Speak Up TODAY on Striped Bass Management

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission released a draft amendment that could change the way the Atlantic Striped Bass fishery is managed.

by OTW Staff

 

DEADLINE: Friday, April 15, 2022 at 11:59pm!

Attention all striped bass anglers: The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) is asking for input from anglers on a variety of topics impacting how stripers are managed.

At this point, you have two options:

1) Send a personalized email to comments@asmfc.org with the subject line “Amendment 7”

2) Sign on to a form letter like the one composed by Keep America Fishing.

 

Personalized emails are considered the most meaningful way to provide input. Unfortunately, the document “Atlantic Striped Bass Draft Amendment 7” is a dense 149 pages. The American Sportfishing Association has created a guide to help you formulate your comments. The American Saltwater Guides Association has also created resources to guide your comments. If you’re overwhelmed by the technical options, it’s OK to provide general input – for example, if you would like to see management rebuild the striped bass population quickly while preventing them from becoming overfished again – put that in an email. Be sure to include a few sentences explaining who you are and why you care about striped bass.

If you don’t have the time to send a personalized email, the next best thing you can do is sign on to a form letter. Keep America Fishing has drafted a sample letter you can send directly to the ASMFC. Taking action will help ensure the future of the Atlantic striped bass population and its fishery. Click the “Action Alert” button to send a message to the ASMFC today!

60 on “Speak Up TODAY on Striped Bass Management”

  1. Warren

    Put the legal keeper size back to 36″, for All states. It worked well before

    1. Cape

      I agree 100%
      Keeper size 36”
      It brought back the stock, so what’s the problem?
      Oh yea money! Lining up pockets…….

      1. Ron S.

        It’s the bigger and older fish that are the spawners… we need to keep them in the stock. Slot sizes like 28″ to less than 35″ seem to work and those sizes could be adjusted to favor the larger end. That way these fish could spawn at least once, and maybe two or three times. . Possibly a one time ‘trophy tag’ for the fish of a lifetime?

  2. Eric L. Werner

    That statement is not correct with todays numbers of fisherman, survival rates of released fish and the poiltics involved that has nothing to do with following the science.

    1. Cape

      Ok 36” one fish
      How does that not work!
      Stop with the tread follow the science. Use your brain think with common sense
      Lol survival rate if your worries about survival rate stop looking to hook schoolies for sport or just stop fishing all together. If your that worried.

  3. Frederick creager

    Make fishing in the cape cod canal catch and release only.

    1. Steve Valois

      Ban the use of treble hooks! Single in-line hooks only. Major impact on fish mortality, in my opinion.

  5. John schmidt

    Close the commercial season all together and perhaps. A tag for one over thirty five inch limit while keeping the current regulations.

    1. Steve Valois

      CLOSE Commercial Fishing for Striped Bass. Monitor to regulate and minimize Striped Bass as bycatch.

      1. Tucker Henderson

        I need to make money. Everyone saying ban commercial fishing is goofy. Assuming your all liberal office job, weekend fisherman who are afraid of a little blood. Kind of funny how you think you can do that. What if we whipped out all office jobs? You’d be over your head in debt and have no form of income aside from your partner if you’re lucky. Unbelievable

      2. ED

        Tucker,
        Were you drunk when you wrote your speil?

  6. Vince

    I agree that Keeper size should be up to 36”; it’s the most reasonable solution than having fishermen jump through stupid hoops.

  7. Ken. D.

    How about just making them a game fish. Catch and Release only. Better eating fish to choose from anyway.

  8. J williams

    Since the rec sector accounts for 90% of striper harvest , the rec sector should bear the brunt of any harvest reductions

  9. Rich

    Shut it down for a season and let them breed. Do this on the entire east coast. No one is gonna die because they didn’t catch a bass in the summer. Have fishermen target other species in the area. You can even rotate the moratorium between multiple species to allow a natural restocking every 5 years or so.

