New MA regs.?

[Team Rock On]

State Seeks to Spread Out Season, Catch for Striped Bass Fishing
Source: Cape Cod Times

For a few weeks last summer, Massachusetts commercial fishermen landed almost 71,000 pounds of striped bass a day.

Unfortunately, their quota of 1.14 million fish lasted just a month before it was used up. And the one-month glut meant there wasn't enough time for restaurants and fish retailers to get customers in the habit of buying it.

"The way this fishery is ... you get pounded with fish so heavily, so fast, it destroys the price on it, because the market won't eat it all," said Andy Baler, owner of Nantucket Fish Co., a fish dealer and wholesaler in Dennis and Chatham.

The state is now proposing changes that it hopes would spread out the bass season, and give consumers more of a chance to develop a taste for it.

The commercial striper fishery is small -- about $1.5 million annually, according to state officials. However, for Cape commercial fishermen who have watched cod become scarce, tuna disappear and the dogfish fishery close, every dollar that can be earned from the sea is important.

Already to help extend the season, the state Division of Marine Fisheries has cut the daily limit of striped bass that commercial fishermen can land and limited the number of days they can go out. Last year, they could catch 30 fish and go out four days a week, from Sunday through Wednesday. Even so, the season ran just a little over a month, from the first week of July into the first week in August before the quota was met.

This year, the state hopes to extend it another couple of weeks by cutting commercial fishermen back to 20 fish and cutting the days they can fish to three per week. Also, for the first time, the state would allow large striped bass from other states to be sold in Massachusetts.

Striped bass migrate up the coast in summer and head back to southern waters in the fall.

Allowing striped bass to be imported from other states whose quotas open up in May, or run from September through November, would make it more of a regular offering on restaurant menus and in fish stores. The idea is that popularity would increase demand during the busy summer season as well and help keep prices up.

"We have a very abbreviated fishery here, and we're trying to find a way to increase the benefits to wholesalers, retailers, restaurants and consumers," state fisheries biologist Dan McKiernan said.

Dale Tripp, a commercial fisherman and charter boat operator from Chatham, likes the idea of importing fish from other states as long as imports don't drive down the price during the Cape's short commercial season.

However, he doesn't like the idea of reducing the catch by 10 fish per day for commercial boats, or another proposal that would ban charter boat captains with commercial licenses from selling the fish their customers don't keep.

Tripp argues that only a relative few of the thousands of commercial striped bass permit-holders catch 30 fish a day. Penalizing the few wouldn't lengthen the season much, just make it harder for the full-time commercial fishermen to make a living, he said.

Baler likes the idea of the imported fish but also thinks extending the season will make little difference. Cutting the daily limit, he said, might add only three days to the season. He thinks regulations are squeezing out true commercial fishermen and making striped bass a recreational fishery where fishermen are allowed to sell what they catch.

"Twenty fish a day will only impact the commercial guy who is good at what he does," he said.