Dec 16th ASMFC Striper Meeting Recap

[Gerry Zagorski]

Some notes on today's ASMFC Striped Bass Meeting.

WARNING…. This is a lengthy post so if you want to get to the bottom line you can skip down to the bottom but I feel it’s important for everyone to take some time and read the details so you can understand why and how these decisions were made and how they were influenced.

This is my understanding of where things are as of now and there will be more future meetings to make final decisions, get the state and regions inputs and seek public comments.

I first have to say the Commission and staff did a terrific job running the meeting. Number of public attendance varied but looked like it settled in around 560 participants on the webinar.

They spent a good amount of time reviewing the data and some good news is based on the most recent updated information, the 2024 harvest estimates came down with the remainder of the 2024 data to come. As a result of that news and other considerations the Committee is now suggesting a 9% instead of the original 14% recreational harvest reduction.

I was particularly thrilled to see how much time and consideration was given to over 4000 public comments. Seems to me that these meetings have become a lot more transparent. I think this is due in large part to these meetings being done via webinar. It allows for more public access, participation and involvement all of which leads to the Committee taking more into account the will of the people.

It was great to see that NJ came out in numbers in terms of comments stating opposition to closings in Nov and December since it was our peak season. I think we were the only state that made a separate line item in public comments slides so great job submitting your comments! I think we got our point across about the inequity of these closures since the original proposals had the same dates in fisheries throughout a region while the local fisheries vary with seasonality.

As a result it now sounds like there is going to be a path for flexibility and individual states and regions can provide input on what measures they would take to achieve the reduction pending the Commission's approval. This is how it should be because the closer decisions are made to the people they affect the better and once again, the Committee took the public comments into consideration.

Of the public comments made 2653 supported taking some type of reduction while 517 supported no action being taken so this sent a clear message to the Committee that most are committed to protect this important resource.

There were a lot of lively discussions about how hurried these decisions are being made because of the tight timelines. The major concerns being how quickly the data had to be reviewed and interpreted and assumptions applied and not knowing what the results of the recent emergency action was having on the fishery.

I am most proud of our own Adam Nowalsky, one of NJs representatives on the ASFMC Striped Bass Board. He was very vocal in supporting the recreational interests and was opposed to some of the motions being made which would have reduced the reductions on the commercial side. I’ve known Adam for 25 plus years now. I always appreciated his candor, educating me on the fisheries and how the management process works. Most importantly his dedication and energy to serve us and balancing our interests with the state of the fisheries.

Adam was also the one out of 65 ASFMC Striped Bass board members that had the courage, intellect, respect and influence to introduce and have the board pass an addendum to postpone these important decisions. This gives the time needed to do a better job analyzing the data and be able to understand the effects of the recent emergency measures taken earlier in 2024. It also takes the time to make a more informed decision going forward rather than the knee jerk reactions we're used to...

Job well done Adam! You are one of the shining lights that combines intellect with critical thinking and reason into the process. Thank you for your service and dedication!

For those of you who don’t like to read and skipped to the bottom, as it is now, our regs will remain the same through 2025. Any changes will be decided in December of 2025 when which will take effect in 2026 once all this settles in.

Shew.... That was a mouthful and time to get into Chirstmas mode!