    1. Dan s

      Agreed close down striper fishing for the breeding season and target other fish to have all fisherman happy .

  10. Andy

    Ban commercial harvest and declare them a game fish worked wonders down south to bring back the redfish.

  11. Andy Forgit

    Shut down the commercial fishing, enforce current regs by adding more Marine Warden’s @ boat launches and harbors. Fine the crap out of poachers and take ALL their gear. (1) fish per day in a 28″-32″ slot from Maine to Virginia.

  12. SJS

    This is a joke. I have been fishing for fifty years, and in that time virtually every species has crashed. Now even bluefish have become rare. So the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is gong to save the day? Them passing any new regs. is like the gun control laws in Chicago. Worthless, unless it is strictly enforced. But it wont be.
    To be serious about saving bass, make bait fishing illegal. Use single barbless hooks on all lures. And catch and release only, like many streams in New England. Then enforce it. But none of that will happen, and everyone attending this meeting will be so impressed by all the research the literature the ASMFC will trot out. And bass and blues will go the way of the flounder, weakfish, and cod.

    1. Tucker Henderson

      I agree with the first part. Nothing will be strictly regulated and like you use Chicago for example criminals will be criminals. BUT… I am a commercial fisherman for striped bass and bluefin. If we make the fish strickly sport I will not make a living and have no sustainability.

  13. Luis

    Designate as s game fish close commercial fishing it’s only stupid to allow the harvest of the bigger females with the best genetics and amounts of eggs , as long as it’s allowed to be sold at fish markets it will never recover.

  14. Walleye

    Being a fly/LT guide I have noticed the current plan is working well. Protecting damage to schoolies by crushing down barbs is a good practice also. Tight lines.

  15. bob m

    36″ – one fish daily. Ban Commercial harvest. Barbless Hooks , Circle Hooks only with bait
    Enforce and prosecute poachers.
    So much to expect in these times difficult to read these and not be pessimistic…..

  16. Joe

    Keep current slot one fish a day 28-35. Saving 36+ for breeding is the quickest solution to replenishing the stock. : Lower overall quota for commercial fishing and or lower the commercial limit per day: Restrict/Limit Stripers caught as bycatch. Having to discard bass caught in nets seems to me the biggest waist of a God given resource.

  17. Dick Alley

    I am 86 years old, started working on striped bass conservation in the 1960s along with Bob Pond, Art Glowka, Rod Vanderveer, Pat Carroll, and many others. The Striped Bass Fund, Hudson River Fishermen’s Organization, ASMFC and others have held countless meetings to make bass fishing better. Bass were more plentiful but so were bass anglers. Bass had a 16-inch length limit, no creel limit when I started and since then we have seen total bans, 36″, 38″ slot limits and two fish per day, while commercial fishermen continue to rake in the big bucks. The beat goes on. Someday, maybe we will get it right but if recreational limits were the answer, the fishery would have bounced back a long time ago. There was a time when I wrote thousands of words dedicated to striped bass conservation. Then the print market went the way of the internet. Sorry, I am too old to fight any more. Best of luck to the young warriors of today.

  18. Tucker Henderson

    If keeper size is 36″ for recreational then what will they make commercial? This is how I make a living I cant casually catch over 50’s every day.

  19. Edward Manriquez

    When I was a kid you could catch all you wanted then yet where gone put in strict limits and they came back I saw that work in my lifetime let them recover then start a sensible limit program I saw the charter boats in MTK come back to the dock 2 times a day with cart fulls of beautiful cows that’s a crime nobody needs 50 pound of bass for their freezer stop that and you can start to make a difference

  20. Chuck

    One fish over 36 the canal is no different then fishing a breachway however on a breachway stripers weren’t meant to do three forward flips followed by a flop on the side and when you say something better be able to fight lol and I am ,I don’t know about other states but ri has fish traps so close to land it’s stupid and the draggers seem to come in as close as they like…back in early nineties I wrote American litorial society and stated that we should make it one fish 36 inch’s up and down east coast but was told couldn’t do that well here we are 30 years later to bad didn’t do something then mass n rhody did!! Between hands in the gill plates and stripers being Arial acrobats nothing will matter until people learn how to handle fish ….just a thought!,,,

  21. Danny McKearney

    Thanks for everything you have done over the years Dick to help the striped bass stocks…I started fishing for bass in the sixties and remember all the regulations you mentioned…wished I had the answer…still have one of my Save our Stripers bumper stickers !!!!

