"MA State Director Paul Diodati told his fellow commissioners that one didn't need to be a fishery scientist to see what has happened to striped bass. They simply weren't there in the numbers that they had been, and that when he looked at the current data, it was apparent to him that action should have been taken to reduce harvest years ago.

In fairness to the managers, the data keeps changing and the statistics didn't look as bad years ago as they really were. Under the new "models" that are supposed to more accurately estimate the population, the true condition of the fishery is now thought to be more accurately reflected, and it is not a pretty picture.

Fishermen's reports, which are referred to as "anecdotal data", have displayed warning signs for the last 7 or 8 seasons, so it turns out that they were more accurate than the scientific data.

 Diodati suggested an immediate 40% cut across the board for the 2014 season - just the kind of sensible thing that our members would agree should have been done, but his recommendation failed.

There was substantial pushback to Diodati's proposal, mostly from commercial fishing states, but even from some recreational commissioners, who in our view hold the outdated view that people value harvest more than conservation. They wanted to go more slowly and look at the matter again in subsequent meetings. That is the scenario that has played itself out in the last two meetings. The ASMFC Management Board gave the can a gentle kick down the road by asking the scientists to come up with some options to reduce harvest by about 31% beginning in 2015 - a calculation designed to keep the spawning stock biomass from slipping into the overfished category. This ignored the scientists having told them that a 31% cut would not be enough."






And there you have it. Commercial interests win out over anecdotal data. Unbelievable.