Stock Assessments

[Sea Dangles]

I have been trying to restrain myself as this phrase has been beaten in recent discussions regarding the future of striped bass.Who is it that makes these assessments and how much credibility have they proven they deserve.Is it like Obama telling us we are out of a recession,or is it an honest fact based report? I have listened for at least a couple years as seasoned old school anglers such as Jim White,Clammer, Numby,Afterhours,Sauerkraut(I could go on)tell us history is repeating itself with the demise of the bass.For some reason this isn't good enough for some folks (bossman)to take notice of their warnings.I like to think the glass is half full also,but I don't have to see the tree fall to know it made a noise.How accurate have stock assessments historically been?Is there any way to attatch previous reports for any species to validate their findings?

[Raven]

i read it all .... but don't know the answers

however, i do see additional strains being put on the Resource

pollution in the Chesapeake waters

more Poaching

By catching ->mortality's

higher food prices and fuel prices making
bringing home the bacon more important

More interest in the sport with HUGE fishing stores
opening in MASS and Connecticut

the list goes on.... so i can understand the pressure.

[JohnnySaxatilis]

its not in complete crisis mode yet. But they deffinately know something is terribly wrong due to landing reports, they are WAY down in recent years. That old quote from 2006 that "overfishing is not taking place" aint guna cut it nemore.... Just did a paper on it and the effects the trawlers are having on the forage species. here's a press release I used as a cited sources Some scary numbers in there.......

http://www.asmfc.org/press_releases/...ddendumIII.pdf

[Sea Flat]

Originally Posted by Sea Dangles

Who is it that makes these assessments and how much credibility have they proven they deserve.How accurate have stock assessments historically been?

I know that one way they get a good handle on the population is the "young of the Year" index. They take a net and sweep it through the spawning area and see how many baby bass are in it. In normal years, I believe the number is somewhere in the 3-4 range which many would consider to be a bit too small. That number means 3-4 baby fish within a certain area. In the late 90's or very early 2000's the number went up to the low teens and then a few years later the fishing was as good as it had been in many years. Now, the YOY index numbers are much lower and the fishing is declining too. I wish I had the book I got this from handy so I could be 100% accurate, but I truly believe that this one method is pretty good at letting us know how we are doing in terms of the fishery.

Obviously a catch count would help too which to me is impossible to count considering the recreational fishermen, bycatch and any black market sales. No way to track those numbers of dead/caught fish. All I know is that the MA commercial fleet did not even come close to their quota last year which should be a huge red flag that things are taking a turn for the worse.

Legislation is in the works to lower the amount of fish allowed to be caught to sustain the fishery. Hopefully it happens soon. I think the changes can be made to maintain a good fishery and avoid a massive decline like the 80's.

[JohnR]

The stock assessment - however flawed - is one of the key criteria that is used to determine the health of the fishery. It is loosely consistent data accumulated over the years from many different sources that attempts to paint a picture of the health of the stocks for fisheries management.

Is it accurate? Most likely not. But it is something that has been charted over the years to indicate the state of the stock.

Trying to break down the stock by year classes, gender, who's catching what and where, that assessment is the one big thing that triggers who can keep how many and from where, whether commercial landings, estimated impact by kept fish and guestimated mortality by us even doing C&R.

Many of us for years have wanted to err on the side of caution (maintain 1 recreational fish @ 36 for example) and have gone to meetings to fight commercial increases (recent fall 2010 for example, Mass commercial increase in 2006 as another example). Some people propose Game Fish status (I am not one even though I don't fish commercially, I think everyone should take cuts).

The stock assessment, how good or bad the assessment or how good or bad the results, is probably the key indicator of the state of the fishery. At least in regards to what will come down by way of regulations / regulation changes.

For a real significant brain cramp, read this novel explanation on stock assessments: http://www.asmfc.org/publications/Gu...ssessments.pdf

[MAKAI]

Do you really need the nitwits on TV standing out in the blizzard to tell you it's snowing outside.
Look around and let your eyes tell you what's up.

[JohnR]

Originally Posted by MAKAI

Do you really need the nitwits on TV standing out in the blizzard to tell you it's snowing outside.
Look around and let your eyes tell you what's up.

Yoo talkin' to me?

No, I don't need those nitwits to tell me its snowing, but I do need a stock assessment to tell show the nitwits managerial concerns influenced managers in fisheries management that the problem we've stated is happening is now being documented.

Striper Cup isn't the problem. It is one itsy bitsy, teentweeny concerning thread in a whole bigazzed cloth of problems.