  22. SJS

    Let the commercial guys make a living. But they have to be strictly regulated. If not, the striped bass commercial fleets will follow the cod fleets into bankruptcy.
    And all catch and release for recreational. Single barbless hooks. If you need six to nine barbed hooks on a lure to feel comfortable you should not be fishing. Truly make it a sport. We have to change the way we think. If not, it’s over.

    1. JG

      I second what SJS offered to this chat. I would add to increase the price on Recreational licenses and increase the penalty for poaching. No tolerance for this.

  23. ScottyJ

    Everyone saying to ban commercial fishing clearly does not pay attention to the numbers. The amount of dead loss from recreational fishing is 2 times the amount of fish sold commercially. That’s why we have quotas. Stop whining about us commercial guys and learn how to handle the fish. In my opinion the measures we are taking now are definitely working. I have been fishing for 30 years and the numbers of fish I have been seeing in Mass waters have been alot higher over the last few years. We do need to enforce the rules better. There is alot of poaching going on and alot of over and under size slot fish being kept and those people couldn’t care less about the stock

  24. Thomas Lemist

    Why is commercial allowed to keep plus 35” fish. If the true reason is for spawning both parties should have to follow the slot rule. Obviously commercial would be able to keep more fish still, but following the science or just make it 36” again.

  25. Jason

    Last year was some of the best Striper fishing I’ve seen in RI in over a decade. The new measures from last year helped. Also, it needs to be about protecting their food source. Commercial boats are wiping them out and the fish disappear. I have seen it with my own 2 eyes. Huge net boats circling in a small bay 7 days a week.

  26. greg veprek

    In mass, the commercial fisherman, is the charter fisherman, is the recreational fisherman. It is all the same boats fishing under 2 or 3 different hats. The commercial fishery allows the last of the ego fishing, killing big fish and throwing up on Facebook (I was one of them). The real solution is a free market purchase of tags. Set a quota for tags, and each charter captain, commercial handliner, and the rec guy buy what he thinks he needs . You would be surprised how fast conservation kicks in and guys drop out of commercial facebook bass fishery. The money could go to enforcement. Ban treble hooks and barbs (they are what really do the damage).

  27. JeffPeikin

    Why is it so difficult. Didn’t we already go through this?

  28. Joe

    Enough with regulation. Let people fish and keep what they want to. If they are not endangered for Native Americans then they arent endangered for the rest of us.

  29. William Gombos

    great points all around. My two cents…
    1. eliminate targeting stripers before and during the spawn. Hudson, Raritan bay, Chesapeake, housatonic all of them…
    2. make stripers a sports game fish like tarpon. eliminate the commercial harvest completly.
    3. stricter enforcement on bunker by commercial guys.
    4. more enforcement with bigger penalties. lose of license, gear, and boat till a big fine is paid.

  30. Gary Morrissette

    I’m also a fly/LT angler. I would prefer to see Stripers become a sportfish. We don’t have a “Tarpon” here in the northeast. In respect for the commercial guy’s, couldn’t you change your business model to chartering customers, and this way you protect your stocks to stay in business year after year. Just a thought.

