Quote:
Originally Posted by Gerry Zagorski
And just so some people's anger and frustration in the system is pointed in the right direction and what Bill has alluded to above, this sort of stuff happens at a much higher level then the people on the various councils and committees. Let's not throw them under the bus... If you want to throw rocks, throw them at the top of the political system or the data and science they're forced to use or your anger and frustration is misdirected.
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Gerry there's a lot of things we agree on, this isn't one of them. NMFS sets quotas based on whatever they do to assess stock size. Decisions on how those quotas translate to regulations are set by the ASMFC and the individual states making up the Commission as well as MAMFC.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) are both organizations responsible for managing fisheries along the Atlantic coast of the United States, with the key difference being that the ASMFC focuses on managing fish stocks that migrate between multiple states within the Atlantic coastal waters, while the MAFMC manages fisheries within a specific geographic region of the Mid-Atlantic, coordinating with the ASMFC on shared species that cross state boundaries; both organizations work to ensure sustainable fisheries through regulations, stock assessments, and collaborative efforts with states and federal agencies.
Both agencies have done a horrible job with striped bass and fluke, proof is in the results.
Fluke:
Who increased recreational size limits for fluke for the last 20 years?
Who gave the commercial sector access to substantially more of the fluke stock than the recreation sector. 14" and above versus for most states 18" to 19" and above"? Meaning the entire population of fluke between 14" and 18" exclusively belongs to the commercial sector.
Who restricted harvest of younger age classes recreationally so commercials can mop them up offshore?
Who incentivized the commercial sector to harvest larger older age class groups, the future of the stock, to increase their catch values and mitigate the financial impacts of reducing quotas due to failed regulatory decisions?
Who said "
harvesting larger specimens is the best way to manage the stock"? Hint, initials are KD and a member of MAFMC.
Who allows unabated netting of fluke during their primary annual spawn with admittedly
ZERO knowledge of the consequences on the stock?
Who allows this stock to be pounded year round and due to size increases has pushed discard mortality levels to historically high percentages, a very high percentage which goes unreported. Levels not remotely close to where they were when we were all harvesting younger age class fish and the stock was thriving? Here's a novel idea, we have federal observers on commercial boats, why not use their independent bycatch statistics as opposed to the honor system self reported by commercial operators on VTR's who you'd have to be an idiot to not know they under report. Does the recreational sector self report, why is the commercial sector allowed to when there's data from NMFS which shows huge disparities?
Whose brilliant idea was it to mandate the harvest of the most fecund age classes in the spawning stock to promote commercial catch values while killing millions of juvenile fish annually?
It wasn't NMFS or the feds.
Stripers:
Read the following articles about ASMFC:
https://onthewater.com/striped-bass-...ing-size-limit
https://www.cbf.org/news-media/newsr...ng-season.html
https://missionblue.org/2015/12/ches...tion-industry/
For Christ sake, you have Chris Moore, Executive Director of MAFMC say "
“Given the history of striped bass management and the warning signs from young of the year surveys, it’s unfortunate that fisheries managers failed to act to conserve fish during the 2025 fishing season".
Note the commercial sets for menhaden in the Mission Blue article, a majority most assuredly by Cooke Inc.
Who proposed regulations to harvest the mega breeders for years, introduced another paper thin slot which guaranteed higher discard mortality rates and ignored the impacts of pollution in the Chesapeake.
Who sat by and did nothing while Cooke Inc. destroyed the Chesapeake and raped the ocean of Menhaden killing who knows how many bass and other juvenile species? There should be no netting in any bay along our coast, these bays are the breeding grounds and future of too many stocks and need to be treated as sanctuaries for juvenile fish.
If these agencies can't address the root cause of these stock declines, than they're both lame duck agencies.
To support fisheries management, the Commission "ASMFC" has a budget of $53.6 million, which comes from a combination of state appropriations and federal grants, including the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act. And God only knows what the combined budgets are for MAMFC and NMFS. Once again, recreational funding in part though excise taxes based on recreational spending which isn't being used to address and properly manage two of the most important stocks to the recreational sector.
For these two stocks, blame needs to be directed at each of the three agencies as they mismanaged and continue to mismanage both stocks, put economics before stock management and utterly fail to implement sensible regulations which address the problems both fisheries are experiencing. If ASMFC and MAMFC prioritized the interest of the fisheries, we wouldn't be having this discourse and we wouldn't be seeing recruitment levels in both fisheries at 50 year lows. A lawsuit should've been filed by ASMFC to push Cooke Inc. out of the Chesapeake and reduce menhaden quotas for 5 years and everyone on the Commission sat on their ass and did not one thing to stop the exploitation of the most important forage fish on the east coast.
There is culpability at every level, a complete failure by the federal government, state governments and more than anywhere else at the ASMFC and MAMFC who are tasked with managing these fisheries. Their personal regulatory decisions coupled with environmental issues in the Chesapeake which the ASMFC has influence over have caused a 42% decline in the 2024 and 2025 fluke quota and is now risking a moratorium with the striper stock.
