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.
12-09-2021, 11:50 AM
Re: Upcoming MAFMC Meeting
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