By dbalon on
11/1/2014 12:02 PM
OnTheWater
By Jimmy Fee
October 30, 2014
Striped Bass Regulations to Change in 2015
Yesterday, I sat in on the meeting of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Striped Bass Management Board. Representatives from North Carolina to Maine looked at the latest stock assessment and public comment to determine whether or not to change the striped bass regulations.
There was a clear divide between New York/New England and the Chesapeake Bay States. Representatives from the bay states insisted that their fishery was primarily on the smaller male striped bass that do not migrate from the bay, a segment of the population they believed to be healthy, while the coastal states, with the exception of New Jersey and Delaware, wanted to see an immediate reduction in fishing mortality on the Spawing Stock Biomass, that is the larger migratory fish, most of which are female. Options supported by the bay states included a 17% reduction in harvest, or an incremental 7% reduction in harvest over three years. The New England States and New York supported the most conservative option, a 25% reduction effective in 2015. In the end, a compromise was reached to reduce striped bass fishing mortality by 25% in the Coastal States and 20.5% in the Chesapeake Bay, beginning in 2015.
Click here to read the full article.