Recreational Bass Catch

[Piscator]

Been meaning to post this, last week David Martins from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (Recreational Landings and MIRP) gave a presentation at the Stellwagen Bank Charter Boat Association monthly meeting. Interesting presentation focused on recreational landing assessments. The following are a few things he shared according to his data comprised from surveying and research his team has done:

• In Massachusetts in 2014, 74% of total Striped Bass caught were caught by recreational fisherman (70% of total Blue fish were caught by recreational fisherman
• In Massachusetts there was an estimated 2,041,244 individual striped bass caught in 2014 by recreational fisherman (I believe he said there was a +/- 9% margin of error either way so the range is 1.8M-2.4M)
• In all the New England states combined (including Massachusetts) there were an estimated 3,072,705 individual striped bass caught in 2014 by recreational fisherman
• There were 156,000 registered and licensed recreational salt water fisherman in Massachusetts in 2014
• There were 787 licensed Charter Boats in Massachusetts in 2014
• There were 52 licensed head boats in Massachusetts in 2014

David seemed pretty confident in the numbers above so thought I’d share with you all