Upcoming MAFMC Meeting

[dakota560]

Just wanted tp post the Summer Flounder recommendations from the Monitoring Committee for the upcoming meeting next week December 13 - 16. This was taken right from the briefing materials for the meeting which can be found at the following link.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/511cdc7fe4b00307a2628ac6/t/61aa782b06d50c02df5f3d5b/1638561838068/Tab06_SF-Rec-Measures_2021-12.pdf

For all these reasons, the MC was not comfortable with the Council staff recommendation for a
33% liberalization in harvest in 2022 compared to 2018-2021 average harvest. The MC considered
a few different methods for calculating possible liberalization amounts, including a weighted
average of recent years harvest with 2021 down weighted, or recommending a liberalization of
25% based on the increase in the RHL between 2021 and 2022. However, many MC members
were concerned that these increases would still pose too much of a risk of exceeding the 2022
RHL. Given these concerns, the MC recommended status quo regional measures for summer
flounder. However, if the Council and Board prefer liberalizations, the MC recommended a
maximum coastwide liberalization of 16.5%, which is half of the 33% liberalization
recommendation in the Council staff memo.

Under conservation equivalency, the MC also recommended status quo non-preferred
coastwide measures including a 19-inch minimum size, 4 fish bag limit, and open season May
15-September 15.

If the Council and Board prefer liberalizations to the non-preferred coastwide measures, the
MC recommends dropping the non-preferred coastwide minimum size limit to 18.5” from
the current 19”. Based on a rough analysis of the impacts of this change using 2019 landings and
discard length frequency data, this change would be expected to result in an approximately 11%
increase in harvest in weight and a 14% increase in harvest in numbers of fish. There are several
caveats associated with this analysis including that the underlying data are from 2019, and length
data from the NEFSC are in centimeters and binned to the nearest half inch which introduces some
rounding and conversion error. This analysis also assumes full size limit compliance and similar
availability at size in 2022. The MC did not support the Council staff recommendation of dropping
the non-preferred size limit to 18” due to the concerns about large liberalizations discussed above.
The MC recommended status quo precautionary default measures including a 20-inch
minimum size, a 2 fish possession limit, and an open season of July 1-August 31. The group agreed
that these measures were sufficiently restrictive to deter states from adopting measures outside of
the agreed upon conservation equivalency guidelines for 2022.


So status quo, non preferred of 4 fish at 19". If in 2018, 82% of directed angler trips under the same regulations ended up with ZERO fish harvested, how exactly will 4 fish at 19" help matters. Might as well make it 20 fish at 19" because if you can't catch one keeper at 18" or 19" you're certainly not going to catch 4 or 7 or 12 or 20 at the same minimums. This is the definition of liberalization the recreational sector was promised for 20-years worth of sacrifices.

No change in sizes, for the four states mentioned they'll most likely remain 18" or 19" meaning harvest composition won't change meaning we'll continue targeting the harvest of the spawning stock with an emphasis on the large female breeders. Less mommies, less babies, continued high discard levels, low recruitment which truthfully they really don't even know how to quantify and explain how this fishery recovers. Honestly the level of incompetency in the management of this stock has reached new heights. MSA mandates using data from science as a basis for management decisions. Instead decisions are being made to support a narrative fisheries managements wants which who knows what that is. So it looks like for another year it's going to be use the same failed regulations which have crippled this fishery with the hope we have different results. What did we all say that was the definition of three years ago.....you got it. It's the same definition today. &%^$#@! disgrace!

This is where no lobbying effort doesn't help. Public Commentary is a meaningless term when it comes to fisheries management. Washington has their playbook and they're following it. Everyone on this site should reach out to RFA, SSFFF and JCAA and ask what their position is on this fishery and what they're doing to save this fishery and protect the rights of both sectors because the manner in which it's being managed it is absolutely going to crash and burn. Ask what their position is, and ask in their opinion, what changes in the regulations have to be made to save this fishery. If regulations don't change, this fishery is done. Only question is when. Absolute ^%$#&@! incompetence.

[hartattack]

Status quo on Regulatory stupidity too!

