Striped bass debate begins

[jackdaniels]

Striped bass debate begins


Mark Blazis Outdoors
http://www.telegram.com/article/2010...LUMN10/1120461

The Striped Bass War is about to have a climactic battle in Massachusetts, pitting the interests of recreational anglers against local commercial fishermen, fish markets, restaurants and tackle shops.

The Committee on Natural Resources is scheduled to debate the “Conservation of the American Striped Bass” at 11 a.m. Thursday in Room A-2 of the Statehouse. House Bill 796 threatens to abolish commercial striped bass fishing. It also would affect recreational fishermen, diminishing their limit to one striped bass per day either between 20 and 26 inches or over 40 inches.

This slot limit allegedly protects more prime breeding stock. Recreational fishermen are currently permitted two fish over 28 inches, all year long. Commercial fishermen have been limited to fishing between July 12 and Aug. 26, with a limit of five fish on Sundays, and 30 from Tuesday through Friday.

Text of the bill is available at www.mass.gov/legis.

H.B. 796 implies that commercial fishermen harmfully diminish striper stocks. The Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission, comprised of experts appointed by the governor to assist in developing laws, rebuts that claim, highlighting the fact that recreational anglers took 90 percent of the 2008 catch.

Far more harmful to stripers is the massive pollution from farming interests around the Chesapeake, affecting spawning and causing lethal disease outbreaks of mycobacteriosis. Worse yet is the overharvesting of bait fish, specifically herring and menhaden, that our game fish depend on.

Respected authorities south of Massachusetts paint a bleak picture of diminishing striper stocks. In contrast, many fishermen and biologists reported plenty of local fish whose movements last season were dependent on the location of baitfish. If you fished where bait schooled, you caught fish. Some feel those results and other population studies confirm continued sound, scientific management of our Massachusetts stocks. Our marine fisheries commission believes that prohibiting commercial fishing will just shift allocation of the resource 100 percent to recreational fishermen, actually hurting striped bass, increasing mortality and lowering opportunities for the public to purchase wild caught bass in local markets and restaurants.

Maintaining stripers at peak levels, without addressing the decimation of critical baitfish populations in the Atlantic, may be harmful to other fishery goals, like the restoration of Atlantic salmon and shad, both of which are struggling. They suffer significant predation of their young by stripers having difficulty finding enough other baitfish. Anglers regularly fishing the Connecticut and Merrimack can attest to this counterproductive feeding by stripers.

Veteran striper fishermen remember the ’80s, when just catching a striper warranted note. Since 1995, stocks have successfully rebounded and remained sustainable under the highly regarded management of our Department of Marine Fisheries. No one wants another crash. Should we discount the success and recommendations of our fisheries scientists? Should we eliminate commercial fishermen rather than wholeheartedly pursue the critically harmful offenders?

Many commercial striper fishermen love their tradition, while for others, it’s just an extension of their recreational fishing, a way to pay for their sport. Then there are some economically challenged Cape Codders who have had to become multitaskers to make a living and really need this extra income. We need to think twice about taking away one of their fragmented means of income. We have an equal obligation to be fair to the fish, which have no alternative means of survival other than our advocacy.

Recreational proponents include Stripers Forever, which characterizes commercial striper fishing as an economically unwise and disproportionately unfair exploitation of the resource; and House Bill 796 petitioners, Reps. Karyn Polito, R-Shrewsbury, and Jennifer Callahan, D-Sutton. The battle lines are passionately drawn, and politicians, rather than fisheries scientists, will ultimately cast the deciding vote.

Mark Blazis can be reached by e-mail at markblazis@charter.net.

[LeeG]

The commercial fishing part of that is going to be a huge issue and hotly debated and for the purposes of my post I want to ignore it and ask what people generally think about the slot limit idea. I think it makes a lot of sense and I believe has been pretty successful in FL with some species-like snook. It seems to me the smaller ones are better for the table and if soemeone hangs a 40lber or above and wants to kill it for some pics so be it. It could easily be someones fish of a lifetime.

So I would think they should up the 40" but that part of the plan sounds reasonable.

[jpurcell]

As for the rec portion I have no issues with the slot limits. The group I fish with might keep 3-4 fish a year..

[rirockhound]

How does killing a pre-spawn fish ever help the future of the species?

I'd argue reasons #1 of the resurgence of snook et al., in Florida is the net ban (and I'm not advocating all commercials go away here!) not the slot limit.

Go back to 1@36"
That helped to restore the fish in the past and rec landings will do WAY down.

Full disclosure, I am not a comm but DO NOT support this bill

[sokinwet]

"In 1997 the State of Maine went from a 33" Minimum Size Limit to the 20-26" Slot. The MRFSS estimates of "Harvest" or "what is kept by anglers" tracked a rise of 1900% and just to make sure no one gets it wrong, the estimate indicated that anglers kept 19 times the number of fish under the slot than the 33" limit. The raw data was 2000 fish kept the last year of 33" and 35000 fish kept (rounded numbers) in the first year of the slot. "

This is a quote from a reliable source on another site that really is an eye opener.