Summer striped bass ASMFC meeting

[Bait Tailer]

5 hours ago, CWitek said:

What Luisi was arguing was that if the Management Board put state-specific management measures into the rebuilding plan, then it wouldn't constitute an impermissible conservation equiivalency, because conservation equivalency is, by definition, regulations that diverge from the original plan.

 

So if the Management Board says that Maryland gets 1 fish @ 18 inches for private anglers, and 2@18 for for-hires, with a certain set of seasonal closures, and does something else for Virginia, it's OK, but if the Board established a bay-wide standard of, say, 1 fish in a 25-28 inch slot, and Maryland then tried to get the 1@18/2@18 plus seasons, it would constitute an imprrmissible CE proposal.

 

What he said was probably techinically correct, but it elevates form over substande.  It didn't seem that the rest of the Management Board was convinced, although Dr. Justin Davis of Connectciut seemed to have some sympathy.

Thanks,  this makes a lot more sense.   ASMFC's technicalities and procedural process is still very fuzzy.

 

I assumed he was warning they would ask the board to let MD avoid their conservation burden but couldn't tell if there was a valid argument.

 

 

Edited Friday at 04:27 AM by Bait Tailer

[John P]

I have attended a few meetings and will say it is embarrassing how badly informed the panels were and how you could tell they were there just as a show with no plans to really listen.  I gave up and haven't attended in ten years.

 

I'm surprised big retailers who make a living selling high end tackle don't get together and protest.  Tackle sales will plummet if this situation continues with no resolution.

[Drew C.]

On 8/3/2022 at 8:53 AM, CWitek said:

 

 

The biggest example of that was the suggestion that the recreational sector shoulder a disproportionate burden of the rebuilding.  While Maryland had always taken that position, Michael Luisi';s comment to the effect that "There comes a point when the commercial quota is reduced so low that the fishery can't continue" (not an exact quote), seemingly bolstered by New York's Jim Gilmore, who said that he wanted to see the data before supporting either a balanced or unbalanced rebuilding burden, strongly suggests that managers have real concerns, if not real expectations, that the needed cuts will be substantial.

 

 

Gilmore and Luisi - do these two asshats realize there won’t be much of a fishery when there are no damn fish left?  
 

 

[Drew C.]

2 hours ago, John P said:

I have attended a few meetings and will say it is embarrassing how badly informed the panels were and how you could tell they were there just as a show with no plans to really listen.  I gave up and haven't attended in ten years.

 

I'm surprised big retailers who make a living selling high end tackle don't get together and protest.  Tackle sales will plummet if this situation continues with no resolution.

The retailers, tackle companies, boat companies- they don’t want conservation and they actively fight against it. 
 

 

[CWitek]

50 mins ago, Drew C. said:

Gilmore and Luisi - do these two asshats realize there won’t be much of a fishery when there are no damn fish left?  
 

 

Neither one was opposed to whatever reduction the Technical Committee calls for; the question was just whether the reductions would be made proportionately, or whether the recreational sector would have to shoulder what would otherwise have been commercial cuts.

[CWitek]

3 hours ago, John P said:

I have attended a few meetings and will say it is embarrassing how badly informed the panels were and how you could tell they were there just as a show with no plans to really listen.  I gave up and haven't attended in ten years.

 

I'm surprised big retailers who make a living selling high end tackle don't get together and protest.  Tackle sales will plummet if this situation continues with no resolution.

On the whole, the public comments are being given a lot more weight these days.  The Management Board certainly paid a lot of attention to what stakeholders wanted during the Amendment 7 process.

 

As far as the industry goes, they are focused sharply on the short term.  That's not true just of the recreational fishing industry; I spent 35 years on Wall Street, and corporate focus is always on the next quarter's numbers, and the numbers for the upcoming year.  No one ever stopped to ask whether decisions made sense in the long term.  It makes sense from the industry's perspective.  The people who run Pure Fishing and boatbuilders like Brunswick are paid based on annual performance.  Bonuses are based on the year just past, not on doing the right thing for the future.  And given typical management turnover, folks don't even know where they'll be working 5 years from now, but they know that they can get a good bonus or see their stock oiptions rise (if the company is public) if theyh sell a lot of stuff this year.

 

The economists call it "Discounting the future"; the notion is that people care less about what future benefits might be, compared to benefits that they receive now.  To make them care about the future, the benefits must be extremely high, and they need to be convinced that they'll still be alive, working in the same industry, etc.  Bottom line is that the industry generally supports liberal regulations and high short-term profits.

[Drew C.]

41 mins ago, CWitek said:

Neither one was opposed to whatever reduction the Technical Committee calls for; the question was just whether the reductions would be made proportionately, or whether the recreational sector would have to shoulder what would otherwise have been commercial cuts.

Those guys comments are quite clear, they’re not concerned about the resource,, they’re only concerned with maintaining the fishery at some minimum level. 
 

Typical for the asmfc. 

[rollincoal]

The commercial industry cannot be expected to continue viably(and legally) with cuts in harvest; I can't think of too many businesses that are sustainable selling less products each year to the general public(even with prices going up.) 