Tom,,, I'm still trying to get traction in N.Y. and actually got a few nibbles. I will spread word about meeting next week.. thanks much

[Brewlugger]

Thanks Tom. Given the Council's abysmal history of mismanagement its going to be an uphill fight for our Summer Flounder fishery. That being said its a fight worth fighting and everyone here needs to make some noise. One that stands out for me was the Council member who said recruitment was dependent on food sources. Basically comparing fish to mammals.

[dakota560]

Status quo on Regulatory stupidity too!

Tom,,, I'm still trying to get traction in N.Y. and actually got a few nibbles. I will spread word about meeting next week.. thanks much

Thanks Larry.

[Brewlugger]

What is the playbook in Washington? Do they honestly think they are rebuilding this fishery? Why the resistance against a slot limit?

[dakota560]

Thanks Tom. Given the Council's abysmal history of mismanagement its going to be an uphill fight for our Summer Flounder fishery. That being said its a fight worth fighting and everyone here needs to make some noise. One that stands out for me was the Council member who said recruitment was dependent on food sources. Basically comparing fish to mammals.

Recruitment to SSB. I don't agree this is the best means of evaluating recruitment levels to the spawning stock as the measurement is measuring new recruits by number to the spawning stock by weight. What's not captured measuring it this way is whether the spawning stock is 10% males and 90% females or 10% females and 90% males. What is also not factored in is age of females as a juvenile mature female will drop ~400,000 eggs a year while an older 27" female will produce 4.2 million eggs. Recruitment conceivably is the most important number of every salt water fishery under management. We need to look at it in it's most transparent form.

But put that aside for now, look at the drop off in the ratio. Would like the site to give reasons why the ratio of new recruits to spawning stock biomass measured in weight declined around 1997 from about an average of 3 - 4 to close to .5. FWIW, that's a decline in the survival rate of eggs by almost 80% to 90%.

There's three plausible reasons, will give everyone one day before responding because this speaks to the essence of why the stock is declining under current regulations.

One Hint, it has nothing to do with how much food fish eat. I think with mammals recruitment has more to do with how much liquor they consume as opposed to food they eat, but with fish I don't believe either factors into the results but doesn't at the same time surprise me a Council Member would draw that analogy. If the data doesn't support the narrative, they change the narrative to support the results they want.

Accepting answers now.

[dakota560]

What is the playbook in Washington? Do they honestly think they are rebuilding this fishery? Why the resistance against a slot limit?

Brew the answer you'll get is twofold. First a slot will increase catch so recreational by catching more will have to give concessions of shorter seasons (less fishing effort), higher size minimums (which will further compound the primary cause for all the problems already threatening the fishery) or reduced possession limits to catch less fish which would be the least intrusive since the data right or wrong already says at todays limits 82% of angler trips result in zero fish retained. So reducing possession limits would have no impact whatsoever on 82% of angler trips since no legal fish are being harvested already. Basically what I just said is referred to as "Conservation Equivalency". If you harvest more fish, what changes are you willing to concede to the regulations to maintain conservational equivalency of catch.

Second and I find this answer to be one criticizing their own methodology of managing the stock. The Monitoring Committee last year pushed back at the concept of a slot because they said there's no guarantee larger fish released as a result of a slot fish being implemented wouldn't subsequently be killed commercially during their offshore migrations. That was a key reason arguing against the implementation of a slot. So someone tell me why increasing the recreational size minimums over the last 25 years from 13" to 18" or 19" doesn't carry the same risks of all those larger fish being released by the recreational sector only to be harvested or becoming collateral damage to the offshore commercial harvest. Not to mention the numbers killed recreationally because of absolutely insane discard rates increased size minimums have caused. It's the same principal, pure hypocrisy.

They use the argument against a slot when it supports the result and narrative they want. In turn, they don't mention it when they increased size minimums by almost 6 inches because it wouldn't support what they wanted to accomplish which was constrain, not manage, recreational catch.

[Brewlugger]

You may be right Tom, I don't drink alcohol and I don't have any recruiting going on. The decline in my mind is in lockstep with the increasing size limit as you have said. I'm no expert I go by what I see and what I'm seeing is more big Fluke and less numbers overall, less small fish and definitely not as widespread as they were in the past. Saw the same with Winter Flounder we started getting big ones and less smalls and in a few years it collapsed. I remember reading a news story in the late nineties about one Long Island dragger getting busted with more than 100,000 lbs of Fluke don't remember the details but I recall it was during the winter season.

