Summer Flounder, Seabass and Scup Update and Action Items

[Rocky]

It will be #3. What do I win?

[frugalfisherman]

Everybody's forgetting seabass. All 13's with the longest season makes the most sense. Option 4.

Originally Posted by Rocky

It will be #3. What do I win?

Rocky if Option 3 wins I hope you get a free year's supply of Old Bay for the crabs. Wouldn't be a bad option with slight reduction with size minimums and 5 more days in the season over current, a start in the right direction as I've said. Only reason I chose 5 over 3 is more days in season which I know is important to party boats and for hire and with option 5 and
you can't really cull with a one inch slot which means more of the larger females will be protected. Option 3 you can catch three fish in the morning at 17.5" and replace them with three 19" inch fish later in the day. Option 4 with three at 17 reduces the season too much and doesn't stand a chance. Also shows the models marine fisheries continues using doesn't accurately reflect the positive impacts harvesting younger age classes has over older age classes. 4 fish at 18" gets 137 days, 3 at 17" gets 101 or 36 less days in the season. Option 4 involves the removal of less females, reduced fishing related and natural mortality, improve recruitment, harvests lesser weight fish and still we lose 25% of the season. Absolute insanity. Option 4 with 4 fish at 18" might take it with 16 more days in the season and in my opinion would be the worse choice as it doesn't address reduced size fish harvested or catch composition (would actually worsen it removing more female breeders) but everyone's eyes light up on season lengths. I still believe option 5 is the correct choice for the short and long term benefit of the stock but since 2014 NJ has lived with an 18" size minimum and breaking that mold will be difficult even though it's exactly what has to start being done to change the fortunes of this fishery. You can see the conflict of going to a smaller size or slot in this thread which is truthfully shocking after all these years we've pushed for one.

DD to answer your question about Option 3, its a good question and good points since for the last 5-7 years fish have been heading offshore much earlier than in past. Rocky would certainly agree with you so we'll see. As mentioned, I still see the choice between Option 3 and or Options 1 or % coming down to the difference in season length whether the fish are here or already headed offshore.

Originally Posted by frugalfisherman

Everybody's forgetting seabass. All 13's with the longest season makes the most sense. Option 4.

Frugal not sure what's best for BSB. As you know, BSB are referred to as protogynous hermaphrodites, almost all are born females and a percentage change to males at ages 2-5 or lengths of 9" to 13". Details of how and why that happens are not completely understood. All the larger "knucklehead" sea bass are males and as in any fishery there has to be a balance between genders for maximum recruitment. Targeting all larger fish is by default targeting a higher proportion males and might poses long term recruitment consequences to the fishery.

Not sure what the best option is but in my opinion whatever option best supports recruitment is what should be chosen and like summer flounder or any species, measures should be put in place to at minimum protect the spawn from both commercial and recreational fishing activities.

[hammer4reel]

Imo option 5 will give us an even higher mortality on throw backs than the current system .
Too tight a slot .

I think option 4 and have them increase it a few days to give the full 16 1/2 percent increase .
.
The increase shouldn’t be cut when the total poundage will also decrease .

If not option 3 .

Going to leave my parting opinion and then bow out of this madness for a while. Truthfully none of the options address the issues of overharvesting females and exclusively breeders as the proportions at 17", 17.5" and 18" are almost identical involving gender.

Dan understand your point about Option 5 but when the recreational sector is already operating at 93% release ratio, there's bound to be a number of 17" to 17'99 fish in those numbers already so not sure discards will increase appreciably. That's reality, how marine fisheries attempts to quantify it with MRIP is anyone's guess and it wouldn't surprise anyone if they increased the assumption by 10%. You know 150 days will be attractive to a lot of people and as I said a start.

Option 4 losing 20 days I'd bet is a deal breaker right out of the gates. Just the mind set of the sector. Would rather fish longer at the expense of the fishery than shorter and try rebuilding the stock. Winter flounder, ten month season but no fish to catch. That's where this fishery is headed.

