# Rockfish Regs for 2016



## Hueski (Feb 5, 2012)

The regs are fair. One over 35" per day. I can live with that. Their should be some good pullage.


----------



## kurazy kracka (Oct 14, 2008)

I wish they would change the summer regs. For 2015 all states were supposed to reduce their harvest by 25%. MD was able to negotiate it to 20.5%.....instead MD's overall harvest in the bay INCREASED 45%!


----------



## ESRob (May 17, 2014)

My understanding is that MD's regs meet the desired reductions.
Especially considering our limited access to the SSB, which is what the regulatory changes were designed to protect.


----------



## kurazy kracka (Oct 14, 2008)

ESRob said:


> My understanding is that MD's regs meet the desired reductions.
> Especially considering our limited access to the SSB, which is what the regulatory changes were designed to protect.


Coastal did but for the bay neither VA or MD met the targeted reduction based on what the studies from 2015 are showing.


----------



## CaliYellowtail (Jul 28, 2014)

Why would anyone want to kill the breeder cows anyway!! They don't even taste that good and are loaded w/ DDT's and PCB's. Take a picture and release the damn things.

Last year trollers slayed many many Rock over 45". Just don't get where people are coming from.

I'm for a slot limit of like, 1 fish 24" to 28".


----------



## ESRob (May 17, 2014)

Cali, fact is, as I'm sure you know, that mindset is very much in the minority.
Everyone wants the biggest, and they want to bring it home.
Until there's a paradigm shift in mentality, that won't change.
And I don't see that change coming anytime soon... barely even a movement in that direction.

kurazy kracka, which studies are your referencing?
I'm not arguing, I'd just like to see it.


----------



## k_brad (Aug 12, 2015)

I believe he is talking about this article from Charles Witek-


When the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission adopted Addendum IV to Amendment 6 of the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan in October 2014, it required all states to adopt regulations that would reduce harvest, when compared to 2013 landings, by 25% on the coast and by 20.5% in Chesapeake Bay.

Although the action was widely supported by recreational striped bass fishermen, who on the whole supported even deeper harvest reductions, it was not popular with elements of the commercial and for-hire fisheries. There were also pockets of anglers, most notably in New Jersey, Delaware and in Chesapeake Bay, who opposed the conservation effort. 

Opponents felt that the 25% reduction was too deep a cut to be put in place all at once and believed that if it was to be adopted at all, it should be phased in over time. Supporters feared that the 25% reduction only had a 50-50 chance of reducing fishing mortality to the target level, and wanted to see an even deeper cut that had a better chance of success.

Preliminary harvest estimates for 2015 have now been released, so it’s natural to ask, “How did we do?”

The answer is that, on the whole, we did very well, although some states failed to do their part and forced others to bear the brunt of striped bass conservation while they, always complaining, reaped the greater rewards.

The standard for success, as I mentioned before, was to reduce striped bass landings by 25%, compared to what they were in 2013. As it turned out, anglers actually overshot their mark . The 15,318,614 pounds of striped bass that they landed last year represents a 42% reduction from their 2013 kill.

Of course, the stock has continued to shrink since 2013, while the fishing mortality rate continued to hover around 0.20, just about halfway between the target and the overfishing threshold. Thus, it’s good to know that last year’s landings also represent a 36% reduction from those of 2014.

Every coastal state, except for one, contributed more than its share to the conservation effort, with reductions that ranged from 90%, up in bass-starved New Hampshire, to 38% in Massachusetts.

The only coastal state that failed to reduce harvest at all was, predictably, New Jersey, which again managed to manipulate the “conservation equivalency” concept to escape all responsibility for conserving the stock. The 4,913,348 pounds if striped bass that it landed in 2015 represents a mere 1% reduction from its 2013 harvest;compared to 2014 landings, New Jersey’s 2015 kill was actually 19% higher. 

Given that result, ASMFC’s Striped Bass Management Board would be well-advised to meet by conference call and revoke its approval of New Jersey’s “conservation equivalent” regulations, and compel the state’s anglers to accept the coastwide standard of one bass at 28 inches or more. As a practical matter, that’s unlikely to happen, and we’re thus likely to see other states attempt to game the system with regulations that appear to be “equivalent” on paper but fail in the real world.

Two more non-compliant states pop up once we leave the coast and enter Chesapeake Bay. Even though the Striped Bass Management Board eased the burden of both Maryland and Virginia (along with Washington, D.C. and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission), allowing those jurisdictions to cut Chesapeake Bay landings by just 20.5%, instead of the full 25%, they failed to meet even that lowered standard.

