is where the reduction needs to come from.

No reductions to harvest should be made at this time. Any changes to seasons or size limits, will only serve to further increase discard mortality. Instead, studies should be done on how to reduce discard mortality, and measures should only be implemented there. The use of circle hooks have been proposed. However, the ASMFC doesn’t recognize any reduction in mortality from using them because there aren’t any studies to demonstrate the efficacy of their use. So do those studies. Study the use of circle hooks and other release mechanisms. Stop wasting your time, and ours, manipulating management models, and do some actual science that will be beneficial to all stakeholders and the fish themselves (so that half of the fish being killed are not just being thrown back into the ocean to rot).

Study the use of circle hooks
Study the use of various dehooking devices
Study the efficacy of outreach to anglers on how to better fight, handle and release fish

Additionally, further study release mortality and apply it to different size fish, different methods of fishing (surf, boat, bait, lure, fly fishing) and across all the various conditions found in the areas these fish migrate through. The cool, rushing waters found around Cape Cod and the east end of Long Island are vastly different then the warm embayments found in the Chesapeake and Delaware Bay areas and release mortality is likely very different too.

Bigger fish fight harder, and are fought longer and therefore, experience more stress, increasing the likelihood of dying after being released. A slot limit, prohibiting keeping larger fish, is just going to kill more big fish through release mortality. Raising the minimum size limit is just going to increase discard mortality while people fish to catch a fish to keep. Reducing the season length will just increase the number of fish that are caught out of season, and have to be released, increasing release mortality. Reductions in harvest is not the answer. Reductions in release mortality is the only logical and ethical answer to the current problem with the fishery.

Apparently it was too late to edit my post. Comments are due by 5 PM Monday, not Sunday.

 

[george]

So the comment period is over Monday yet the NYSDEC is accepting survey results on various striped bass options until October 28th STRIPED BASS SURVEY

As for your comments Jack . . . You make a few good points, but in my opinion, your missing the most obvious of all - the state of the fishery. I agree that ASMFC numbers have been wrong, but they basically tell us that when you read there's a less than a 50% chance that they're right.

We have seen this fishery in much worse shape then it is today. But we've also seen it in much better shape. I believe we are overfishing and I don't believe status quo is the answer.

 

[Jack_Daniels]

Interesting. . .

How can you make an opinion that "overfishing" is occurring, when you just said there's less than a 50% chance that the science ASMFC is using is right?

As you're aware, "Overfishing" and a stock being "overfished" have very specific meanings in fisheries management, and are based on their own science/data for setting biological reference points, including the SSB thresholds they have been playing with and F mortality, which you just said are more than likely less than 50% correct? That's a lot of guessing to arrive at a very specific determination.

I agree with you that the stock has dropped. Is that what you're basing your opinion on? That there are less fish now, than when the population peaked around 2000? Just because there are less fish, doesn't mean overfishing is occurring. And pointing to the historical peak of a animal population (highest in over 50 years of history) in nature as a threshold that should be achieved is ludicrous, and can be detrimental to the rest of the ecosystem as a whole.

Every animal population in nature is cyclical. Every predator/prey relationship is cyclical. Having a very high striped bass population is fun for anglers that want to catch stripers, but it puts a strain on lots of other species in the process. Those striped swimming garbage cans eat just about whatever they can fit in their mouths. From small traditional bait species like bunker, anchovies, sandeels, crabs, etc. to other desirable game fish species and commercially valuable fish such as fluke, weakfish, porgies, seabass, tautog.

Look back at how many of those species we have suffered huge regulatory cutbacks on since the striped bass population boomed? All of them. So shortly after striped bass were at an all time high biomass, all those other fish species saw dramatic declines in populations, and we had big regulatory cutbacks, because well, the only thing the fisheries managers can control, are the fishermen. So we're told we're overfishing those species, and get cutbacks.

In my opinion, since the striped bass population has dropped and reached what is more likely a healthy population for the carrying capacity of the environment, the other fish species are rebounding. Seabass and porgies have exploded. weakfish have returned in strong numbers. Fluke is improving. Tautog have been slow to respond, but they are also the slowest growing. However, I catch large numbers of sub-legal fish out there every year. The rest of the ecosystem is rejoicing at a lower, sustainable, striped bass population.

So no, I don't believe overfishing is occurring, and I while I enjoyed catching lots of striped bass in the early 2000's, I have learned that there are a lot of other fun fish to catch also. I much more enjoy having a healthy selection of fish to choose to pursue when I want to instead, including stripers, fluke, seabass, weakfish, tog, etc.

Now, none of that addresses the issue you failed to mention. Reducing discard mortality. How can you in any kind of good conscience advocate for additional regulations, which will undeniably further exasperate discard mortality.

We already have a 1 fish limit, so you can't go any lower there.
Raise the size limit, throw back more shorts.
Create a slot limit, throw back more big fish
Shorten the season, throw back more fish of all sizes.

All of which increase dead discards, and none of which are an ethical management solution.

 

[Capt13]

Just because there are less fish, doesn't mean overfishing is occurring. And pointing to the historical peak of a animal population (highest in over 50 years of history) in nature as a threshold that should be achieved is ludicrous, and can be detrimental to the rest of the ecosystem as a whole.

I agree with everything you wrote JD !! The above quote is perfect and should be considered in regard to the management of all fish species.

I agree with you 100%. This fish is not in any kind of trouble and recreational fisherman need to accept the fact that there will be periods of abundance and there will be periods when they will be harder to find. With the current regulations, Striped Bass would never, ever, ever reach a point of being in trouble by the recreational fish community. To put further restrictions in place is not necessary and a complete waste of time and money.

I spent last week on a dock, on a creek that empties into Chesapeake bay. At times I could catch a small striper on every cast. If you consider the couple hundred creeks on Chesapeake bay, most many miles in length, the amount of small stripers (12" - 14") , in my opinion, is staggering. These fish do end up in our waters as they get older and will end up spending time off the south shore as well as in Long Island Sound. Very, very hard for me to believe that some people feel this fish could be headed for trouble.