Option 3 doesn't change enough by reducing size minimums a half inch. Like Rocky said, it might get some attention but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't address harvesting too many females and exclusively breeders. So 5 more days season but won't better manage the fishery or address the decade long problems causing it's decline.

Option 2 is a mirage. 4 possession limit will attract some attentions but currently 83% of angler trips can't harvest one keeper at 18" and another 9% only harvest one. Might as well make the possession limit 25 because if you can't catch one at 18", 4 @ 18" doesn't really change anything but blow smoke up the recreational sectors ass. Good fisherman would choose this option but the casual recreational angler it wouldn't do a thing and it won't help the stock.

Option 1 in my opinion will prevail and is a lost opportunity to address the problems facing the stock. And when the water is too cold in June and the fish leave early in September, another 23 days of season won't be worth the paper it's written on.

Was hoping to see an option for NJ and every state like 2022 - one fish between 14" and 16" and two over 18". 2023 two fish between 14" and 16" and one fish over 18". 2024 three fish or more based on the condition of the stock over 15" with removal of the slot. Do the same with every state, take one fish from current possession limit and move it to a reduced slot to promote the harvest of more males than female and move size minimums down. At the same time, stop netting during the spawn. Stock would come back as it did in the 90's.

Follow the flow of the money and you'll follow how this stock is being managed. The recreational sector has taken it on the chin for two decades while the commercial sector has had the benefit of every decision to protect their catch values. Their quotas like recreational have been slashed but to compensate they've been granted exclusive rights to harvest the money fish to protect their catch values. And Jim Lovgren has the balls to say the recreational sector is stealing quota and money from the commercial sector. Read his article in fishery nation. Absolute BS, link attached. This sector doesn't start wising up and putting some of the millions spent a year into lobbying and lawsuits, there won't be one fishery left worth fishing for.

https://fisherynation.com/archives/106999

The reality is the 2022 commercial quota at 15.53 million lbs. is the largest quota since 2010 with the exception of 2011 and almost three times greater than 2017 while the recreational sector is penalized just about every year.

Federal government has identified this as a commercial fishery and aside from strong lobbying efforts or a lawsuit by the sector with funds readily available with ASA and the Wallup / Bureau Trust from recreation spending on tackle, boats, motorboat gas and rod sales, the recreational sector will never get their fair share of the fishery. 3/24 will be here soon enough, get ready it's going to be another shit show

[hammer4reel]

Originally Posted by dakota560

Going to leave my parting opinion and then bow out of this madness for a while. Truthfully none of the options address the issues of overharvesting females and exclusively breeders as the proportions at 17", 17.5" and 18" are almost identical involving gender.

Dan understand your point about Option 5 but when the recreational sector is already operating at 93% release ratio, there's bound to be a number of 17" to 17'99 fish in those numbers already so not sure discards will increase appreciably. That's reality, how marine fisheries attempts to quantify it with MRIP is anyone's guess and it wouldn't surprise anyone if they increased the assumption by 10%. You know 150 days will be attractive to a lot of people and as I said a start.

Option 4 losing 20 days I'd bet is a deal breaker right out of the gates. Just the mind set of the sector. Would rather fish longer at the expense of the fishery than shorter and try rebuilding the stock. Winter flounder, ten month season but no fish to catch. That's where this fishery is headed.

Option 3 doesn't change enough by reducing size minimums a half inch. Like Rocky said, it might get some attention but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't address harvesting too many females and exclusively breeders. So 5 more days season but won't better manage the fishery or address the decade long problems causing it's decline.

Option 2 is a mirage. 4 possession limit will attract some attentions but currently 83% of angler trips can't harvest one keeper at 18" and another 9% only harvest one. Might as well make the possession limit 25 because if you can't catch one at 18", 4 @ 18" doesn't really change anything but blow smoke up the recreational sectors ass. Good fisherman would choose this option but the casual recreational angler it wouldn't do a thing and it won't help the stock.

Option 1 in my opinion will prevail and is a lost opportunity to address the problems facing the stock. And when the water is too cold in June and the fish leave early in September, another 23 days of season won't be worth the paper it's written on.

