fishcrat
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Striped Bass Addendum II: Not perfect, but better than I expected
fishcrat replied to CWitek's topic in Main Forum
Cwitek, my hat's off to you for your excellent summary of yesterday's SB Board mtging which I also attended in hopes of providing some critical comments regarding the current bass recovery effort. I haven't posted on this Forum for a long time largely due to the threads often diverging from their original intent and my usual "late for the dance" arrival. I commend most of the posters on this thread for their largely on point comments and hope I'm not too late to add some additional perspective on what I believe is a very critical situation. By way of background I have some experience in fishery management, long experience in recreational bass fishing and 18 or 20 years of post retirement commercial bass fishing under my belt. I was fortunate to be a participant in the successful bass recovery effort in the 70s and 80s which has been lauded by pundits as one of the most successful fishery management recoveries ever. I don't know about that but I will say it was generally a real pleasure working with a very diverse group of users, regulators, legislators, members of the general public and whoever else then to bring bass back from the brink. As I listened to yesterday's Board meeting, I harkened back to the 80's when Maryland's Director, Pete Jenson, was as fierce a protector of Maryland's interests back then as was the outgoing Maryland Director yesterday. Remember that the Rock is Maryland's state fish; not that gives them special privilege even though they may assume that. Back in the 70's we had neither good spawning and many adult bass and things were so bad that the Chesapeake Bay implemented a moratorium as did some other states. Some of you may remember the one fish at 36" bag limit. The essence of the developing plan was to raise the size limits for the migratory females (Coast) and the non migratory males (Bay) so that 50% of each would have the opportunity to spawn before harvest. Prior to that neither 12" males or 16" females had reached spawning size. The largest spawn up to then was the '70 year class which was decimated in a few years. The new plan was implemented and enforcement was left to the individual state. ASMFC grew teeth upon passage of the Atlantic Striped Bass Act. which mandated that states that wanted to harvest bass would have to sign on and abide by the rules or face a fishing closure. To my knowledge only one state has been found out of compliance but New Jersey came aboard just prior to being shut down by the Feds. A decent spawn occurred in the 80's and that year class (and subsequent ones) were nurtured until those fish produced a good and subsequent year classes and the rest is history. I've got to break off until tomorrow and I'll talk about my and others concerns then. -
Togatown reacted to a post in a topic: @ 12:01am June 19th Commercial Striped Bass Season Commences
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bdowning reacted to a post in a topic: @ 12:01am June 19th Commercial Striped Bass Season Commences
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FoulHooker reacted to a post in a topic: @ 12:01am June 19th Commercial Striped Bass Season Commences
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@ 12:01am June 19th Commercial Striped Bass Season Commences
fishcrat replied to The Riddler's topic in Massachusetts Fishing
Haven't posted for a while but here's a couple of points and clarifications I'd like to make. The primary target of this emergency action by the ASMFC is the protection of the 2015 year class of bass which are now large enough to fall within the old slot length, hence the adjustment. The 2015 YC is the last big YC in the Chesapeake and the last 4 YCs have been busts with things initially indicating for the 2022 as well. As many of you know the Chesapeake produces over 75% of Atlantic Striped Bass and this lack of spawning success is cause for great concern. The striped bass restoration effort in the 80's was triggered by poor spawning and overall low abundance of spawners. Unlike then, the present striper spawning stock biomass is plenty large enough to produce a good year class but other factors are intervening. In addition to the emergency slot adjustment, the ASMFC has voted to prepare an addition to the striper plan called an Addendum destined to go into effect in 2024. This addendum will include further restrictions on the recreational fishery and the commercial fishery will be facing likely quota cuts and an upper size limit. The Massachusetts commercial fishery consists of some 4000 or so permit holders who range from a large number of drifters and dreamers to those who earn their primary income from the water. It's been that way for many generations because it's always been an open access fishery with few entry restrictions. Over the years the Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) has restricted access to most inshore commercial fisheries with tautog being the latest. We petitioned DMF a couple of years ago to restrict access to the bass fishery and are hopeful the current crisis will finally precipatate action. -
CWitek reacted to a post in a topic: New slot limits for Bass
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Couple of quick corrections, if I may: the minimum recreational striper coastal size has been 28 inches since the Plan was implemented. This size was determined to be the size where 50% of female striper have spawned and is a fundamental provision of the plan. Secondly, according to the report provided the Mass. Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission at their last meeting, the Massachusetts body that approves the Marine Fisheries regulations, although the Environmental Police are well below their optimum staffing level several new officers are being added to the field and a number of new recruits are being trained.