[CWitek]

2 mins ago, Drew C. said:

Those guys comments are quite clear, they’re not concerned about the resource,, they’re only concerned with maintaining the fishery at some minimum level. 
 

Typical for the asmfc. 

Maybe true of Luisi, but I've worked with Jin Gilmore for years, and he's repeatedly tried to do the right thing for the bass.  Back in 2015, he pretty well held the northeastern states together and kept everyone from going their own way with CE proposals after Rhode Island considered giving their for-hires a second fish.  The same year, he rejected the New York Marine Resources Advisory Council's recommendation to adopt a New Jersey-like two fish bag with slot limits, in order to adhere to the coastal standard.

 

In 2019, he was the only state manager to speak out in favor of a 35-inch minimum, and New York was the only state to vote against the slot.

 

Putting Jim Gilmore in the same pot as Luisi doesn't reflect reality.  Jim is an angler, he cares about the resource, and has stood up for the bass more than once, in the face of an irate fishing industry.

[rollincoal]

3 mins ago, Drew C. said:

Those guys comments are quite clear, they’re not concerned about the resource,, ...

 

They are concerned with profiting from dead fish; I can't say I blame them; that is business...

[CWitek]

4 mins ago, rollincoal said:

The commercial industry cannot be expected to continue viably(and legally) with cuts in harvest; I can't think of too many businesses that are sustainable selling less products each year to the general public(even with prices going up.) 

Which leads to the next question:  Given that fact, should the government set policy that allows the industry to continue, essentially bailing it out by giving it more fish at the recreeational sector's--and the recreational industry's--expense?

 

Given that I worked for Lehman Brothers in 2008, and watched as the government intentionally let that institution go bankrupt after bailing out others, just to make political points, I'm not too sympathetic to the argument.  As far as I;m concerned, all businesses have risks, including regulatory risks, and if you judge the risk wrong, you go broke, and that';s just how the system is supposed to work.

[pakalolo]

Being that the rec sector kills the vast majority of bass , that’s where the cuts should be made. Common sense. 

[CWitek]

51 mins ago, pakalolo said:

Being that the rec sector kills the vast majority of bass , that’s where the cuts should be made. Common sense. 

The cuts should be proportional to the fishing mortality of each sector.  

 

So if the commercial sector is resoponsible for 12% of the fishing mortality, which is roughly the 5-year average, it should be responsible for 12% of the reduction, with the remaining 88% placed on the shoulders of the recretional fishery.  

 

But what some at the meeting were talking about was to cut the commercial quota much less than that 12%, and cut the recreational fishing mortality some greater amount to make up the difference.  That is more difficult to justify, particularly since the cut to recreational fishing mortality is a cut based on the actual estimate of fishing mortality, while the cut to the commercial sector is a cut in quota, even though, in most years, no state actually catches its entire quota, which means that the commercial reduction is, in reality, already proportionately less than that assessed against the recreational sector.

 

It's a multifaceted debate, with some conflicting policy considerations.

 

From the bass' perspective, it doesn't matter, so long as the overall mortality reduction is achieved.  From a human perspectiuve, it;s more nuanced.

[Drew C.]

5 hours ago, CWitek said:

Maybe true of Luisi, but I've worked with Jin Gilmore for years, and he's repeatedly tried to do the right thing for the bass.  Back in 2015, he pretty well held the northeastern states together and kept everyone from going their own way with CE proposals after Rhode Island considered giving their for-hires a second fish.  The same year, he rejected the New York Marine Resources Advisory Council's recommendation to adopt a New Jersey-like two fish bag with slot limits, in order to adhere to the coastal standard.

 

In 2019, he was the only state manager to speak out in favor of a 35-inch minimum, and New York was the only state to vote against the slot.

 

Putting Jim Gilmore in the same pot as Luisi doesn't reflect reality.  Jim is an angler, he cares about the resource, and has stood up for the bass more than once, in the face of an irate fishing industry.

Well, I’m not really sure how important those things are given where we stand today…. 
 

You know Jim. He may be he is a good guy, maybe his dog likes him too.
 

From my point, as some regular schmoe, I’m not too impressed. He’s part of the group that has lead to the willful destruction of the striped bass resource. Because when the group that you’re part of routinely ignores the best science, ignores the clearly stated clauses in your own management plan, delays any meaningful action for 10 years, ignores overwhelming public opinion - your group is a failure and your covered in that stench too. 

 

 

[CWitek]

4 hours ago, Drew C. said:

Well, I’m not really sure how important those things are given where we stand today…. 
 

You know Jim. He may be he is a good guy, maybe his dog likes him too.
 

From my point, as some regular schmoe, I’m not too impressed. He’s part of the group that has lead to the willful destruction of the striped bass resource. Because when the group that you’re part of routinely ignores the best science, ignores the clearly stated clauses in your own management plan, delays any meaningful action for 10 years, ignores overwhelming public opinion - your group is a failure and your covered in that stench too. 

 

 

When you try to do the right thing and get outvoted, you've done all that you can do.

 

You kieep urging people to do the right thing, but if they refuse, you can't force them.  And when you're a state manager, you can't just walk away.

 

A lot of people choose to do the wrong thing, but the folks who try to do the right thing deserve recognition, even if they fail.