[Clammer]

What I do know for a fact ...... that they wanted to increase the commercial / based on the current stock ::: that was LAST year .Ha HA

then they said was status quo ; So everything will stay the same /both commercial & rec .

wam / bam .. TU thunder Gods . all of a sudden ................... they decide its time to clamp down on the illegal netting in Maryland .......which they knew about for years /
At approx. the same time / they addressed the draggers .slamming the breeders off Virginia .......which has been going on since they were found / add the XL charter & rec fleet that is also hitting the same pot of gold .
But it should be of no surprize / think about who is doing it & have been doing it for years ......
Its the saltwater verson on running moonshine .................................. everyone in all levels of the state & some nationial were aware of it ..... but @ the right price ... just drive a different road .
Now jump to 2011 .......... OHHHHHHHHHH we might have F $%^&*( up ...... S T R I P E R S are in trouble ;; up & down the east coast ................no #^&#^&#^&#^& ya #$%^&* #$%^&*(

Monday RI had a meeting to look into / listen to & down the road /shortly make a change in the level of fines & penalities for violation of one that is Stripers fishing .
It will include / fishing without a license / both r & c
undersize both r & c
over your limit both R & C
illegal harvesting both r & C
Illegal selling both in & out of state // both r & c

any finally . there will be a coast wide change in both fisheries / From Maine to the Carolina,s BY 2012 .

Better late than never ;

Now if they would only [MAKE] the farmers [not ask] to clean up their #^&#^&#^&#^& / on all sides of the Chessapeak ;;

Lets hope we never get to the day .... when we tell our war stories // they start off {{ son back in the day / when there was a awesome fish called a STRIPER }


:f ishin:

[MAKAI]

Originally Posted by JohnR

Yoo talkin' to me?

No, I don't need those nitwits to tell me its snowing, but I do need a stock assessment to tell show the nitwits managerial concerns influenced managers in fisheries management that the problem we've stated is happening is now being documented.

Striper Cup isn't the problem. It is one itsy bitsy, teentweeny concerning thread in a whole bigazzed cloth of problems.

Not at all.
I feel that while waiting for the " proof " of science, we lag behind the facts of life. Gotta make sure our long term data is right.

Kinda of like me saying, " Hey John ! Your house is on fire. "
" No, It's not too bad, let's see what happens, it may go out. " A little time goes by, " Holy $*%# I gotta call the Fire Dept !!

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme " Mark Twain.

We have to have a beer or two sometime.

[Bronx68]

Have you seen this video/article yet? This has to be causing some damage to the striper fishery.
Coastal Fisheries Reform Group: NC Striper Slaughter; The Untold Numbers and Video!

[UserRemoved]

Problem is MUCH deeper than stripers. It's fish management as a whole. When I first started fishing there was peanuts in the fall that almost stretched across Vineyard sound. Not so or even remotely close anymore.

JohnR has said this for a long time and I agree. Fix the bait fix the fish..

[stripermaineiac]

Joe that's not that bad of an idea as long as it's coastwide.Comms and recs alike.

[afterhours]

and what about the mycobacteriosis which infects 75% of the chesapeake breeding stock...oh yeah it may be fatal.

[sully12rng]

I feel as if I have been seeing my personal seasons get worse over the past few years. Nothing solid but I feel my personal catch is down even with more fishing.

[MakoMike]

The striped bass is in trouble again.

During the 1980s, wildlife managers said these big, full-bodied fish — favorites of anglers along the East Coast — were overfished. So they laid down severe catch limits. The population recovered, and fishing resumed in what is considered one of conservation's great success stories.

But now catches are down again, and some biologists say the problem may not be overfishing this time: It could be the weather.


EnlargeMaggie Starbard/NPR
Nearly 70 percent of the country's striped bass come to the Chesapeake Bay to lay their eggs, including inlets like this one, where the Choptank and Tred Avon rivers meet.
Brad Burns, who started fishing for striped bass in 1960, says he and his fellow anglers, Stripers Forever, are singing the blues about striped bass.

"What we hear from people that go striped bass fishing — the general trend very decidedly is down," Burns says.

Stripers live in the ocean as well as in estuaries and some rivers. Burns says members have been reporting fewer fish for the past five years. As for the cause?

"Well I don't know," he says, "and I don't know that anybody does."

A New Theory On Fish Levels

But Bob Wood thinks he might. Wood is a biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He studies his fish in a boxy little building on the Maryland shore of the Chesapeake Bay. In the semi-darkness, you can make out several vats with bubbling oxygen hoses. Each vat is home to striped bass or white perch, two species that spawn in the bay. This is where Wood's team studies the fish to figure out why striper numbers go up and down.

They thought they had the 1980s crash figured out: "The striped bass crashed because of overfishing," says Wood, "and then it recovered because we closed the fishery."

But now Wood has a new idea that's just taking shape. "This research, at first glance, seems to call that into question," he says.

This idea focuses not so much on fish but on the weather, and especially the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, or the AMO. The AMO is a mashup of wind and ocean currents, a flip-flop that happens every 35 years or so in the North Atlantic.


EnlargeMaggie Starbard/NPR
Bob Wood (left) and Ed Martino are researchers at NOAA's Cooperative Oxford Laboratory in Oxford, Md. They think a weather pattern in the North Atlantic called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation is responsible for wide swings in fish populations.
"Circulation changes in a way that warms the entire basin," Wood explains. "And you can imagine if you warm the entire North Atlantic basin, you're changing the weather because the air and circulation patterns above the ocean are affected."

Ed Martino, a fisheries scientist who works with Wood at NOAA, says when the AMO shift happens, it affects the local weather along the Atlantic Coast.

