GAMEFISH, BUT FOR THE RIGHT REASONS
An honest look at why striped bass is not a gamefish?
By Capt. John McMurray
Bass have become, in terms of pounds landed, the most important recreationally caught fish in the nation.
However,
commercial interests have been very successful in convincing policymakers that the
gamefish movement is nothing more than an effort to shift harvest from commercial to recreational fishers, and exchange the current commercial harvest for a larger recreational kill.
The commercials' arguments are supported by the actions of the State of New Jersey, which banned commercial harvest but permits anglers a
third bonus fish. in addition to the two bass permitted anglers under ASMFC's Interstate Striped Bass Management Plan. Spokesmen for the New Jersey angling community justify the increased recreational kill by asserting that the
commercial quota has to be netted out to the state's anglers in order to prevent it from being returned to the coastal commercial pool, and further excuse their state's regulations by claiming that fewer fish are killed under the bonus plan than would be harvested if a commercial fishery still existed in New Jersey.
I. However, even a casual reading of the management plan reveals that there is no "coastal commercial pool".
** Commercial allocation is calculated on a state-by-state basis, and there is no provision for one state's unused commercial harvest to be reallocated elsewhere. Thus, the commercials have successfully convinced decision-makers thus far that sportsmen want to hog the fish for themselves and deny a traditional fishing industry its livelihood.
II. Current sources of striped bass
mortality also confound gamefish proponents.
1. Anglers kill more than three times as many striped bass than do commercial fishers.
2. The mortality attributed to catch-and-release fishing alone nearly doubles the total commercial harvest. Furthermore, angling-related mortality continues to increase as new anglers enter the sport. It makes no sense to shift the allocation to the people already doing the most damage to the resource notes Cape Cod commercial John Rice.
Efforts to justify gamefish status based on economic considerations also appear to be based on shaky ground.
Perhaps Burns is right, but it is clear that
economic arguments do not yet provide a clear path to gamefish status.
So, is a coast-wide gamefish for striped bass a non-starter? Not necessarily. Based on the most recent stock assessment,
1. overall fishing mortality of striped bass exceeds the target mortality level by nearly 35%,
2. and hovers just below the overfishing threshold.
3. The same assessment shows that the larger, older fish are under too much pressure.
**Many experienced striped bass anglers are noting a decline in the number of large fish, a sentiment echoed in Stripers Forever's 2006 survey of its members.
Reducing mortality, particularly on older fish, should be a management goal. ...However, such action is
only justifiable if the former commercial harvest is
used to increase the population, and not merely transferred to recreational landings as it is in New Jersey.
A coastal gamefish law would
1. further eliminate some bycatch-prone commercial gear such as gillnets
2. and would stop the practice of discarding smaller, dead fish in favor of larger ones ("highgrading") in order to maximize profit.
3. It would also quell a rampant black market in illegally harvested striped bass.
Thus,
decommercialization is valuable not because it will permit a bigger recreational kill, but because it is the
A. surest way to reduce overall striped bass mortality,
B. increase the spawning stock,
C. better assure the long-term health of the striped bass fishery
D. and better represent the long term interests of the general public.
However, merely replacing commercial harvest with recreational harvest fails to achieve such goals. Efforts to do so harm anglers' credibility with fishery managers and deals commercial interests a winning hand. Until the gamefish movement realizes that, we will more than likely never see a coast-wide gamefish bill.
http://www.nycflyfishing.com/Gamefis...%20Reasons.htm