I promised to be accessible as a commissioner on the Maryland Sport Fish Advisory Commission I also said I would provide an opportunity to meet in person to talk about the past meeting as well as future issues. To give the most people time to plan so they can make it I set up the following:

DATE
Tuesday, November 10, 2009

TIME
7pm – going to no later then 10pm

PLACE
Harris Crab House located on Kent Island

* Note I have no financial or other ties or interests with Harris Crab House (I just like their food and casual setting)

**Note it is a 50 mile round trip drive for me, so I am trying to meet somewhere in the middle for to allow more people to attend.

DETAILS
At this meeting I am happy to discuss questions based on last meeting and or/any other issues as well as any concerns about issues coming up at the following meeting which is on Tuesday Nov 17th, or any other issue someone would like discussed.

The rules are simple: I expect people to be respectful to one another, no yelling, no shouting, no name calling or being disrespectful in any way to any person attending. I’ll run it and if the group is small we can have an open discussion, if we have a large group we will have to talk one at a time in an orderly fashion.

Each person pays for his/her own meal and or drinks. No one drinks more then two alcoholic drinks, if you want to drink more that is fine, but you leave the table. If you have to be asked to leave by me or anyone at the establishment you’re not invited back to participate in future meetings. You agree to be able to respectfully disagree. All the rules apply to me as well as everyone else. If/when you show up I will assume you read these rules and agree to abide by them.

FUTURE MEETINGS
I will have this in-person meeting after each meeting and before the next. In general I will try and have it two weeks after a meeting and two weeks before the next or somewhere in this timing. This allows for discussion of the past meeting and about issues most likely to come up in the future meeting.

CONTACT:
If you plan to attend please email me at Brandon at LateralLineCo.com

The meeting will happen as long as at least one person plans on attending by letting me know.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) today announced that 2009 Young-of-the-Year Striped Bass Survey was a 7.9 catch per haul this year, slightly below the long term average of 11.7. DNR has used the same techniques for the survey for the past 50 years to show the yearly spawning success for Rockfish.

“These numbers may be slightly below the average, but it’s well within the normal range of expectations,” said DNR Fisheries Service Director Tom O’Connell. “The 2001 super year class, followed by a robust year class in 2003, should project for a healthy, sustainable population.”

DNR samples from the same 22 locations every year. Biologists use a large net to sweep the area, counting all the fish the net picks up.  During this year’s survey, biologists identified and counted more than 35,000 fish of 49 species, including 1,039 young-of-year striped bass.

DNR biologists say it’s normal to see both spikes and dips in the yearly average, because striped bass reproduction hinges on many environmental factors. This year’s index is double the value of last year, and along with other large year classes, such as the record setting 1996, 2001 and 2003 will contributing to strengthen the population.

DNR has monitored the reproductive success of striped bass and other species in Maryland’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay annually since 1954.  Twenty-two survey sites are located in the four major spawning systems:  Choptank, Potomac, and Nanticoke rivers, and the Upper Bay.  Biologists visit each site monthly from July through September, collecting fish samples with two sweeps of a 100-foot beach seine.  The index is calculated as the average catch of young-of-year fish per sample.  For more information, go here.

Lateral Line Ambassador Capt. John McMurray gives us his views on the introduced striped bass roll over quota recently introduced.

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STRIPED BASS ROLLOVERS… ANOTHER BAD IDEA…
Addendum II will comprise yet another small but real drain on striped bass

It is 10/8… it’s 5:00PM and I’m on a train home from the Striped Bass Advisory Panel (AP) meeting. I have to mention that I’ve been awake since 3:00AM and I’m running purely on caffeine at the moment so please excuse the likely mistakes. This AP meeting was arranged so that ASMFC staff could update the Panel on the results of the 2009 updated stock assessment that was literally just released this week. But it was also so that that we could review “Draft Addendum II” to Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which deals with unused commercial quota roll over.

Let’s begin with the former, and I’ll try to be very brief due to a lack of time, space and of course reader attention spans (no offence… I know my eyes glaze over when I read a lot of this stuff). The short version is that the stock is still not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. The population is not under imminent threat, and it is not declining to unhealthy levels. Although, it has taken a notable dip from its 2004 high, it still remains well above the thresholds for management action. Fishing mortality is believed to be well below the target, and the number of older fish (age 8+) in the population has fallen, but seems to have stabilized. I’m not so sure I believe all of this to be the case, but I’ll get to that in a minute. Right now, let’s talk about Addendum II.

The Addendum proposes to allow any unused coastal commercial quota of striped bass to be rolled over from one year to the next. To be more clear, the uncaught commercial striped bass quota from one year (the “underage”) would be added to the following year’s quota and thus be allowed to be caught then. So if New York’s commercial fisherman, for instance, caught all but 100,000 pounds of their quota this year, that 100k pounds would be added to next year’s quota.

I don’t really get it… I mean, such quotas as I understand them, are meant to act as hard ceiling that should not be exceeded, but in this case the ASMFC seems to want to use the quota as a target to be achieved. Addendum II explicitly states that “avoiding a quota overage signifies managerial success.” (“While avoiding a quota overage signifies managerial success, a quota underage represents lost opportunity to commercial harvesters.”) While it is true that a state’s failure to fill its entire quota does diminish commercial fishers’ opportunities to profit from the public striped bass resource, it is also true that it is a practical impossibility to set regulations in a manner that assures that a quota will be met but not exceeded.

Regardless, there are abundant reasons for precaution here and while the proposed commercial rollover in the grand scheme doesn’t look like it will increase mortality all that much, it will still increase mortality, and that’s not good right now. Undoubtedly, we’re beginning to see more and more warning signs with striped bass. The chorus of complaints is getting harder and harder to blow off. There are constant anecdotal reports that striped bass abundance at the northern and now southern ends of its range have decreased sharply. Anecdotal evidence from anglers, throughout the coast, suggest that striped bass are less available than in recent years, and that with the exception of a handful of very large fish that may have been spawned during the moratorium years of the 1980s, the average size of the fish caught by anglers is declining.

Then there’s Mycobacteriosis, a disease affecting striped bass, which Continue Reading »

A friend who runs the Rover Keepers in California sent me this article this morning. A lot of things that have been said over the last few years, but it’s good to keep it fresh in our minds. Worth the read.

Quote, “In the past 50 years, we have reduced the populations of large commercial fish, such as bluefin tuna, cod, and other favorites, by a staggering 90 percent. One study, published in the prestigious journal Science, forecast that, by 2048, all commercial fish stocks will have “collapsed,” meaning that they will be generating 10 percent or less of their peak catches…” full article here