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stripedbassking reacted to a post in a topic: Proposal to start the commercial season Early
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Proposal to start the commercial season Early
fishcrat replied to stripedbassking's topic in Massachusetts Fishing
The previous poster, as usual, offered his subjective opinion regarding the regulatory process which is mandated by law to include public hearings on any topic that falls within the provisions of Mass General Law Chapter 130, Section 17A which covers most fishery regulations. I haven't yet acquired the skills to insert this statute into this post (I'm learning) but it's easily Googled and I'm gradually learning. -
Proposal to start the commercial season Early
fishcrat replied to stripedbassking's topic in Massachusetts Fishing
The public hearing on this proposal is scheduled this Thursday (Mar 12) at 6 PM in Admiral's Hall at Mass Maritime in Buzzards Bay. There's two more also: tomorrow (Mar 10) at 6 PM at Coolidge Middle School in Reading and also on Thurs. March 12 at Tisbury Town Hall at 9:30 AM. Gluttons can do a twofer. -
A minimum of 50% of sportfishing license revenue is mandated to go toward public access. Fish piers, aquisition of fishing access sites, construction and improvement of launching ramps are some of the benefits of this dedicated fund. Some of the needs identified by previous posters are being addressed but it's going to take more funding than the 500-800K remaining after the revenue pie is divided.
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You're right Bob; flagyl brings it's own issues. Some years ago I developed a nasty internal abcess that required surgery and large dosages of antibiotics including flagyl which I had to take for a couple of weeks after getting out of the hospital. They warned me not to consume any alcohol and I remembered it was (is?) used to treat severe alcoholism. Feeling lousy from the aftereffects of the treatments was bad enough but I couldn't drink any beer for a month.
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The only salmon I've eaten since 1976 was a from afresh caught 11 1/2 lb. female coho caught along the west bar of Barnstable Harbor by my son on our broken down little skiff as we awaited a tow from a friend. He was casting into the outgoing tide and we thought initially he had a bluefish until getting a better look at it. We shared it with a neighbor and both of us declared it tasty. Prior to that I ate no salmon, having been biased by the horrible salmon served in our school in the 40's. I know I'm missing out on some good eats but other than that fresh caught exception, I can still taste that school lunch salmon whenever I think about trying some new.
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Bob, I don't know the relative importance of the various sizes of spawning bass in the population. The bigger females obviously produce more and larger eggs than a smaller female. I don't know if there are studies that measure the viability of eggs from different sized females. I recall some numbers the indicates a 28" fish produces around 250,000 eggs and a 34" female 1.2 million. I do know that Maryland and Virginia sample and monitor spawning activity and I'm going to check if they have a breakdown of the various year classes. As you, and the other old timers well remember, when the restoration effort began the coastal states were harvesting immature females @ 16" and up and the Bay states immature females and males @ 12". The biggest bass year class ever in 1970 was pretty much decimated by the mid 70's by gross overfishing. When we all came together under ASMFC to address the decline we agreed that protection of spawning females (and males) was a primary objective of the plan; hence the 28" coastal size limit and the 18" Bay limits. Additional key Plan components were a conservative rate of fishing mortality (quotas and bag limits) and maintaining a large spawning stock biomass. were also components of the first plan. At one of those early meetings quite a few fishermen from both regions attended and during a break there was a heated exchange between watermen and coastal fishers with the watermen accusing the coastal folks of catching all the mothers and the coastal folks responding that the Bay fisheries were taking all the babies. Talk about Democrats and Republicans.