"You are talking about differences in temperature and precipitation, and therefore river flow or salinity, ultimately all affecting the base of the food chain," says Martino. "It's the way that the climate affects the microscopic plankton." Plankton are tiny plants and animals in the water, and that's what young stripers eat.

Understanding The Weather-Fish Relationship

Here's how Wood and his team think the AMO is messing with fish food. When it's in a warm phase, springtime along the East Coast actually tends to be wet and cool — more rain, more water, more food. In the years following that phase, striper numbers tend to go up. Then the AMO flips — drier springs, less rain, less food. After a lag, it looks like striper numbers start to decline.

More On The Chesapeake Bay

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Researchers Get Dirty To Clean Up Chesapeake
Nov. 8, 2009
Wood says the past 100 years of fishing records show that very trend. And currently?

"It hasn't been so good in say the last five years," Wood says. "And it just so happens this is also the time when the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation seems to be switching phase."

Wood suspects it's switching into a "bad for stripers" phase, and he thinks it was also a down cycle that caused the striper crash in the 1980s. When that cycle ended, stripers recovered — not just owing to the fishing limits but because the weather bcame more favorable.

Janet Nye, who studies fish stocks for the Environmental Protection Agency, thinks this research could help fisheries managers.

"We would be able to say, 'OK, for the next 35 years or so we're pretty certain that the AMO is going to be more positive or warm,' and we would be able to say, 'These are the fish that respond favorably to that — you might be able to fish those more,' " she says.

Conversely, fish less in a down cycle, Wood says. "If we know that there is this cycle coming up," he says, "a trend that we are beginning to enter, we can keep that in our heads as we set limits."

If Wood's research is correct, it may take tougher catch limits to bring striper numbers back up again.

[piemma]

I have read a great deal about the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. There definitely is something to it.
The facts remain that we are are on a downslide and a reduction in size and bag limit per day would not hurt.

[Mike P]

Originally Posted by piemma

I have read a great deal about the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. There definitely is something to it.
The facts remain that we are are on a downslide and a reduction in size and bag limit per day would not hurt.

Yup---cyclical periods of scarcity have been noticed in the past, when fishing pressure on bass was a fraction of what it is now. Keep in mind that most of the bass clubs folded around the turn of the century (the 19th to 20th, that is) when bass became so scarce that members started dropping out.

[numbskull]

Blame it on the weather.
Good reason to go on killing 40% of the population each year.
And as long as we are careful to ignore the obvious and keep overestimating the population we can really kill even more.
Thank god for science.
Yup, it's the effing weather to blame yet again.

[numbskull]

On a more serious note, 4-6 years ago we had enough striped bass around to ensure great fishing for decades.

Where are they now. All offshore? Please.

The weather did not kill those fish.
Fishery management did.....with our help.

Blaming the weather for bad fishery management and fishermen's greed is a pathetic and destructive rationalization.

Weather did not kill the fish we had. We did (some much, much more than others).
If we had not killed those fish, weather would not be a big concern now.

[MakoMike]

FWIW, the guys on the south shore of Long Island are asking "what's the problem here, we had the best season we ever had last year." Guys fishing Stellwagon can't get away from the stripers. There were plenty of fish last year off the south side of Block Island. Maybe its a local problem?

[Sea Dangles]

Bossman,before you get your underpants in a bunch try to look at it as a compliment. As the chief bottle yada of the "fishing club" here it's more than just about you.Your participation,or lack thereof makes more of an impact on the tournament than you account for.The absence of SB.com would make more than a ripple On The Water.It's a voice of the fishing community that OTW is in tune with.This abstinance could result in future rules changes that you have mentioned as possibly being needed for the tournament in the name of coservation.While I commend your personal sacrifices made on behest of the fishies I just think you could do more.By doing less.

[JohnR]

And next year, depending on the Assessments, there is a pretty good chance we won't be doing it unless there is significant change in the Tourney. I see what you are stating here and one could counter if more teams that are participating chose to do what we do and significantly limit their entered fish, our participation could possibly have beneficial effect on other teams.

One of my points is that the Striper Cup has far lower impact than a lot of other things we could be rallying around and working on. Even then, our participation in the cup is determined yearly.

[MAKAI]

Too bad that as people we tend to be " reactive ", rather than " proactive ".


A proactive approach to a lot of things in life could only be a good thing.

[Rockfish9]

Originally Posted by MakoMike

FWIW, the guys on the south shore of Long Island are asking "what's the problem here, we had the best season we ever had last year." Guys fishing Stellwagon can't get away from the stripers. There were plenty of fish last year off the south side of Block Island. Maybe its a local problem?

From north side of the cape to Maine?... not likely... lots of large not enough small....the probelm becomes more eveident the farther north you go...the less fish in the biomass, the less you have to migrate...

I agree with Mike P's take.. .. pointing fingers is no way to go about management... those of us that have been around the block a few times have seen this all before.. including the playing of the blame game...the problem lies in management... I also believe in fixing the bait problem... we havent had a school of pogies (other than for a single tide) in the Merrimack in almost two decades.. .. and in the mid 80's there were so many of them, you could snag enough for a mornings fishing in a half an hour...EVERY morning..