ASMFC Meeting Today 1/25

[Gerry Zagorski]

If you'd like to listen in and provide public comment, the Summer Flounder session starts at 2:45 and you must register here https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/8463911188401300749

2:45 - 4:15 PM
Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Management Board Supplemental

Welcome/Call to Order (J. Davis)
Board Consent
Approval of Agenda
Approval of Proceedings from August 2021
Public Comment
Review Information for 2022 Recreational Specifications
Reconsider 2022 Recreational Specifications Possible Final Action
Consider Methodology for Adjusting 2022 Recreational Measures Possible Action
Other Business/Adjourn

[TwoDDs]

Did anyone listen in or know if anything of interest came out of the meeting?

[Gerry Zagorski]

I listened in... Not much discussion on Fluke other then the states are to submit their regulation proposals on Feb 21 for review. I asked the question in the chat if states can submit proposals that contain slot fish and the answer was yes since we now have provisions for Min and Max size limits.

There was however a lot of discussion on Black Seabass. We were looking at a 28% reduction based on the high landings data they had at the time they announced that a while back... They got some more recent data on landings which when applied, made things a little better but not much so maybe a 26 or 27% reduction. They reviewed some of the landing data for certain state and sectors and the charts showed some rather large anomalies and they talked about a using a smoothing methodology which may help us but not sure. Suffices to say it appears we're going to get a reduction on Sea Bass but what that is remains to be determined.

The Seabass reduction seemed counter intuitive to me since the stock has been fully rebuilt above the Spawning Stock Biomass targets and has been for a number of years. Yes we've may have caught more then we did in years past but that's because there are a lot of fish out there indicating an abundant fishery. You can hardly drop down a piece of clam and not catch one.. As I was thinking this a charter boat captain from VA was allowed to give a public comment and basically said there's a ton of Sea Bass out there and based on the data which you are not sure about and some landings assumptions, you're looking for even more restrictive regulations and shorter seasons? All you need to do is get out there and fish and see you'll see how abundant they are! Good for him, but sadly that was the only recreational person to speak up...

[hammer4reel]

Commercial fluke weekly limit went from 4000 pounds a week to 6000 pounds a week today for the rest of January and February.

Beat them up twice as bad while they are all balled together spawning .

[dales529]

Commercial fluke weekly limit went from 4000 pounds a week to 6000 pounds a week today for the rest of January and February.

Beat them up twice as bad while they are all balled together spawning .

This sucks. Management holds onto that commercial was and has been fishing the spawn even when the biomass was the strongest in the 80's and 90's so why is that an issue. While we continue the fight over that logic its hard but the fight goes on

[frugalfisherman]

over fished sea bass all right. By the time it reopened in October they were too far offshore for a day trip. Did one trip on J2. All the porgies you wanted. I had maybe 5 sea bass. From what I hear 2 of the boats you used to go sea bass fishing on January and February have commercial licenses and are out hook and lining them. 10 years ago they were getting 3 bucks a pound. The good news is you can go to Shoprite and get them whole for $8.99.

[Capt Sal]

Rules for the but not for me???? Sound familiar? The commercial guys win again!

[bunker dunker]

at least it is not a one sided situation.

[1captainron]

New Year, same Bullshit.....I'm going to guess 8 Sea Bass @ 13 inches with the same stupid schedule.

Keep killing the Breeding Fluke, twice SSFFF did detailed Sex assessments with the best scientists in the country proving 18 inch fish are 98% female.....What did we get? Crickets that's what. Still killing 18 inch fish both commercially & recreationaly after all these years.

You don't have to have a God Dam P.H.D. to know how this is going to end up. Trust the Science they said, we did, they didn't listen and here we are.
Bullshit.

[Slip It In]

It is quite amazing that the ASMFC knows how many Black Sea Bass I retained last year. In all the years fishing I have never been asked ONCE regarding BSB landings or releases. Yet another mismanaged operation, and very clear there is no solution any time soon.

Very sad for the many charter and head boats which are on the water and have REAL DATA dismissed and most likely not even asked for.


At least we have expected record low boat fuel prices..........

Simple solutions can solve all of these problems. But it will never happen.


Regards
Peter

[reason162]

twice SSFFF did detailed Sex assessments with the best scientists in the country proving 18 inch fish are 98% female.....

Did that study ever pass peer review?

[AndyS]

I was shocked when they cut the offshore sea bass season and limits ! This past December I watched how many times the NJ party boats made it out of the slip for offshore sea bass, many trips were blown out. The 15 fish limit for offshore is a joke.

[Jigman13]

when you could get out, it took all of 6 minutes to limit out lol...

[Gumada]

Well if you catch them, “over fishing is occurring”. If you don’t catch them “the stock is in decline”. Can’t win with that rigged game...

[dales529]

Maybe weakfish trips in Dec with BSB as a bycatch!