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Around 50 % of the females spawn by 28"; that is/was one of the fundamental components of the Bass Plan.
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We bailed out of Boston just before it hit and made it to the house in Sagamore Beach spent the next few days powerless days enjoying our Tempwood stove. I think we only got a foot or so of snow before the rain. The storm allegedly passed over the upper Cape and I recall temps in the high 40's and bright sun the next day and very high tides. We got reports of huge windrows of lobsters along Hull Beach and our lobster biologist was able to take the Power Wagon up and confirm that and estimate the millions of small lobsters but a strange absence of larger ones. Further field observations of burn barrels and shellpiles and interviews quickly solved that mystery. At least the poor folks stuck in that mess had some consolation but the butter likely didn't last too long. We were concerned the Boston Harbor lobster fishery (the state's biggest) would be severely impacted but subsequent reported landing hardly missed a beat.
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willcodfish reacted to a post in a topic: Ways around the 28/35 inch fish
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I'd just about finished up responses to MakoMike and robc22 and my post vanished. So here goes again. Mike: when I was involved in the fishery management game and we were developing the striped bass plan to address the gross overfishing and removals of immature male fish (Chesapeake) and females (coastal states), the Chesapeake block (Maryland, Virginia, Potomac River Fisheries Commission and later Washington DC) requested flexibility from the proposed restrictions so long as these options accomplished equivalent reductions. I recall significant reservations among the then Striper Board but after assurances from the Scientists that they could evaluate alternatives and continues reservations from the law enforcement folks and some public participants, equivalency was allowed in the plan. It was assumed that any equivalency had to be fully justified and definitely not be the norm. I could be wrong, but I believe those early concerns continue in the present Board but there are circumstances under which equivalency is justifiable. In the case of New Jersey, whom you said would be severely impacted by the 28-35 slot, with their history of plan non- compliance, their messed up management system, bordering two spawning areas, etc., I hope a rigorous examination of their proposal is in order. robc22: you said "it's every state's resident's right to have a commercial bass license". I'm going to assume you meant every Massachusetts resident's right because every other state either prohibits commercial fishing or has limited entry in their bass fishery. By the way, commercial fishing isn't a right, it's a privilege I believe. As I stated in my earlier post, the Massachusetts open access commercial bass fishery is in need of a significant overhaul, a situation I'll be glad to discuss in far more detail in a subsequent thread. Lastly, the late Cape Cod Times outdoor and fisheries writer, Molly Benjamin, coined the word fishcrat as a tag for fishery management bureaucrats. She identified good and bad fishcrats and she felt I was one of the former. When I retired, I have employed the term in a number of activities and agree with Ba Ba Bouy. You mentioned the two previous DMF Directors and hopefully the third in your post. All three of these hard working gentlemen have worked with me. Keep the faith
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bdowning reacted to a post in a topic: Ways around the 28/35 inch fish
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TimS reacted to a post in a topic: Ways around the 28/35 inch fish
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Roccus7 reacted to a post in a topic: Ways around the 28/35 inch fish
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makaha reacted to a post in a topic: Ways around the 28/35 inch fish
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Couple of points, if I may. Regarding the status of the 28-35", that slot limit has been approved by the ASMFC so it will be mandatory in 2020. The states were responsible for submitting their individual plans as to how they will implement the commercial and recreational requirements by November 30th. The ASMFC has allowed so-called conservation equivalency which means a state can come up with a difference in the 28-35 in. slot provided it's of equal or less mortality impact, as analyzed and approved by the ASMFC bass technical people. This has been used by some states, particularly NJ, under the old 28", one fish rules and was controversial then and will likely be now. It has also been used in the commercial fishery in some of the coastal states to allow continuation of retaining bycatch of smaller bass or continuation of some of the traditional net fisheries which take smaller than 28" fish but it's a lot easier to analyze the equivalency in a quota based, limited permit net fishery than the open access recreational fishery, the impacts of which are measured mostly after the fact. I believe RI has conservation equivalency for their trap/weir fishery which allows those fishers a small amount of smaller bass. Put simply, conservation equivalency is a numbers game. If a state wants smaller fish then they pay with smaller quotas. Regarding the likelihood of more folks seeking commercial bass permits so they can circumvent the slot restriction, this has been going on for a long time by some to circumvent the one fish bag limit. In my opinion, it is absolutely necessary to rein in the current open access commercial striped bass fishery, something that should have been done year's ago. In addition to the problem mentioned above, the 18% quota reduction means fewer fish for the current population of commercial permit holders, some 4000 +. Former DMF Director Paul Diodati was a supporter of the continued open access in a white paper he proposed. Most recent Director, Dr. David Pierce in his 5 year stint, never got around to addressing the problems inherent in this relatively small fishery although actions under his watch to address limited access in another fishery, now in place for tautog, should pave the way for limited striped bass permits. DMF has used a control date and qualifying criteria to limit access to this small multi gear fishery. Perhaps some of you who held tautog permits in 2018 or 2019 and sold 120 lbs. of tautog between in any year between 2010 to 2016 will be eligible to receive a 2020 tautog endorsement. Everyone else has received a goodbye letter. It's time to address applying the same concept to the commercial bass fishery.
