Rockfish regulators prepare for more cuts to striped bass fishing season

At a meeting in Annapolis, fisheries managers from 15 East Coast states sought a cure for a dwindling object of affection, greed and anger.

What to do about rockfish?

Frighteningly low for six years Numbers in Chesapeake Bay The science was murky a year after new limits were imposed on recreational and commercial catches in hopes of a rebound, with 75% of the fish, also called striped bass, spawning before heading to the Atlantic Ocean.

For six hours Wednesday, the Atlantic Striped Bass Board of Directors studied bar graphs and fire charts projected on conference room screens and listened to scientists explain what they meant. The expected recovery did not come.

“The technical committee is having a really hard time predicting what the fish population will be in 2025,” said Gary Nelson, a Ph.D. from Massachusetts, which led this year’s rockfish population assessment.

Please, the fishermen asked for no more cuts. Protect the struggling charter industry.

“We know of at least 52 of these boats that were offered for sale and closed down,” said Mike Smolek, captain of the Penny Sue in Edgewater and president of the Upper Bay Charter Association.

Blame recreational fishermen, one board member thundered. Protect landlubbers who love a good fried rockfish sandwich.

“They don’t have a boat, but they appreciate the taste of rockfish now and then,” said Robert T. Brown, president of the Maryland Watermen’s Association. “And we provide that to them.”

Wait to take further action, another warned; then it may be too late.

Now protect the rockfish.

“We’re running out of time,” said David Sikorski, executive director of the Coastal Conservation Association.

In the end, a majority of the board, which is part of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, agreed. They voted to hold a special session in December and decide on the cuts.

By then, technical staff hope to better understand what’s happening in Chesapeake waters and the Atlantic. Options for 2025 include changing the season, catch limits and size restrictions (or a combination of the three) to reduce the harvest of a cultural and economic cornerstone by about 15%.

“This is a very important species, not only in the Chesapeake Bay, but throughout the East Coast,” said Allison Coulden, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation Maryland.

The challenge for the commission, which has devoted more effort to managing striped bass than any other species, is to ensure there are enough bass to last through 2029. Currently there is only a 50% chance of achieving this goal.

“Most of the attendees at this meeting were expecting some kind of action,” Coulden said.

Everyone has their favorite explanation for why research on juvenile fish in Maryland and Virginia, by extracting small fish-sized strips from spawning waterways, is so awful. The last six years have been among the lowest in 66-year records.

The situation is even worse in other states. North Carolina hasn’t seen a striper in Pamlico Sound in a decade. New Jersey stopped investigating seven years ago.

It could be climate change that is warming the Chesapeake’s waters and making it harder for rockfish eggs to survive. It may be a lack of menhaden, tiny herring that rockfish find pleasant, that have been cleared from the bay by commercial fisheries in Virginia.

Pollution may be the culprit. Maryland watermen point to Baltimore’s leaky sewage treatment plants or the release of spring floodwaters from Pennsylvania through the Conowingo Dam.

Maybe predators are eating all those hatchlings before they get big enough to swim in the ocean and eventually return to breed. Watermen were responsible for the return of hungry dolphins to the central bay, the rise of hungry blue catfish and the more voracious double-crested cormorants.

“The amount of cormorants was so bad I had to rebuild my dock twice and the trees were devastated by nesting,” said Rob Newberry, president of the Delmarva Fishing Association and a charter captain on Kent Island.

But science is clear on at least one thing.

Despite cuts in catches and even bans in the 1980s, rockfish remain overfished. More was removed than was entered. Recovery from this, if at all, will take years.

And, painfully for many, this means catching less fish.

Katie Drew, leader of the commission’s equity assessment team, told the board: “It’s up to you to look at the numbers, look at the data and decide what level of risk you’re willing to accept.”

Commission members and technical experts are trying to understand rockfish using science leavened with common sense and economics.

It’s not easy. You cannot count the number of fish in the sea; You make estimates of total biomass based on surveys and catch records. There were 191 million pounds of female fish large enough to spawn in 2023; this number was well below the target of 247 million.

Improving these numbers by changing different factors can seem like a guessing game.

Approximately 40% of fish caught and released by amateur fishermen die. Maryland and other states require the use of circle hooks, which are thought to be less likely to catch a rockfish in the belly and cause its death than the traditional J hook.

It’s just that science doesn’t show it works.

“This is disappointing,” one board member said.

Are you changing size limits for fish caught in the Atlantic? Or are you focusing on the Chesapeake? If you reduce the number of days anglers can target rockfish, would that be enough? Does it make more sense to protect the big fish, the small fish, or something in between?

“When evaluating possible management response, the board needs to consider the risk tolerance and the level of risk the board is willing to accept as a management decision,” said Nelson, the rockfish scientist.

A decision taken in December is riskier than a decision taken in February, the next regular board meeting.

Maryland’s 2025 rockfish season begins in March, and getting the paperwork completed on time or redone will be confusing for state regulators.

Everyone is waiting until the board decides.

And the goby, a cunning fish, is getting a little harder to find.

“Things are changing,” said Mason Hallock, who started charter fishing with his father and just purchased Mr. Hunter II in Edgewater. “They appear earlier than normal. They generally did not like the month of June. They have been here since the beginning of May.

“You know, we were catching a few here and a few there, but they weren’t going to school like they normally do.”