RI DEM held a very informative Marine Fisheries Informational Workshop this past Tuesday. I had the John Lee Hooker song, “Serves Me Right To Suffer” stuck in my head. Workshops are designed to offer us information about particular sectors, seasons, rules or proposals with some preliminary data and all comments are off the record, it’s a fairly casual environment to ask questions, hear what fellow fishermen or women want or don’t and take enough notes to speak at an official public hearing. Tuesday started the process of creating regulations for 2019’s recreational and commercial striped bass fisheries.
The most significant part of the prior sentence is that when we speak on the record, regulators local and regional are mandated to consider how we feel and what we say. From personal experience as a Bluefish Advisory Panel member for the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, their decisions were predicated on public comment whether delivered in writing or hearing. To paraphrase my good friend Captain Jerry Sparks, “Not for nuthin’,” but while we watch federal lands cut apart, environmental regulations gutted, public waterways sacrificed for coal waste and some of the most basic, common sense rules bulldozed in the name of making us great, this system not only relies on you, it’s designed to be hinged on what you say to make ultimate decisions so we have to participate.
Recreational data was presented first; here’s a few takeaways:
-
As of 2016, striped bass are not overfished and overfishing is not occurring
-
Spawning stock biomass 2016 was 129 million pounds
-
14” fish are age two from the 2015 year class
-
Only about half of age six fish are sexually mature
-
Clear signs in biological reference points show decline and hints of overfishing occurring and the stock is being overfished
-
It’s unlikely that management would change for 2019
-
Perspective is everything depending how you chose benchmarks or biological reference points.
Ok, I added the last one. The challenge and beauty of data is that two fishermen can read data differently.
Here’s a few more.
-
Spawning stock biomass was estimated to be 129 million pounds in 2015, just above the threshold but below the target of 127 million and 159
million respectively -
In 2015 high recruitment and a strong year class were observed
-
In 2018 the Maryland year over year survey indicated a slightly higher abundance relative to 2017
-
It’s disgusting that Maryland fishermen kill 19” striped bass.
0 Comments