2010 Young Of The Year Striped Bass Survey Shows Below Average Reproduction

[Fishing Report]

2010 Young Of The Year Striped Bass Survey Shows Below Average Reproduction
Atlantic Coast Striped Bass Population Remains Healthy

Annapolis, Md. (October 18, 2010) — The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) today announced that the 2010 Young of the Year Striped Bass Survey is 5.6, below the long-term average of 11.6. While this is the third consecutive year of below average striped bass production in Maryland’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay, the population remains above the management action trigger set by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC). Likewise, the number of adults in the Atlantic coast population and levels of fishing are well within healthy limits as set by the ASMFC management framework.

DNR biologists point out that variation in annual spawning success is normal because striped bass reproduction is influenced by many factors including water temperature, winter snowfall, spring flow rates, and prevailing weather conditions.

”We are carefully monitoring the juvenile striped bass situation,” said Thomas O’Connell, Director of DNR’s Fisheries Service. “As stewards of the primary nursery area for Atlantic striped bass, it is our responsibility to protect this essential habitat and work with our state and federal partners along the Atlantic coast to ensure that spawning striped bass are adequately protected, and ASMFC management benchmarks continue to be achieved.”

DNR biologists have used the same techniques to monitor the reproductive success of striped bass and other species in Maryland’s portion of 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.

During this year’s survey, biologists identified more than 37,000 fish of 50 different species, including 737 young-of-year striped bass. Other findings of note were an increase in the number of juvenile spot. This important forage species and popular target for recreational anglers is at the highest level since 2005. White perch reproduction was also above average in the upper regions of the Bay. The juvenile indices are calculated as the average catch of young of the year fish per sample. For more information, go to http://www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries...dex/index.html.

October 18, 2010

[Fishing Report]

Putting the brakes on more striped bass fishing

Unfortunately, it's getting to be the new norm. For the third consecutive year, the Chesapeake Bay has produced fewer striped bass babies than what is normal.

Three years of a nursery being half full, or less.

Could it be the weather--massive winter snowstorms followed by runoff? Or water temperature? Could fishing pressure be to blame? Or is myco beginning to take its toll on the adult population and the breeding stock is just vanishing as a result?

We don't know. That's just scary.

And that's the reason why when it meets next month, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission should kill the plan to increase the coastwide commercial harvest--or any harvest, for that matter--until after the 2012 stock assessment.

This year, the Young of the Year Survey pegged reproduction at 5.6, below the long-term average of 11.6. Last year, it was 7.8 and in 2008, the number was 3.2.

Taking our fingers off the panic button for a moment, the last three years are nowhere near the years leading up to the fishing moratorium of the mid-1980s, when the striped bass population was so low that some anglers feared it would never rebound.

And, unlike those dark days leading up to the five-year fishing ban, we've had some pretty decent production years: 2001 (50.7), 2003 (25.75) and 2005 (17.8).

But (putting our finger back on the panic button) six of the last 10 years have been below the long-term average, compared to four sub-standard years from 1991-2000. An ASMFC Striped Bass Technical Committee report predicts that the number of adult bass will steadily decline through the year 2015.

I'm no math wizard, but that's clearly not acceptable.

Early next month, the ASMFC will hold its annual meeting in Charleston, S.C., to take up the question of increasing the commercial quota.

At its February meeting, commissioners voted 8 to 7 to amend the management plan to increase commercial harvest by 20 to 50 percent. Maryland, which voted against the motion before, provided the margin of victory.

Tom O'Connell, Maryland's Fisheries Service director and ASMFC representative, called his vote "a matter of equity" between commercial and recreational interests. Since 2004, coastal commercial harvest has decreased by 3.6 percent, while recreational harvest has increased by 13.7 percent.

But that was before these new numbers.

There's a joint meeting of the Sport Fish and Tidal Fisheries advisory commissions tonight in Annapolis. The commissioners should urge O'Connell to vote against the commercial increase.

Certainly O'Connell, a cautious and thoughtful biologist, is probably re-evaluating his vote in light of the Young of the Year numbers and other indicators.

If I had to guess, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service--another yes vote in February--is probably doing likewise. Ditto the Potomac River Fishing Commission.

That would be good news for the fish and the fisher folks.
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