Alrighty and away we go. No matter what you see from the beaches along the South Shore of Long Island or along the Jersey Shore this fall things are not looking good. And yes, I have heard of, but not seen, those hundreds of acres of 40 plus pound bass rolling on sand eels 20 miles off shore from boats trying to get in on the fall tuna bite. A few videos or pictures may make me a believer.
But to those not in denial there's a problem with striped bass, a big and real problem. You see, man can't just help itself. Now fisheries management is a joke especially when there's money and politics involved, we all know that. But when they, lets say the ASMFC, comes out with an emergency action changing size limits and instituting a 28-31" slot, that just means and open season on those fish and "playing" catch and release with what they call "overs", which leads to more mortality, or F.
During the fall ASMFC meeting it was determined that another meeting was needed to decide if the regulations needed to be changed for 2025. They are basing this, in my opinion, heavily on the recreational side of the aisle, in recreational harvests and release mortality. They looked to protect the 2015 year class which was the last good, well decent, spawning year class of fish. Well now those fish, whatever's left, have grown above that 31 inch mark and the slot limits are encroaching on the 2018 year class fish, which didn't have a strong spawn. In the meantime it's game on, legally, for anglers to harvest those 28-31's. And no doubt the party boats are hammering those fish. Plus, in New Jersey we're taking the 24-28" inch fish as part of the Bonus Program, which is bad. Period.
So what to do? Do you really want to protect say the last 10 years worth of what's remaining of the striped bass? Well simple, just don't kill them, at least on purpose. Eliminate the slot altogether, at least for a year or two. But then what? Well, that'll mean another slot will have to be opened up. And you won't like what I may suggest, because I don't.
All of these "overs' that guys are finger fu%$ing are going to die anyway, well not all of them, that wouldn't be fair to say. But for about a solid month anglers couldn't find slot fish so everyday they "played" catch and release with the bigger ones. But eventually they showed up and the annihilation started, and still continues. The ASMFC doesn't really want to protect the striped bass, they want to balance sustainability, sorry can't happen, with our caveman mentality of being hunters and harvesters. "It's my right to keep a fish" and "I want to feed my family". Don't worry Bam-Bam, guys like New Jersey's own Tom Fote and Adam Nowalsky have your back. Fishermen and not fish first.
So in order to satiate guys like Fote and Nowalksy, and the special interest groups, and the commercial fisheries, and the commercial party boat fleet, yes they are commercial even though they don't count them as such, big striped bass will be on the menu come 2025.
What could work you ask? Imagine we were farmers. There's something called crop rotation. Just hear me out. It's a practice of rotating crops in the same soil over the course of a season. If we applied that idea to fishing it would mean rotating the harvest of different sized fish in the same waters over the course of a season. Now what that would mean is going from a calendar year slot of 28-31 inches to different slots in different waters, and in different states, during different parts of the year. It could work but the neanderthals out there with rod and reel, both spin and fly, want to catch every, single, fish, out there.
But what could that look like? Let's pick the Raritan Bay. If it were up to me I'd do the following. No harvest until May 15th and then a 28-31" inch slot from May 15th till June 15th. And then out front from June 16th till July 1st it would be say a 36-44" slot. Hey, it is what it is. Those fish just came off the spawn and we have to equalize the harvest between small and large fish. During the dog days of summer you could do a Jersey Trophy size limit, say over 45", but that would only mean every single boat would be out in the channels drifting eels, and, killing every big fish they catch. Now I'm not saying the above is perfect but it could be a start, or, just shut the pre-spawn bay fishing down until June 1st...would you rather that?
In the fall you'd have to have an early, say October 15th - November 15th bigger slot limit, say 34-40 inches, followed by a larger limit from November 15th through December 15th of fish 44-48 inches. In between you could hammer time down on some smaller fish. Rotating "the crops" gives the younger 2015 and up year class a break from time to time and opens up the harvesting of old and bigger fish. Now I hate to say it, and would hate to see it, but rotating anything is always better than doing the same thing over and over each day.
Fisheries management and commercial and recreational anglers want one regulation that fits every state and body of water along the East Coast. Hey dummy, these are migratory fish! One size doesn't fit all. In the Chesapeake they have all kinds of regulations over here and over there from now and then and back, yes it's that confusing. I'm not saying what they do works, but it seems to satiate everybody's pick on the fish. The problem is there's just less and less of them.
You can't have the same regulations for Block Island and Montauk on the August Moon as you do during the same time in New Jersey. We don't have any bass around here, so why would the regs be the same? But people are lazy, and are only looking out for themselves, or their political cronies.
So before the December 16th meeting they will hold an online information seminar on December 5th followed by a public comment period that ends December 10th. Remember, the reason these meetings are being held is due to the 2024 Stock Assessment Report which states that striped bass are being overfished, BUT, overfishing is not occurring. All of this "stuff" the ASMFC is doing is trying to rebuild the fishery by 2029, which, as it stands now, has less than a 50% chance of happening.
So, outside of shutting it all down, you're going to see the big girls, or bigger girls, back on the party boat decks, hanging out of the bloody coolers, and flopping on the beaches once again. If you want to save the small fish, and please the meat eaters, then something has to give, and it's the big females once again that will have to be sacrificed.