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Did anyone make it to MMA for the meeting
fishcrat replied to codfish's topic in Massachusetts Fishing
Couple of points, if I may. The 36" size limit was implemented in the 80's as a recovery tool when the Atlantic striped bass population was in a lot worse shape than it is now. It gave coastal fishermen an opportunity to still fish for stripers, recognizing this size would likely discourage fishermen and hopefully divert them to fish for other species like the more abundant bluefish. In addition, I suspect the numbers of fishermen were less than they are now and, most importantly, the extent of catch and release then with it's attendant 9% release mortality rate is certainly much less then now. Regarding the slot length as a management tool, striped bass jeff's thoughtful comments regarding the Fla. redfish recovery extolls the virtue of this tool but I wonder to what degree the other measures in this recovery suite, the closed season and the 1 fish bag, contributed to this recovery. Lastly, as some of you know, this round of ASMFC hearings is the first step of an accelerated process to implement regulations in 2020. Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina maybe Delaware and the two political entities, the Potomac River Fisheries Commission and the District of Columbia (don't ask) begin their fisheries early in the year so ASMFC staff and striped bass technical committee will summarize the hearings and provide input to the Bass Management Board chaired, interestingly enough, by Mike Armstrong and the Board will decide on the final regs. The coastal states will have a little breathing room to implement regs for 2020 although New Jersey always seems to have problems and I'm not sure if New York has earlier fisheries in the Hudson, the second largest production area. In Massachusetts, DMF will hold hearing to implement the final regs probably in late winter. -
bob_G, after you started the lack of signage thread in early May which contained many posts with good suggestions about sign locations and comments, I checked the land side East End and only found the license requirement sign similar to what you described near at the access path to the jetty and access road. I also checked the Sagamore Bridge parking lot and the Scusset Beach State Fishing pier and found no DMF fishing signs. I couldn't believe there were no signs at the fish pier and Emailed DMF Director Dave Pierce and Assistant Director Mike Armstrong Emailed me back and aid his recreational fisheries staff was addressing this ASAP. There was still nothing up when I checked recently so I'm going to contact Director Pierce again and strongly urge the staff address this deficiency before he retires. I know it's getting late in the season but I'd rather see durable signs up now than go through this again next Spring. There's no excuse in this lack of signs given that the recreational fisheries license revenue is dedicated for recreational fisheries improvement and they use it for lots of positive projects including significant public access acquisition and fish pie construction. Go on the DMF website and look up the 2019 1st and 2nd quarter DMF Newsletter for more info. Secondly, the Cape Cod Salties have been cleaning up the Cape side of the Canal for at least 20 years and a cleanup is scheduled for Sept 21. Unfortunately, like many fishing clubs, the Salties are getting long in the teeth and might welcome younger more agile members of this forum to help out and tackle the riprap. Sat morning Sept 21, if you're interested . Also, he Office of Coastal Zone Management also scheduled a clean up in the fall but I don't know if that's still going on.