  31. Tom B.

    The Hudson R. has a very protective slot…can only harvest fish 18-28 inches with 1 fish daily limit. The ocean fishery is where the majority of the recreational pressure/harvest is occurring and stripers spend the majority of time in these coastal waters, available for harvest. That’s where we need more stringent regs. Also once the commercial quota is met for SB, non-directed commercial fisheries continue to harvest stripers as by-catch. The Chesapeake has a minimum size limit of 19 inches for a majority of the season. HR stocks don’t recognize boundaries and are harvested elsewhere. Lots of these areas need enhanced/enforced regs to improve SB stocks.

  32. Scott A. Stebbins

    Recreational regulation is apparently not a fix. Decades of it have done little. Regulations create poachers, fines and confiscation of gear, etc. only hurting low-income people. Applying a capitalist point of view toward a resource ensures its eventual destruction. If your life and lively hood depend on striper fishing the fishery will suffer. IMOP, 1 small striper a day per person to eat, nobody needs more fish than that.

  34. Dave B.

    I enjoy the spring run, but I think it would be helpful to not be able to harvest
    any Striper until after they spawn for at least 2 years or what ever it takes.
    I think I remember when a keeper in the Delaware River had to be 38″.

  35. Dave B.

    I enjoy the spring run, but I think it would be helpful to not be able to harvest
    any Striper until after they spawn for at least 2 years or what ever it takes.

    .

  36. Dave B.

    I think it would be helpful to not be able to harvest
    any Striper until after they spawn for at least 2 years or what ever it takes.

    .

  37. Striper 101

    Regarding commercial fishing for stripers in MA the differed problem is because of the rules the commercial fishery targets the brood stock. It is plain and simple, if you want the fish to make a comeback protect the brood stock. I don’t need a 150 page report to tell me that.

  38. Vince

    Let’s put a yearly bounty/harvest on Seals! Striped Bass Problem solved!

  39. Steven Brum

    Seals are a big problem. People in government seem to avoid this “As a Huge problem.” Open up a new market for seal meat. Cull these herds down to a sustainable level. Get the seals required daily fish needs from Sea world . Oh never mind… forget that data. Makes too much sense. Doesn’t go with the narrative of what one of the major causes of their decline may be .

  41. Bobber

    one very simple solution to help…… is to stop the allowance of fishing of rivers during the spring spawning runs ex Hudson river .
    fish are killed before they can even breed , this is the most contradictory things we allow to happen… just shut it down nationally.

  42. Jt

    What about the trawlers and draggers those M.F. kers literally rape oceans of predators and prey the “by catch” they kill when there trying to catch the “targeted” species is unholy. Yet how close are they allowed to travel in our coastal waters?

  43. Michael Binder

    How about just 1 keeper, regardless of size – because at some point your going to gut hook one, and its likely to be a schoolie which 90% of them are. I catch and release, but if I could keep the occasional one that isn’t going to make it that would be ideal. Cheaters are still going to cheat no matter what the regulation may be.

  45. SJS

    Can’t make it up. Lets kill seals because to survive they eat the fish we want to go out and play with.
    Really?
    How about getting a little creative and figuring a new system so over half of all commercially caught fish are not dumpstered.
    Or maybe not practice catch, kill, and release, by sticking your hand in a fishes gills to carry him, or squeezing the fishes stomach severely injuring it’s internal organs.
    Maybe single barb-less hooks on lures, so released fish aren’t tasked with swimming forever in a circle cause of a missing eye.
    Maybe outlawing bait-fishing for stripers, since after being gut-hooked catch and release is moot.
    Maybe demanding our DEC actually enforce the law, heavily fine violators, and confiscate their equipment.
    Maybe demand the ASMFC do something for their paychecks, since in the 70 years they have been getting paid to ensure the sustainability of 29 inshore fish species every one has tanked.
    Nah. Screw all that. Lets just kill seals, sharks, big bluefish, or anything else that naturally eats striped bass.

  46. Ed

    Maybe demand the ASMFC do something for their paychecks, since in the 70 years they have been getting paid to ensure the sustainability of 29 inshore fish species every one has tanked.

    Well said SJS!

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