Striper Talk Striped Bass Fishing, Surfcasting, Boating - mycobacterosis, requesting your help

The following is an e-mail recently sent out by Capt. Jim White with regards to the current and future stock of striped bass. I asked his permission to post here. Art

"Attention: Your help and assistance is needed in getting the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to take up the newest information regarding the disease, Mycobacterosis and how it is going to effect the striped bass stocks in the Chesapeake Bay area. There will be an article in the RISAA Newsletter in January I believe but the commission is meeting in January and that might be too late. To briefly bring you up-to-date on this issue, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William & Mary has just released a report/study regarding this disease and its negative impact on striped bass. In short, they have determined that over 60-percent of the Chesapeake Bay striped bass stock is infected with this disease and that it is likely that most of those fish will die from it. This has been reported in the Washington Times, Baltimore Sun, New York Times, and many other highly regarded newspapers. This disease is a serious threat to the health of the striped bass population and needs to be addressed now, rather than later. Currently there is NO inclusion within the current management system for accounting for or dealing with this type of natural mortality within the stock. especially at a rate this high (60-percent) . Also, the last four out of the last seven years of the Young-of-the- Year survey's have been well below average with 2008 figures being the lowest in the last 18-years. Considering this low recruitment rate and now the disease factor, it is vital that the Commission take this up along with the Technical Committee and seek an answer as to how the remaining fish that aren't infected can be saved/managed so that a viable stock remains within the Chesapeake Bay system. I first wrote about this disease about four years ago, much of it in the RISAA Newsletter, when it first became a concern to biologists and scientists in that area studying this disease. I also presented it the National Marine Fisheries Service when they were here at URI to discuss the opening of the EEZ-Zone to more commercial fishing. At this time it was regarded as not being a problem and that it would likely go away all by itself if we just didn't pay any attention to. Well, it turns out that it didn't and it hasn't gone away and if anything has changed, it has gotten worse. The disease was first reported on by: Rutgers University, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Eastern Carolina University, VIMS, the CDC (Center for Disease Control), American Fisheries Society, American Pathology Society, and many other distinguished agencies. The ASMFC has a comment section on their web-site. You can go to comments@asmfc. org and post your comments regarding this new threat to the striped bass.

Quote:

JR Fixing comments part, this is from ASMFC website:

Public Comment Guidelines

General Comments
• Public comment falling outside the purview of the normal public comment process (i.e., in response to proposed management action) will be accepted up until 5:00 PM on the Tuesday immediately preceding the scheduled ASMFC Meeting Week. As with other public comment, it will be accepted via mail, fax and email. The submitted letter must clearly indicate the commenter’s expectation for the ASMFC staff to distribute the comments to the Management Board. In the absence of this stated expectation, the commenter will be responsible for distributing the information to the management board prior to the board meeting or providing enough copies for management board consideration at the meeting (a minimum of 50 copies).
• It is the Commission’s intention to provide a written response to letters submitted by state and federal agency representatives and elected officials within 14 days calendar days of the letter’s receipt, regardless of whom the letter is addressed to (i.e., ASMFC Executive Director or Board Chair). All ASMFC response letters are to be signed by the Executive Director or ASMFC Chair. In order to meet the 2-week response deadline, FMP Coordinators may reply with an interim response.

Politely ask/request that they immediately take up this issue and include its repercussions within the management plan and update the plan to reflect this new information regarding this natural death occurrence that in not currently being accounted for especially in the numbers that they are now talking about. The future of our striped bass fishery will depend on how quickly they act on this. Failure to act will likely push the striped bass fishing closer to another crash like in the late 70's early 80's. There isn't one person that I know that follows this stuff and striped bass management that isn't extremely concerned about this new disease factor and how it will effect the overall status of the stock. The Internet allows us to be pro-active on this now and that's what we should do. I hope that many of you will take the time to present your comments to the Commission and hopefully they will listen and take this up at their next meeting. Capt Al Ristori who servers on the Advisory Panel has said he will do all he can to see that it is put on the table and discussed. The more anglers who respond to this the better the chances are that Capt Ristori will be listened too. Thank you for your time in regards to this matter. Capt Jim White---White Ghost-2"