AndyS
11-27-2013, 05:04 PM
“Let’s kill as many as we can before we have to save them.” That seems to be the attitude of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Tuesday, just before closing for a five day Thanksgiving weekend, DNR fisheries dropped a turkey on recreational striped bass anglers by announcing a 14% increase in harvest. At a time when striper stocks are steeply declining and states up and down the Atlantic seaboard face impending cuts mandated by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), Maryland is grabbing more fish.
a meeting in Georgia last month, commissioners on the ASMFC’s Striped Bass Management Board formally acknowleged problems with the stock and started the process to reduce fishing. Unfortunately for the fish, changes from the ASMFC take a long time. Amendments were drafted and a public comment period was scheduled with the goal of implementing harvest reductions in 2015.
Recreational anglers up and down the coast who are seeing fewer and fewer fish are disappointed that action wasn’t taken right away, but most of us have resolved to participate in the change process in hopes of an even more conservative approach next year. In the mean time, concerned anglers and conservation oriented fishing organizations are calling for voluntary harvest restrictions. Simply put, we want to save as many fish as we can until the federal government formalizes mandatory reductions. Here’s an editorial in Forbes Magazine from Monte Burke calling for voluntary cuts: Time For Recreational Anglers to Voluntarily Limit Their Catch.
Enter Maryland DNR. Now, you’d think that an organization charged to protect striped bass in the state where almost all of them are born and grow up would also consider reductions, wouldn’t you? Maybe even take action ahead of ASMFC restrictions? You know, a watch-out-for-the-stock-that-just-happens-to-be-the-state-fish, kind of decision? Nope. Instead, they delivered a square slap in the face to conservation minded fishermen in Maryland and all over the East Coast by increasing harvest by over a million, that’s right a million pounds.
Here’s their thinking as I understand it: We’ve had one good spawning year for stripers out of the last six. That was 2011. Those fish are just now growing to be 18-inches long, the lower limit for harvest in Maryland. Since there will be more legal fish in the Bay, they think it’s okay to kill more, especially since we usually come in below the quota the ASMFC currently sets for the state. Never-mind that once new ASMFC standards are adopted, surveys will show that striped bass have been overfished six out of the past nine years, or that overfishing is likely to occur in 2014. The attitude in Maryland seems to be that we should kill as many fish as we can before they grow up and leave the Chesapeake Bay and before the ASMFC forces reductions.
I believe the 2011 year class is the future of the striped bass fishery. It’s the fish you and I will be trying to catch for the rest of our lives. This 14% increase isn’t likely to change because it’s already been announced and commercial quotas are set. One thing should change though, and that’s the attitude of Maryland fishing managers. The days of managing for maximum harvest have to end. We can’t just keep killing fish simply because they’re here in the Bay and their heads are finally big enough to get stuck in a gill net.
a meeting in Georgia last month, commissioners on the ASMFC’s Striped Bass Management Board formally acknowleged problems with the stock and started the process to reduce fishing. Unfortunately for the fish, changes from the ASMFC take a long time. Amendments were drafted and a public comment period was scheduled with the goal of implementing harvest reductions in 2015.
Recreational anglers up and down the coast who are seeing fewer and fewer fish are disappointed that action wasn’t taken right away, but most of us have resolved to participate in the change process in hopes of an even more conservative approach next year. In the mean time, concerned anglers and conservation oriented fishing organizations are calling for voluntary harvest restrictions. Simply put, we want to save as many fish as we can until the federal government formalizes mandatory reductions. Here’s an editorial in Forbes Magazine from Monte Burke calling for voluntary cuts: Time For Recreational Anglers to Voluntarily Limit Their Catch.
Enter Maryland DNR. Now, you’d think that an organization charged to protect striped bass in the state where almost all of them are born and grow up would also consider reductions, wouldn’t you? Maybe even take action ahead of ASMFC restrictions? You know, a watch-out-for-the-stock-that-just-happens-to-be-the-state-fish, kind of decision? Nope. Instead, they delivered a square slap in the face to conservation minded fishermen in Maryland and all over the East Coast by increasing harvest by over a million, that’s right a million pounds.
Here’s their thinking as I understand it: We’ve had one good spawning year for stripers out of the last six. That was 2011. Those fish are just now growing to be 18-inches long, the lower limit for harvest in Maryland. Since there will be more legal fish in the Bay, they think it’s okay to kill more, especially since we usually come in below the quota the ASMFC currently sets for the state. Never-mind that once new ASMFC standards are adopted, surveys will show that striped bass have been overfished six out of the past nine years, or that overfishing is likely to occur in 2014. The attitude in Maryland seems to be that we should kill as many fish as we can before they grow up and leave the Chesapeake Bay and before the ASMFC forces reductions.
I believe the 2011 year class is the future of the striped bass fishery. It’s the fish you and I will be trying to catch for the rest of our lives. This 14% increase isn’t likely to change because it’s already been announced and commercial quotas are set. One thing should change though, and that’s the attitude of Maryland fishing managers. The days of managing for maximum harvest have to end. We can’t just keep killing fish simply because they’re here in the Bay and their heads are finally big enough to get stuck in a gill net.