Rockfish regulators are preparing additional striped bass season cuts

At a meeting in Annapolis, fisheries managers from 15 East Coast states sought a cure for the diminishing object of their affection, greed and anger.

What to do with sea bass?

Six years of frighteningly low levels figures in the Chesapeake Bay — where 75% of the fish, also called striped bass, spawn before heading to the Atlantic Ocean — and a year after new restrictions on recreational and commercial catch were imposed in hopes of a recovery, the science was unclear.

For six hours Wednesday, the Atlantic Striped Bass Board of Directors studied histograms and fever charts projected on conference room screens and listened as scientists explained what they meant. The expected rebound did not happen.

“The technical committee is really struggling to predict what (the fish population) will be in 2025,” said Gary Nelson, Ph.D. from Massachusetts, who led this year’s grouper population assessment.

Please, the fishing community has asked, no more cuts. Protect the struggling charter industry.

“We know that at least 52 of these boats are for sale and their businesses have closed,” said Mike Smolek, captain of the Penny Sue in Edgewater and president of the Upper Bay Charter Association.

“It’s all the fault of the recreational fishermen,” thundered one board member. Protect the landlubbers who love a good fried sea bass sandwich.

“They don’t have a boat, but they appreciate the taste of rockfish from time to time,” said Robert T. Brown, president of the Maryland Watermen’s Association. “And we provide it to them.”

Wait to take further action, another warned, and it may be too late.

Protect redfish, now.

“We don’t have much time,” said David Sikorski, executive director of the Coastal Conservation Association.

Ultimately, a majority of the board members of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission agreed. They voted to hold a special session in December and decide on the cuts.

By then, technicians hope to have a better understanding of what’s happening in Chesapeake and Atlantic waters. Options for 2025 include changing the season, catch limits and size limits – or some combination of all three – to reduce the cultural and economic benchmark catch by about 15%.

“This is a very important species not only in the Chesapeake Bay but on the East Coast,” said Allison Moulden, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Maryland.

The goal of the commission, which puts more effort into managing striped bass than any other species, is to ensure there are enough of them by 2029. Now the probability of achieving this goal is only 50%.

“Most of us who came to this meeting expected some action,” Mogden said.

Everyone has their favorite explanation for why juvenile fish studies in Maryland and Virginia, conducted by harvesting minnow-sized stripers from spawning ponds, are so abysmal. The last six years have been among the lowest in 66 years of record.

Things are even worse in other states. North Carolina hasn’t seen strippers in its Pamlico Sound in a decade. New Jersey stopped surveying seven years ago.

Climate change may be causing Chesapeake waters to warm and worsening the survival of sea bass eggs. This may be due to the lack of menhaden, the tiny herring that bass find delicious and which is being taken out of the bay by commercial fisheries in Virginia.

Perhaps pollution is to blame. Maryland drivers point fingers at leaking sewer treatment plants in Baltimore or the release of spring floodwaters from Pennsylvania through the Conowingo Dam.

It’s possible that predators eat all of these yearlings before they grow large enough to swim across the ocean and eventually return to breed. Mermen blame this on the return of hungry dolphins to the middle bay, the appearance of even hungrier blue catfish and even more voracious double-crested cormorants.

“The number of cormorants was so great that I had to rebuild my dock twice and the trees were devastated by their nesting,” said Rob Newberry, chairman of the Delmarva Fishing Association and a charter boat captain on Kent Island.

The science, however, is clear on at least one thing.

Perch are being overfished despite reductions in catches and even a ban in the 1980s. More were removed than received. Recovery from this – if it can happen at all – will take years.

And unfortunately for many, that means less fishing.

“It’s up to you to look at the numbers and the data and decide what level of risk you’re willing to accept,” Kathy Drew, head of the commission’s reserve assessment team, told the board.

The commissioners and their technical experts try to understand rockfish using science steeped in common wisdom and economics.

It’s not easy. It is impossible to count the number of fish in the sea; you make predictions of total biomass based on surveys and catch records. There were 191 million pounds of female fish large enough to spawn in 2023, well below the goal of 247 million.

Improving these metrics by changing various factors can seem like a guessing game.

About 40% of fish caught and released by recreational fishermen die. Maryland and other states require the use of circle hooks, which are considered less likely than a traditional J-hook to catch a sea bass by the belly and cause its death.

Just science doesn’t show it works.

“Well, that’s disappointing,” said one board member.

Are you changing the size limits for fish caught in the Atlantic? Or are you focused on the Chesapeake? If you reduce the number of days anglers can fish for bass, will that be enough? Does it make sense to protect big fish, small fish, or something in between?

“When considering how management might respond, the board should consider its risk tolerance and the level of risk the board is willing to accept as a management decision,” said Nelson, the sea bass scientist.

A December decision poses a greater risk than a decision made in February at the next regular board meeting.

Maryland’s 2025 bass season begins in March, and getting the paperwork done or reworked in a timely manner will be a daunting task for state regulators.

Until the board makes a decision, everyone is waiting.

And sea bass, always a tricky fish, is becoming increasingly difficult to find.

“Things are changing,” said Mason Hallock, who started charter fishing with his father and just bought a Bay Hunter II in Edgewater. “They showed up earlier than usual. They didn’t usually like June. They have been here since the beginning of May.

“We’re catching, you know, some here, some there, but they weren’t in school like they usually are.”