Virginia only managed an 8% reduction, less than half of what was required, while Maryland blew through its cap, with 2015 landings fully 133% of what they were in 2013. All of that excess harvest took place in Chesapeake Bay, with Maryland anglers hammering the very 2011 year class that we are depending upon to rebuild the stock. 

On the coast, both states did well, with Maryland reducing coastal landings by 94% and Virginia accounting for so few ocean fish that they didn’t even show up in the numbers. However, that modest good was more than set off by Virginia’s mere 3% cut in Chesapeake landings, andMaryland increasing its kill of bay fish by a whopping 45%, to 2,924,425 pounds.

Of course, there is irony here, for it was the two states which failed most dismally in meeting their conservation obligations—Maryland and New Jersey—that, at theNovember 2015 Striped Bass Management Boardmeeting, fought the hardest to kill more striped bass.

The hard numbers cast new light on the testimony of Jay A. Jacobs, a member of Maryland’s House of Delegates, who argued for increased harvest in Chesapeake Bay, saying

“Specifically in Maryland, with the implementation of the 20.5 percent reduction and also the slot size that was implemented for the trophy season and the increase from 18 to 20 inches in the fishery, we’ve had huge economic impacts in those other industries, in the charterboat industry and the recreational side of those.”
Given that Maryland did not, as things turned out, take a 20.5% reduction in recreational landings at all, but actually enjoyed a 45% increase in Chesapeake Bay landings, his claim that the state’s recreational fishing industry was hurt by a “reduction” that never really occurred was clearly false—so egregiously false that Mr. Jacobs should apologize to the Management Board for his blatant lack of veracity.

Bill Langley, a member of the Potomac River Fisheries Commission and President of the Maryland Charterboat Association, told a similar tale of fabricated woe, complaining that

“This past year’s reductions have caused a negative economic impact on the bay’s user groups, especially the charter fleet.”
Langley was a little more astute than Jacobs, though. Despite his complaints and his plea to kill more striped bass, he might have suspected that the facts didn’t support his arguments, as he qualified his comments by saying

“I know that MRIP data will—I don’t know what MRIP data will show. However, I can assure you that most of the charter fleet experienced a greater reduction than 25 percent. Many captains are experiencing greater than 50 percent reductions through Wave 4. In Wave 5, we may see some relief possibly…”
Langley is probably happy that he hedged his bets, since the Maryland charter boats that fished Chesapeake Bay in 2015 landed an estimated 536,541 pounds of striped bass, about a 5.5% increase over 2013’s 508,790 pounds. 

He was wrong about landings through Wave 4, too; his claimed 25% to 50% decrease in harvest never happened. Instead, Maryland charterboat harvest through Wave 4 was actually 14% higher than it was in 2013, 468,720 pounds versus just 410,068 pounds in 2013.

So yes, fishermen’s tales—and captains’ tales, and legislators’ tales—must all be taken with very large grains of salt…

But the good news is Addendum IV seems to be working better than many anglers, including myself, expected.

It appears to have reduced landings by more than the needed 25%, which can only help the striped bass to rebuild. Now that we have gotten this far, the trick will be to stay the course, and to bring states such as New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia into line with the rest of the East Coast jurisdictions.

That won’t be easy to do, because they’ve already tried to increase the kill.



But it would be a shame to step backward now, when we’re finally making some progress.


----------



## sand flea (Oct 24, 1999)

Like ESRob says, a shift in mentality is needed. I saw it happen to big red drum down south over the last 20 years. Even when it was legal to keep big reds, you were really looked down on if you killed one, especially among surf fishermen. Everybody kept a smaller fish because they tasted better. Your trophy was a picture of the big red, not killing it. I'm not opposed to maybe taking one or two big fish per year but killing a big cow striper every weekend ought to make you a pariah.


----------



## bluefish1928 (Jun 9, 2007)

There are plenty of people who fish for stripers only once a year on a charter hoping to bring home the big one. For charter captains, this is serious business. 

Maryland DNR needs to continue promoting the trophy release citation program. Also, I would like to see more catch and release tournaments. It is a mentality that has worked with billfish over the past decade. 

In Florida, if you want to keep a tarpon, you will buy a $50 permit to do it once. If they did something like that for stripers over a certain size (probably 44 inches), it would also be beneficial.


----------



## ESRob (May 17, 2014)

Perhaps I'm missing something, but the article states MD saw a 45% increase in landings, but on the DNR website, it states that the commercial sector ended the year with unused quota.
And considering how everyone was very vocal last year about how hard it was to get into keeper rock, regardless of season, I'm having a hard time believing there was a 45% increase.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating an increase of anything, except for clarity of facts in that article.
Where did those figures come from?


