ASMFC Striped bass board winter meeting minutes

[jmac]

So again, their technical comittee says that using more realistic methods of estimating commercial catch, the commercial take is 52-59 % of the TOTAL coastwide take (unless I misunderstand what they are saying). Sort of shows that graph to be a whole lot of BS. Also suggests the commercial catch (and I note they refuse to include commercial poaching) is one helluva a lot more of an issue than convenient those suggesting the recreational sector is 80% to blame. Do you agree?

.........no offense taken....
I would agree that the commercial catch may be larger than years ago; as I originally stated, several years ago the quotas in the net states (MD, DE, NC,VI, Chesapeake) were increased....quotas in the other commercial states MA, RI, NY) have been relatively static. I think the reasoning for this increase was that those "breeding" states took such a large hit to their fishing economy during the moratorium years, that when the striped bass was declared recovered by ASMFC, they increased their quotas.
Also in the same paragraph you refer to it states-

"Following bias correction, ages 7+ F on striped bass would have
fallen by 38% to 54%. Current (2008) ages 7+ F was 0.27 based on original (uncorrected)
MRFSS harvest estimates, 0.16 after bias correction under scenario 1 and 0.14 after bias
correction under scenario 2. Despite the severe bias in MRFSS recreational landings and
discards, all recent (2000-2008) F estimates, derived either before and after bias
correction, would have remained well below our current overfishing threshold for striped
bass (i.e. F < Fmsy= 0.40).

So I think with what you cited they were talking about older fish (still a layman trying to interpret all this). Take note that they stated "well below our current overfishing threshold for striped
bass "......
Also, in the same report, page 8, the following was reported-

"In addition, a
recreational catch adjustment was made excluding the party-charter (PC) component of the
striped bass catch after 2004 because the MRFSS has adopted a specific survey for party-charter
fisheries since 2005."

Now, why are charter/ headboats catches not included in the the figures you reported? Are they quasi commercial? I still believe that that is where the largest piece of the striper pie is going...not to change the subject (but I will), if you do the numbers, COASTWIDE, there are a lot of bass being caught in that fishery, YEARLY. Look at whats going on down south now.

If I do have an agenda, it is that the striped bass fishery is a shared resource....that as a rod and reel commercial fisherman who has as much respect for these fish as you do, I get upset at being portayed as the bad guy..I have my quota, I abide by it, and I respect the right given to me to pursue them. And I do passionately care for their viability to continue to satisfy both camps (rec/commercial) in the future....

[Mr. Sandman]

Basing regulations on this entire "user group" and "shared resource" thing is utter nonsense. This is not protection of the species, it is protection of the user group. This group takes this, this group takes that, he has more than I do, if we don't catch them it will leave more for them..makes me

Just do what you have to so that the fish is protected, let the chips fall where they may. It is what it is. If it means a shut down, fine. Just protect the fish.

Asking a comm fisherman is it OK if we make "your" fish a gamefish is like taking crack from an addict. Of course he will kick and scream. They should not be seeking the opinions of any of the user groups. Regulators must take their head out of their ass and do what is right for the fish.

The amount of "data" out there is mind-numbing. Read that thing, it could be shot down by anyone. Who knows how good the data really is? Selectively using this data and making correction after correction to it which is further error prone makes for any result you want. It would not surprise me if behind the scenes they know what answer they want before they get started.

We need to take conservative action and err on the side of safety, regulators should be concerned about the fish and ignore side effects to the fishermen.

[MakoMike]

Originally Posted by Mr. Sandman

Basing regulations on this entire "user group" and "shared resource" thing is utter nonsense. This is not protection of the species, it is protection of the user group. This group takes this, this group takes that, he has more than I do, if we don't catch them it will leave more for them..makes me

Just do what you have to so that the fish is protected, let the chips fall where they may. It is what it is. If it means a shut down, fine. Just protect the fish.

Asking a comm fisherman is it OK if we make "your" fish a gamefish is like taking crack from an addict. Of course he will kick and scream. They should not be seeking the opinions of any of the user groups. Regulators must take their head out of their ass and do what is right for the fish.

The amount of "data" out there is mind-numbing. Read that thing, it could be shot down by anyone. Who knows how good the data really is? Selectively using this data and making correction after correction to it which is further error prone makes for any result you want. It would not surprise me if behind the scenes they know what answer they want before they get started.

We need to take conservative action and err on the side of safety, regulators should be concerned about the fish and ignore side effects to the fishermen.

Are you saying that the striped bass population is endangered? You'll have a tough time getting anyone to agree with that. Everyone seems to agree that the population of breeding fish is healthy enough to support some amount of harvest. So once you reach that point, then it's just a question of how much harvest and who gets to do the killing.

[MakoMike]

Originally Posted by jmac

.
"In addition, a
recreational catch adjustment was made excluding the party-charter (PC) component of the
striped bass catch after 2004 because the MRFSS has adopted a specific survey for party-charter
fisheries since 2005."

Now, why are charter/ headboats catches not included in the the figures you reported? Are they quasi commercial? I still believe that that is where the largest piece of the striper pie is going...not to change the subject (but I will), if you do the numbers, COASTWIDE, there are a lot of bass being caught in that fishery, YEARLY. Look at whats going on down south now.
.

They are included in the overall numbers as recreational caught fish. They are not included in the MRFSS numbers because charter/party boats have to report hard numbers and are included in a different survey. Thus the charter/party numbers were excluded from any correction factor that was applied to the MRFSS numbers.

[numbskull]

Originally Posted by jmac

.......

"In addition, a
recreational catch adjustment was made excluding the party-charter (PC) component of the
striped bass catch after 2004 because the MRFSS has adopted a specific survey for party-charter
fisheries since 2005."

Now, why are charter/ headboats catches not included in the the figures you reported? Are they quasi commercial? I still believe that that is where the largest piece of the striper pie is going...not to change the subject (but I will), if you do the numbers, COASTWIDE, there are a lot of bass being caught in that fishery, YEARLY. Look at whats going on down south now.

....

The commercial percentage is not going up because they are catching more fish, it is going up because the recreational fishermen are catching (and never were) nowhere near the numbers they are being estimated to catch (this is discussed in detail in the expanded section on the flaw in the MRFSS sampling methodology).

The percentage of commercial caught bass does not change...it stays at over 50%......relative to the entire coastwide catch, because the coastwide recreational catch is made up of Recreational (MRFSS measured charter survey + MRFSS estimated non-charter catch) and only the later number is wildly off (70% overestimate x millions of fisherman leads to a huge total overestimate). The accurate charter estimates undoubtably make up a large percentage of the actual 40 % of fish the recreational sector uses.

The number is not of great concern to the ASMFC.....indeed it is comforting to them since it means total fishing pressure is not as high as they assumed.....which translates into there supposedly being more fish that can safely be caught......hence the vote to consider increasing commercial quotas further.

Now this might make sense if the actual numbers of fish were what they like to estimate, but if there are that many fish why are recreational catch NUMBERS (not poundage) plummeting so fast? Maybe the survey is so flawed it can't be trusted....or maybe there are not as many fish as they estimate and the dimishing success of the millions of average anglers coastwide reflects that.

So where do you think this is headed as the millions of average anglers begin to recognize that they are "getting" maybe 20% of the overall quota (commercial 55% per the technical comittee report/Charter say 25%) and that number is dropping fast?

At very least they ought to redraw that annoying graph and pie chart to show what is really happening and people stop using it to support a position it does not support.