[dakota560]

You may be right Tom, I don't drink alcohol and I don't have any recruiting going on. The decline in my mind is in lockstep with the increasing size limit as you have said. I'm no expert I go by what I see and what I'm seeing is more big Fluke and less numbers overall, less small fish and definitely not as widespread as they were in the past. Saw the same with Winter Flounder we started getting big ones and less smalls and in a few years it collapsed. I remember reading a news story in the late nineties about one Long Island dragger getting busted with more than 100,000 lbs of Fluke don't remember the details but I recall it was during the winter season.

When they're were more winter flounder around than whiting and ling years ago, you'd catch very small flounder, smaller 2 or 3 age class fish, mediums, large and jumbos all in a single trip. Always the telltale sign of a healthy stock. Then Brew as you said, smaller fish started disappearing, sign the spawning stock is distressed and recruitment isn't keeping pace. Harvest converts to all larger fish, further decimating the spawning stock, removing all the most productive females until finally recruitment is so impacted the fishery can't keep up. That's what happened to the winter flounder fishery and what's happening to the summer flounder fishery. We're well into the curve.

Simply look at the change in recruitment to SSB (Fishery Managements Chart) and recruitment to females when older age classes, larger fish making up the spawning stock with a very high percentage the most productive females of the stock, started being harvested when recreational size minimums started increasing around 2002. That's all anyone needs to know about the demise of this fishery and until management corrects their mistake, this fishery will remain at risk and will continue declining. Don't let Covid-19 and world markets being shut down last year give you false hope regulations which haven't worked since 2010 or a few years earlier have miraculously start working today. All fisheries got a reprieve last year because domestic and world markets were shut down as were fish processing plants. You can't target the spawning stock, target specifically larger females breeders, not protect the spawn and think any stock will be sustainable. It's common sense to anyone other than fisheries management. Wonder why? Compare average age classes harvested to declines in recruitment to SSB and mature females. Giving you one of the three answers to the above question but this is fundamentally the root cause of all problems facing this fishery.

[dakota560]

Recruitment to SSB. I don't agree this is the best means of evaluating recruitment levels to the spawning stock as the measurement is measuring new recruits by number to the spawning stock by weight. What's not captured measuring it this way is whether the spawning stock is 10% males and 90% females or 10% females and 90% males. What is also not factored in is age of females as a juvenile mature female will drop ~400,000 eggs a year while an older 27" female will produce 4.2 million eggs. Recruitment conceivably is the most important number of every salt water fishery under management. We need to look at it in it's most transparent form.

But put that aside for now, look at the drop off in the ratio. Would like the site to give reasons why the ratio of new recruits to spawning stock biomass measured in weight declined around 1997 from about an average of 3 - 4 to close to .5. FWIW, that's a decline in the survival rate of eggs by almost 80% to 90%.

There's three plausible reasons, will give everyone one day before responding because this speaks to the essence of why the stock is declining under current regulations.

One Hint, it has nothing to do with how much food fish eat. I think with mammals recruitment has more to do with how much liquor they consume as opposed to food they eat, but with fish I don't believe either factors into the results but doesn't at the same time surprise me a Council Member would draw that analogy. If the data doesn't support the narrative, they change the narrative to support the results they want.

Accepting answers now.

Not asking for money, not even asking for a signature on a petition, doesn't anyone want to venture a guess why the relationship of recruitment to the spawning stock drastically changed in 1997 and fell off the cliff never to recover? If not, I'll just withdraw the question if it's of no interest but it's a big part if the reason in my opinion of how this entire mess started and why the fishery has been struggling for years.

[Rocky]

Not asking for money, not even asking for a signature on a petition, doesn't anyone want to venture a guess why the relationship of recruitment to the spawning stock drastically changed in 1997 and fell off the cliff never to recover? If not, I'll just withdraw the question if it's of no interest but it's a big part if the reason in my opinion of how this entire mess started and why the fishery has been struggling for years.

Size limits and the removal of breeders.