----------



## k_brad (Aug 12, 2015)

ESRob said:


> Perhaps I'm missing something, but the article states MD saw a 45% increase in landings, but on the DNR website, it states that the commercial sector ended the year with unused quota.
> And considering how everyone was very vocal last year about how hard it was to get into keeper rock, regardless of season, I'm having a hard time believing there was a 45% increase.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating an increase of anything, except for clarity of facts in that article.
> Where did those figures come from?


http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/recreational-fisheries/data-and-documentation/queries/index

Query the NOAA 'catch data' database by time series from 2013 to 2015 with the parameters 2013-2015, north and mid-atlantic by state, striped bass, all areas by area, and weight of fish by lbs (leave other categories as default)

This will show that in 2015 ~2.92 million lbs of rockfish were landed in the inland waters of MD while in 2013 ~2.02 millions lbs were landed which equates to a percent change of +45%, much different than the goal of -20.5%.


----------



## Tracker16 (Feb 16, 2009)

Does anyone know how the different agencies come up with the numbers they report? I'm guessing they are all reports from commercial and charter catches. How many non comms report their catch to DNR? New Jersey doesn't even require a license to fish salt water so any numbers they report have to come from commercial catch.

OK I'm going to say it... *AGAIN*... the only way we will ever see striped bass thrive is to give them *'Game Fish Status'*


----------



## kurazy kracka (Oct 14, 2008)

NJ and NY both require salt water registration each year and you can get fined if you don't have a valid registration.


----------



## Tracker16 (Feb 16, 2009)

kurazy kracka said:


> NJ and NY both require salt water registration each year and you can get fined if you don't have a valid registration.


All states along the Atlantic require registration with NOAAs Marine Recreational Information Program but most states that require fishing licenses report the info for you. Since NJ doesn't require a license they offer the registration for free ($15 fee if you get it from NOAA). The fine for not registering is only $25. It's not really worth NJ DNR expending the resources to check hundreds of people every day on the off chance they will bust a few at $25 bucks a pop. 

Back to my point though, Some states have a mechanism for Recs to report their catch although I doubt many other than the most conservation minded do. Therefore the only data really being collected is from Comms and Charters. Why then do recreational quotas get reduced to adjust for Commercial over catches. 

I watched what happened in the gulf when redfish were nearly wiped out by Comms. Just a few years after reds were given game fish status the stocks started rebounding. They now enjoy an excellent fishery there. Although we here in MD can't control what happens to stripers when they leave our waters we could set an example for other states by being the first to ban commercial fishing for them.


----------



## Hueski (Feb 5, 2012)

Tracker16 I agree. No comms period.


----------



## jlentz (Sep 11, 2005)

Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey also known as MRFSS and Marine Recreational Information Program also known as MRIP. Both used along with other data and surveys to estimate the stock health and in formulating regulations.

John


----------



## ESRob (May 17, 2014)

In MD, commercial quota overages are levied against the commercial quota only.


----------



## Tracker16 (Feb 16, 2009)

ESRob said:


> In MD, commercial quota overages are levied against the commercial quota only.


That's right ESRob, but ASMFC bases it's harvest recommendations to the states on the states reported Comm data. When they take too many the next years harvest numbers get reduced for everyone. Each state then decides how to split their ASMFC recommended quota between Reqs and Comms. So when Comms take too many fish along the Atlantic seaboard and in the Bay everyone pays for it.

I like catching big fish and besides catfish, stripers are the only big fish in Maryland that I know of. It would be nice if there were more of them around to reel in.


----------



## crappie410 (Jun 5, 2015)

I myself would much rather keep a rock in the 24" to 28" size fish myself then any over 32" but dnr has to get alot more serious about busting all the people catching and keeping these rocks under size 12" fish etc. And judges need to uphold Penalties when they do get caught I can't even remember how many times I read stories of people busted at kent island with 20 plus Illegal size fish


----------



## Tracker16 (Feb 16, 2009)

I don't no how DNR could get more serious about enforcement. I get checked almost every time I go fishing


----------



## bloodworm (Jan 5, 2007)

Its nothing but a political state in Maryland


----------



## ESRob (May 17, 2014)

There are a number of ways that the recreational harvest is tabulated, but I will agree it seems hard to believe it's more than a wild azz guess.
But there are angler surveys, charter reports, and computer algorithms, etc involved.

That said, although it's perhaps not a popular opinion in some circles, I don't have an issue with a well monitored commercial fishery for rockfish... or most any fish, actually..
I've gotten into discussions in the past on recreational fishing forums and my feelings generally aren't well received, so I'll respectfully bow out of this discussion.
But I do want to make clear, that I am not a commercial fisherman.
I do have a Capt & MD Guide License, and try to pay close attention to what's going on and why & how, and as a member of the public I like to have the ability to purchase wild caught fish.


----------

