Does The Striped Bass Fishery Leave You Feeling Drained?

This pain I harbor is real.  It's a rather dull feeling, more draining of spirit than anything else I suppose, but the lingering side effects are nonetheless persistently unsettling.  Of late, I'd be lying if I were to point a finger of blame on the influence on a sultry, summertime heat index searing above 100°F for days on end.  Nor can I attest a causality of guilt to some chronic deprivation of otherwise sound sleep.  Rather, it's fish and a multi-billion-dollar fishery that has solicited my concern.  Not coincidentally, these manifestations of my disturbance all point to sea, at the ensuing scarcity of a certain prized surf-fish - stripers.  Mind you, a certain class of rockfish, not the oft unavoidable classes of schoolies, but instead it's the relative absence of linesiders in the mid-30s” range to longer of length that have me increasingly concerned, especially after faithfully casting countless tides over the ebb and flow of annual migrations, both spring and fall.  Localized seasonality (essentially, the unknown that makes fishing, fishing) is generally an acceptable variable, the wildcard of the sport, and outright understandable most of the time, but grand-scale patterns of change are another ballgame.  When one waning season after successive season comes to be weighed on an aggregate scale (think coast-wide assessment), and is measured against one’s personal, historical index of health, I sometimes find myself asking, what does the future of an open-beach surfcaster look like?  What are to make of those charmed and coveted river tides that haven’t surfaced bass near 40” for a number of consecutive seasons now?  Is a 35” fish the seasonal exception?  Are 28s and under the new norm?  Is it simply due to the fact that my nearby, Army-Corps-replenished beaches are devoid of rocky structure and sandy slope for four years?  Did the bass “develop a new migration pattern?”  The boaters are catching – the Raritan Bay produced.  There’s that supposed body of fish beyond the 3-mile line, but where are the big girls that silently stalk and sway fin in the shallow tides of night?  Are they simply all distanced too far from the beaches, nearest to the large pods of Menhaden that school the surface in deep water?  Where have those few seasonal occasions vanished to that once chanced the surfcaster with a run-in of big bass?  

*SPOILER ALERT*  I fear that I quite obviously know the answers to my own questions.  I see the proof evidenced all too often as photographs and videos posted on the Internet’s choice platforms of voyeuristic discovery - fishing forums, social media groups, and as hashtag searches.  It could just be me, but a story-line and visualization of excessive abuse continues to replay its obnoxious script.  Admittedly, the fat lady isn't singing, but in some sort of opening act, I believe I hear the faint blaring of Bowie? “Pressure, pushing down on me, pressing down on you. It's the terror of knowing what the world is about. Turned away from it all like a blind man. Insanity laughs under pressure we're breaking. Can't we give ourselves one more chance? The people on the edge of the night. This is our last dance. This is ourselves under pressure. Under pressure. Pressure.”   

Am I jumping the gun?  Did I jump the shark?  I cannot know for certain and I don't wish to be correct anyway.  After all, what I've griped about is my own experience (something I flirted with in this blog two years ago, HERE).  Perhaps (to some), my own inexperience, or inadequacies of effort and knowledge.  Even so, what haunts my mind's eye of quintessential surfcasting memory is the all-to-recent nostalgia of big, busting bass blitzing and encircling corralled pods of bunker pinned between wave-slashing, mossy, flat-top jetties extended seaward from sharp-faced beaches.  Days of glory.  Nighttime's of triumph. 

But, perhaps I'm not so far off.  My parting question to you however, am I the only NJ surfcaster asking himself of these questions?   

           

A roadside storm drain in my hometown adorned with an embossed casting of the east coast's most popular gamefish.  Appropriately so, in that every other drain I've seen that empties to a saltwater watershed depicted castings of freshwater bass, trout, or salmon.  Ironically, it can be argued that the spawning stock of the Atlantic Striped Bass biomass (breeding females) is currently reeling from a cumulative pressure having been applied upon her, in enduring years of recreational and commercial fishing exploits, luring the proliferation of its reproductive-class fish, its only future, closer to the dangers of an open drain. 

... to get worse, mess up...

…consider the data projected in the following graphs:

On April 30th, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) accepted the findings of a Striped Bass stock assessment report, concluding that corrective measures in multi-state fisheries management are vitally warranted in order to remedy the trend of a declining biomass of spawning female breeders populating this heavily-pressured fishery.  (The above image is a screenshot captured from the homepage of StripersForever.org.  An online article of the organization’s findings can be read HERE).