[dakota560]

Rocky basically correct, a change which was caused for a few reasons. When I first started researching this fishery, I always wondered why recruitment as a ratio to the spawning stock declined so radically literally in one year and never recovered. That's the graph from Marine Fisheries I posted previously.

Here's my belief. Check the following link:

https://www.mafmc.org/sf-s-bsb

Amendment 10 of the fisheries management plan was adopted in 1997 and part of what it did was mandate the increase of mesh sizes commercially. Read the amendment. The intent, which was well intended, was to save juvenile smaller fish while harvesting larger fish. You'll read that the commercial sector made modifications to nets which to some degree negated the benefits of saving juvenile fish or capturing fish once the codend of the nets got plugged in the pursuit of harvesting larger fish so in many ways I'm not sure anyone really knows the success of saving juveniles through mesh size increases. At the time. recreational size minimums coast wide were 14.5" creating balance between sectors and gender balance in harvest composition. By 2002, the recreational sector was over 17" on a weighted average basis and the increase in size minimums between both sectors was in full gear. The trend of harvesting larger fish began, the trend of catching exclusively mature fish began and ever since recruitment as a ratio of the spawning stock and females has flat lined.

As recreational size minimums continued increasing to today's levels and commercial operators targeted larger specimens to compensate for 60% cuts in catch quotas, we went from harvesting juvenile breeders to older breeders. And in the case of females, we went from harvesting some mature fish, females that on average produced 400,000 eggs annually to exclusive harvesting all sexually mature fish with larger females breeders producing multiple millions of eggs annually, a big reason recruitment to SSB or recruitment to mature females has fallen to record lows.

This is what started the trend. Larger fish, spawning stock and female population declines. Spawning stock and large females decline, recruitment declines. Recruitment declines, population declines. Population declines, catch quotas decline so to compensate size minimums go up forcing the recreational sector to catch larger fish further compounding the problem and the commercial sector seeks larger high market value fish, higher percentage females, to compensate for 60% quota cuts and stay in business at the same time, as commercial operations targeted the spawning stock of larger fish during the offshore fall migration, no one will ever convince me that practice isn't having negative impacts of the efficacy of the spawn. The truth is no one knows not even fishery management but it's also the reason so many fisheries close fishing during the spawn. Until recruitment numbers improve and stabilize, I believe it's a key to the rebuilding plan with this ever so valuable stock.

That's your summer flounder fishery in a nut shell and until regulations are changed to change catch composition, get recruitment levels back up and increase the overall population of the stock, the fishery will continue declining until it's no longer.

[hartattack]

Got some good news today :: NYAngler.com joins NJFishing.com in endorsing Tom's comprehensive Summer Flounder study and its findings. The owner/founder of NYAngler and the founder of Noreast.com is optimistic that your analysis will be considered.
In the MAFMC discussions this week, it may be beneficial to tell the regulators that NY and NJ grassroots fishermen in the 2 mentioned websites are in agreement with your recommendations. A small step for mankind . . . .

[dakota560]

Got some good news today :: NYAngler.com joins NJFishing.com in endorsing Tom's comprehensive Summer Flounder study and its findings. The owner/founder of NYAngler and the founder of Noreast.com is optimistic that your analysis will be considered.
In the MAFMC discussions this week, it may be beneficial to tell the regulators that NY and NJ grassroots fishermen in the 2 mentioned websites are in agreement with your recommendations. A small step for mankind . . . .

Larry good news. The analysis is correct, causes of stocks decline are obvious as is what needs to be done. With any luck, this time around maybe we'll gain some traction and regulations will be adjusted to address the fishery and it's challenges and not just sector issues or some other unknown agenda.

Thanks for passing this along, very much appreciated!

[dakota560]

Just testing this out. Saved documents sent to Fisheries Management to Google drive. Hopefully all works well. Documents will be in the attached link if anyone is interested in reading. Cover letter to Secretary of Commerce, Letter to Secretary of Commerce, NOAA, NFMS and ASMFC / MAFMC Summer Flounder Members and Comprehensive Analysis supporting my thesis.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15io8JwVOoq9kbbZ7mg4LsghV7PYlsgta?usp=sharing