[AndyS]

Just makes me want to rush right out and sign up for the Saltwater Registry !

[Capt Sal]

It is quite amazing that the ASMFC knows how many Black Sea Bass I retained last year. In all the years fishing I have never been asked ONCE regarding BSB landings or releases. Yet another mismanaged operation, and very clear there is no solution any time soon.

Very sad for the many charter and head boats which are on the water and have REAL DATA dismissed and most likely not even asked for.


At least we have expected record low boat fuel prices..........

Simple solutions can solve all of these problems. But it will never happen.


Regards
Peter
EXACTLY!!! They come on a sunny calm day when you had a good day and this is the ''NORM" ! WRONG!!!

[tautog]

Argghhh Argghhh

[dales529]

Just makes me want to rush right out and sign up for the Saltwater Registry !

Andy we have been over this before and I get I think that your philosophy is that the more recreational anglers that sign up for this is used against us.

Couldn't be farther from the truth. In its inception it was a way around a fee for a saltwater license which would have NEVER gone to salt water fisheries but to a NJ general fund. So a win.

Within the NJ saltwater registry is this: www.CountMyFish.noaa.gov.

If used more often it would help dispell MRIP guesstimates on the non for hire fleet and be used to create a more accurate landings count. As someone and most who profess keeping a log book it wouldn't be that hard to do for those of the same philosophy.
And yet recreational fisherman don't use it??

Its not the saltwater registry that's the problem its MRIP.

[dales529]

Did that study ever pass peer review?

Roger to my knowledge the SSFFF study only didnt pass peer review for technical writing not the study itself.
Can you name one NOAA peer review summer flounder sex study since 2009 that has passed peer review? I cant find one.

But yet regulations by NOAA favor keeping females although I am aware of new studies NOT peer reviewed that commercial catch is showing more males over 18" ??

[bbfisherman]

Follow the money an old cliche but .....

[dales529]

Follow the money an old cliche but .....

Guess where the money is NOT. In Recreational fishing support to fight while we spend a ton individually!

[bbfisherman]

Unfortunately Dale too true
We fight among ourselves while the commercial industry is much more united.

[dakota560]

Something to keep in mind as we move closer to proposed 2022 summer flounder regulations. RHL, recreational harvest limit, a weight based measurement is ultimately what drives regulations. The current RHL for 2022 is 10.36 million pounds just for the recreational sector. In 2010 it was 8.59 million lbs. and in 2011, it was 11.58 million pounds. Recreational regulations for those years were 6 daily possession at 18" for 2010 and 8 daily possession at 18" for 2011. Actual landings per new MRIP are down substantially between those years and today.

How then is it possible with less fishing effort that todays regulations are so much more restrictive even though harvest levels are down, fishing effort is down and RHL quotas are substantially higher in every year over the last decade other than 2010.

I know the stock is down but RHL already factors that into the quota so the fact we have a higher quota with less fishing pressure and have lost over 60% of our daily possession limit at the same size minimums makes no sense whatsoever. There's no rhyme or reason to what's taken place over the latest decade in this fishery.

[dakota560]

Answering my own question here but these New MRIP statistics are so wreaking havoc on fisheries management and impacting the regulations were having forced down our throats. If you look at the differences between old MRIP and New MRIP for some of the years over the past decade, the discrepancies are truthfully unimaginable.

First number is year, second number recreational catch in million pounds under old MRIP, third number recreational catch in millions of pounds under new MRIP.

2009, 6.03, 11.66
2010, 5.11, 11.34
2011, 5.96, 13.48
2012, 6.49, 16.13
2013, 7.36, 19.41
2014, 7.39, 16.24
2015, 4.72, 11.83
2016, 6.18, 13,24
2017, 3.19, 10.06
2018, 3.35, 7.60

If you ever listened in on a call regarding how New MRIP was built and the endless number of assumptions used attempting to quantify recreational harvest, you'd know the process is about as exact as predicting weather. To have in many years 200% or more variances in recreational catch levels compared to old MRIP statistics used for years should have been reason itself for New MRIP to never be implemented. Using 2013 as an example, for years we were told 7.36 million pounds harvested was best available science until a new system founded on completely speculative and unsubstantiated assumptions said no the real number is actually 19.41 million pounds.

Honestly fisheries management should work towards a system that uses commercial catch totals from dealer reports since there's empirical counts, uses on board federal observer statistics to quantify commercial dead discard since we have those statistics as opposed to the honor system on VTR's we know are under reported, figure out a way to representatively quantify annual recruitment, use stock assessments to quantify the biomass population and if you have all that information the only number left is recreational catch (harvest and discard mortality) which you can back into. It would be a more scientific means of quantifying everything than the way we're going about it now which is deplorable. If you have assumptions with 200% variances, you have an out of control process and truthfully no way of measuring or managing the stock.