I hope, when I finally navigate the last deadfalls and tripwires and creep up to the pearly gates, knees knocking together as I wait for a lightning bolt or falling anvil with my name on it, that Saint Peter will appear, clap me on the back, and explain that all the hours I’ve spent slogging into the five-knot tide that is fisheries management will be deducted from my 700-year bid in Purgatory.
For the record, I/we have no abiding love for the endless regulatory wrangling that has become a cost of doing business for those of us with the fishing affliction. But I remain convinced that if you fish and care even remotely about the ten-year prognosis—if you are trying to pass a major life passion on to new recruits among family or friends—then you will ignore fisheries management to your peril.
The last year’s expansive striper debate is a perfect case-in-point of how fragmented the so-called recreational fishing “community” has become. I’ve never seen the rumor mill run such a hammer-down production schedule, can’t recall another time, in 20 years I’ve paid close attention, that a management issue was buried in so much mis- or dis-information. Every issue for the better part of the last six months, I’ve vowed to lay off, and every time a deadline has arrived, I’ve gotten an e-mail, a phone call, or otherwise run into some bogus striper intel.
The last two issues, I’ve attempted to clear up the particulars of “conservation equivalency,” the regulatory mechanism that grants state agencies flexibility to craft regulations that protect unique or fisheries in their waters.
As of our March issue, ASMFC had just signed off on a wild array of member-state conservation equivalency proposals, returned them to the states for a round of public hearings and, ultimately, a final ruling. If you missed that last entry, several states, including NY, CT, NJ, and of course RI, had put forward proposals that would establish a mode split between private recreational anglers and “for- hire” (i.e. party and charter) fishing businesses, based on feedback from captains who saw a one-fish bag as potentially catastrophic for the sport fishing industry. Each of the four state proposals would grant party/charter boats a two-fish bag at a higher minimum size than the 28-inch “default”. Again, the key to these proposals was that they met the minimum standard—a 25% reduction in striped bass landings over a one-year timeframe.
In a move that surprised stripermen across New England, Mass, a state that has led the charge, repeatedly, to increase commercial striper harvest, held the line, becoming one of the only states that put its full weight behind a one-fish striper limit for the recreational sector.
After ASMFC approved their mode-split proposals, New York and Connecticut sent their two-fish options out to hearing, but ultimately decided not to push for mode splits.
Rhode Island’s mode-split option drew some criticism during the recent public hearings, but the Rhode Island Marine Fisheries Council ultimately passed the mode split option by a 6-4 vote—sending on two proposed regulatory options: The first would follow ASMFC’s lead, a one-fish bag, 28-inch minimum length, for all recreational anglers. The second option would set the private recreational limits at one bass, 28 inches or greater, and for- hire catch stats at two fish, 32 inches or greater. These regulations—the formal recommendation of the RIMFC—then went to the desks of DEM Director, Dr. Janet Coit and Governor Gina Raimondo.
From the sound of things, RI’s ASMFC delegation has been under considerable pressure from other states—notably NY and CT—to follow their lead, sticking with the original 1@28” scheme. Of the regulatory objectives identified by ASMFC’s Striped Bass Board, priority has been given to maintaining equity among the Northeast states—to avoid, that is, measures that would give one state economic advantage. Connecticut passed a one-at-28” plan for private recs. But because it’s a gamefish state, CT has long rolled its commercial striper allocation into a “bonus fish” program. Rumor has it these undesignated bass will be put into a tag program, perhaps granting harvest rights to smaller “keepers” or extra fish for shore anglers on a pay- to-play basis(?) New York, meanwhile, chose the original one-at-28-inches regulation for all waters outside the Hudson River—the latter one of the Atlantic’s two major spawning rivers, and subject to separate regulations above the George Washington Bridge.
As of this writing, March 13, a final verdict is due literally any minute, but deadline cannot wait. Here’s what I strongly suspect will happen, but you’ll need to verify accuracy on the RI DEM website.
Given the precedent set by NY and CT, which passed mode-split proposals similar to our own up the line, but ultimately voted in across-the-board one-at-28” regs, and Massachusetts’ unilateral vote for same, I can’t imagine RI passing the mode-split option. At the February meeting, ASMFC noted that regulatory equity among states is a priority—that granting one state what many in the angling public view as a two-fish “sweetheart deal” for its party/charter fleet would give that state an undue advantage over neighboring states. The current down-trends in striper stocks warrant sacrifices by all striper- catching states, many argue. In the end, I see the mode split concept as a key to safeguarding the future of the for-hire fishing industry—charter fishing is not, after all, “recreation” for captains or crews, but rather a livelihood dependent on access to fish stocks.
Over five years, for-hire striper landings average around 15% of RI’s annual rec striper landings. Giving an industry that contributes so much economic value to coastal communities—and, more to the point, an industry that’s already in serious financial jeopardy thanks to skyrocketing overhead and major regulatory constrictions in other fisheries—greater flexibility (with the accountability of electronic, real- time catch reporting) to at least steer into its future makes sense.
With that said, I’m not altogether sure it’s sense (read: reason) that’s driving current striper decision- making; the emotional charge has been, from the outset, off the charts, and there’s a pretty strong feeling that we—all rod-and-reel stripermen— need to take a symbolic stance for bass conservation. I have also observed a pretty large contingent of sportfishermen hanging three years of RI striper ills around the neck of the charter fleet. But that is a topic for another day: Meantime, I’m afraid the mode split alternative has become politically toxic.
I sense that state and ASMFC regulators fear the possible repercussions of passing a mode split, then coming up short against the one-year, 25% reduction mandate. Although the conservation equivalency options all met that minimum standard, there’s a widely- held perception that the two-fish charter plan would actually liberalize regulations, and I doubt anyone at DEM wants to have been on watch when the 2015 regs failed. All this is a long way of saying I’d be shocked if the state passed the 1@28”/2@32” measure. I’m going to say it’s probably safe to assume we can expect 1@28” for RI in 2015. But don’t take my word for it: visit www.dem.ri.us/programs/bunatres, and search for “striped bass recreational 2015” and see what you find there.