Was hoping to see an option for NJ and every state like 2022 - one fish between 14" and 16" and two over 18". 2023 two fish between 14" and 16" and one fish over 18". 2024 three fish or more based on the condition of the stock over 15" with removal of the slot. Do the same with every state, take one fish from current possession limit and move it to a reduced slot to promote the harvest of more males than female and move size minimums down. At the same time, stop netting during the spawn. Stock would come back as it did in the 90's.

Follow the flow of the money and you'll follow how this stock is being managed. The recreational sector has taken it on the chin for two decades while the commercial sector has had the benefit of every decision to protect their catch values. Their quotas like recreational have been slashed but to compensate they've been granted exclusive rights to harvest the money fish to protect their catch values. And Jim Lovgren has the balls to say the recreational sector is stealing quota and money from the commercial sector. Read his article in fishery nation. Absolute BS, link attached. This sector doesn't start wising up and putting some of the millions spent a year into lobbying and lawsuits, there won't be one fishery left worth fishing for.

https://fisherynation.com/archives/106999

The reality is the 2022 commercial quota at 15.53 million lbs. is the largest quota since 2010 with the exception of 2011 and almost three times greater than 2017 while the recreational sector is penalized just about every year.

Federal government has identified this as a commercial fishery and aside from strong lobbying efforts or a lawsuit by the sector with funds readily available with ASA and the Wallup / Bureau Trust from recreation spending on tackle, boats, motorboat gas and rod sales, the recreational sector will never get their fair share of the fishery. 3/24 will be here soon enough, get ready it's going to be another shit show

Option 5 would make fishing Oceanside a waste of time
95% of the fish would be oversize throw backs .
Slot fish should have been set to have 3 or 4” in the slot
Having it at less than 1 inch targets fish of one year class instead of spreading it out over a few years .

Originally Posted by hammer4reel

Option 5 would make fishing Oceanside a waste of time
95% of the fish would be oversize throw backs .
Slot fish should have been set to have 3 or 4” in the slot
Having it at less than 1 inch targets fish of one year class instead of spreading it out over a few years .

Dan so I understand your point, you're suggesting 95% of fish oceanside right now are over 18"?

Dan I agree with the low end of the slot size and spread of one inch is too little.
We'll still be harvesting mostly females and exclusively mature fish from the breeding stock of both genders. Refer to the Rutgers chart, the marine fisheries chart says the same thing.

You say 95% of oceanside fish under Option 5 would be oversized discards. Is that correct? If that were true than you're saying 95% of all fish you catch oceanside are over 18" and you basically catch your current 3 man limit with zero discards.

You're not a good example to use because you've been at this a long time and know where to fish but for most anglers I would absolutely disagree with that statement if I understand what your saying.

No one really knows what these numbers are but I've been on ocean trips with great captains and myself where shorts to keepers has been 30 or 40:1. Option 5 would allow people to keep a few of those fish, especially less experienced anglers. Plus it's 150 days which everyone should be tickled pink about. Again days doesn't help the health of the fishery one bit but it's important to some and believe it will draw some attention.,

Dan I agree with the low end of the slot size and spread of one inch is too little.
We'll still be harvesting mostly females and exclusively mature fish from the breeding stock of both genders. Refer to the Rutgers chart, the marine fisheries chart says the same thing.

You say 95% of oceanside fish under Option 5 would be oversized discards. Is that correct? If that were true than you're saying 95% of all fish you catch oceanside are over 18" and you basically catch your current 3 man limit with zero discards.

You're not a good example to use because you've been at this a long time and know where to fish but for most anglers I would absolutely disagree with that statement if I understand what your saying.

No one really knows what these numbers are but I've been on ocean trips with great captains and myself where shorts to keepers has been 30 or 40:1. Option 5 would allow people to keep a few of those fish, especially less experienced anglers. Plus it's 150 days which everyone should be tickled pink about. Again days doesn't help the health of the fishery one bit but it's important to some and believe it will draw some attention.

Just fyi, a 17" to 17.99 slot would target either age 3 females or age 4-5 males, three age groups not one. Still agree with your comment that a one inch spread is ridiculous.