The Striped Bass Spawning Stock Biomass (SSB) – total weight of spawning-age fish estimated in the population – has downtrended below the fishery’s threshold level for the previous five recorded consecutive years.  At their April 30^th meeting, the ASMFC requested the scientific Technical Committee to detail measures of enforcement and prevention (e.g. slot limits, closed seasons) that would purportedly reverse exploitations of overfishing and trend the fishery towards compliance with a 17.5% reduction in harvest that is believed to be a required countermeasure in successfully rebuilding the population of the SSB.  Supposedly, a 35” minimum size limit in the recreational fishery would achieve the required reductions, cutting recreational harvest dramatically (estimated by half), but as a result, induce a measurable rise in catch-and-release mortality.  

   

The current SSB is estimated to be at approximately the same level as it was in 1992.  Worse yet, spawning success in the Chesapeake Bay (where approximately 80% to 90% of the total Atlantic stock of migratory stripers originate) during the last 15-years has slumped to about one-half of what it was during the fecund and abundant years of the 1990s.  

Additionally, fishing mortality of fully-recruited Striped Bass (the percentage of the reproducing population inadvertently killed by fishing), has over this same 15-year-period up-trended and risen to levels well-above those deemed sustainable for the future reproductive resiliency of a healthy SSB.  

“Striped Bass cannot be everything to everyone. We cannot, simultaneously, fish for them commercially, make them the target of head boats, hold up the dead bodies of the big breeders, gut hook them with bait in lukewarm water, have unlimited season-long possession limits, and expect to have an abundant resource and the great fishing opportunities that provides. Stripers Forever will be advocating for a new day in Striped Bass management that stewards these fish for their greatest socio-economic value to the public.”

-           StripersForever.org – 05/10/2019     -  

ACTION

The ASMFC is scheduled to meet on August 8th to advance discussions regarding forthcoming addendum guidelines (year 2020) that may (with greatest hopes) hinder the current overfishing of Striped Bass and initiate the rebuilding of stocks over ensuing years.  The elemental well-being of the prized fish we all love, and its fishery we all love to participate within, is undeniably entangled in a perilous trial of future sustainability.  The fishery will regrettably continue to crash unless change is implemented and conservation prevails.  While the power of commerce, politics, industry, and influence presides, consider clicking HERE to contact your appointed state ASMFC commissioner.  The American Saltwater Guides Association bids the suggestion of seven bulleted comments that each address the subject straight to the point.  Make your voice heard before the next guideline meeting.

Release A Breeder – Our future as tomorrow’s fishermen teeters upon the fulcrum of today’s choices and actions.  Be one who casts to restore balance with each release.  

Instagram user account "callofthesurf" (Catch & Release Crew).  "Leading others to good habits that will make a good fishery for all.  Fish with honor."

Instagram's "callofthesurf" (Catch & Release Crew) also believes that "the times they are a changin'."  The group quoted "until new regulations are voted on, agreed, and implemented, this fishery requires us to 'fish with honor' and lead by example.  Catch & release, follow the code, represent your water, and continue to spread the good word.  If you don't like change, you'll like irrelevance even less."  The group's Code of Honor are littoral-ly axioms to fish by and may as well be likened to a surfcaster's guiding Ten Commandments.

Instagram's "callofthesurf" (Catch & Release Crew) logo.  "By representing this badge, you are part of a crew that lives the ethics of C&R.  A brotherhood that respects the Code of Honor for Striped Bass." 

As an aside, but in an analogous effort of consideration and conservation...

Bill H.R.2040, the "Striped Bass American Heritage Act," was introduced in the House of Representatives to the 114th Congress on April 28, 2015 by (former) Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) with objective of designating Atlantic Striped Bass (Morone saxatilis) as the National Fish of the United States.  MacArthur quoted, "New Jersey has always appreciated the importance of the Striped Bass, as it is our distinguished state saltwater fish.  I am honored to introduce this bill to finally recognize the Striped Bass as our national fish and enshrine its place in our nation's cultural heritage."  Historically, stripers suffered from various forms of pollution that ultimately brought about the Clean Water Act, and after the passage of the Striped Bass Conservation Act of 1984, the biomass began its recovery, growing as the healthy spawning stock we came to appreciate for decades after.  Rep. MacArthur's bill was referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, with no further legislative action(s) taken to present date, four-years later. (Illustration by Savio Mizzi)

Has the larger picture now sharpened and come closer into view?  I hope so.  I also hope that we are not watching our splendid swimmer in her troubled fishery go down the drain of mismanagement before our eyes.

Lurching closer to the drain, of the embossed SB casting.  Pressure from all angles of all anglers and everything between hovers above this species of fish at all times.  To reiterate a few:  Atlantic Menhaden mismanagement and depletion, forage base depletion, habitat destruction and pollution of spawning grounds (run-off of nutrient waste-loads of nitrogen and phosphorus into estuaries, whether agricultural or urban/suburban), algal blooms, mycobacteriosis, hypoxia, man's fishing pressures throughout the migratory and resident class ranges, overfishing, ASMFC fishery management regulations, poachers, Internet boasters...  The breed, and the female SSB especially, need a break!