A Little Help for Rockfish
You’ll hear the same story from most anyone who fishes recreationally for rockfish (aka striped bass) in Chesapeake Bay along the Atlantic Coast: There are not nearly as many fish today as there were 10 years ago.
Science agrees. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission — whose task it is to manage the striped bass population — conducted a benchmark stock assessment in 2012. It found that the total population of striped bass has fallen some 30 percent since 2003 with the numbers of spawning age females at a dangerously low level.
Technically, over-fishing had not yet occurred, the commission allowed, but it was coming.
On Halloween, fisheries managers from coastal states from Maine to North Carolina met in a 10-hour marathon at Commission headquarters in Mystic, Connecticut. Included were Chesapeake states — Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and Washington, D.C., and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission.
The managers heeded recommendations from recreational fishermen along the Northeast Coast (where catches have fallen as much as 80 percent) and the Chesapeake. The result: recreational and commercial Atlantic Coast harvests were cut by 25 percent; Chesapeake Bay recreational and commercial harvests by 20.5 percent.
This landmark decision bodes well for the future of our rockfish.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission succeeded where states have failed. Bay jurisdiction efforts to make smaller reductions in much smaller increments were rejected by the other states’ fishery representatives.
In Maryland recreational fishing, Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Service director Tom O’Connell expects the 2015 Chesapeake Bay Trophy Season minimum size regulations to increase from 28 to 36 inches, still one fish per angler. The season is anticipated to open, as before, on the third Saturday in April and continue to May 15.
The regular recreational rockfish season for the Bay will also remain the same: May 16 through December 15. But the minimum size is planned to increase from 18 to 20 inches.
On the commercial side, the Chesapeake Bay quota for rockfish will drop to 1.471 million pounds (down from 1.925 million pounds). The minimum size for the commercial fishery is expected to remain 18 inches.
Atlantic Coast recreational fishery limits will drop from two fish to one; minimum size remains 28 inches. If the plans works, the species could be declared recovered in two years.