February 27, 2016 — HYANNIS — To fishermen, black sea bass appear to be everywhere.
“There are more sea bass around than forever,” said Bob DeCosta, owner of Albacore Charters and chairman of the Nantucket Board of Selectmen, during a public hearing Friday on quotas for the species. “We didn’t catch any sea bass when my father was fishing.”
In part the increased numbers are because black sea bass, a staple in Mid-Atlantic states, are now moving north as the rapidly warming ocean becomes more hospitable to the species. At the same time, the population has recovered from historic low population levels in 1999 to historic high amounts of spawning fish by 2004, the date of the last comprehensive stock assessment.
But fishermen are being penalized with a 23 percent cut this year because they exceeded their quota last year by 33 percent, or 762,000 pounds. The state Division of Marine Fisheries aired 14 different options on how to accomplish that at Friday’s hearing at the Double Tree by Hilton Hotel. Combinations of a shortened season with higher daily trip limits or longer seasons with a smaller daily limit, and other permutations were intended to address the concerns of various ports, fishing operations and the individual recreational fisherman.
State regulators said they are constrained by what the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission will allow.
Because the majority of the fish were caught in the early portion of the season, in May and June, state officials want to apply the brakes from the start with measures that allow between two and eight fish per person per trip. Still, no one in the room of about 70 fishermen was happy with a reduction far below the eight to 20 fish allowed in 2014 and as many as 20 per trip in 2013.
“We’re trying to stay in business,” said Gov Allen, captain of the Hyannis-based charter boat Lori-Ann. “Right now, we are on the precipice. We are losing everything.”
Allen has seen 50 percent of his business eroded this year as charter boat customers — who would normally spend thousands apiece to travel from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and as far away as South Carolina and Florida to board his boat and catch and freeze dozens of sea bass a day — informed him it wasn’t worth the trip if they could only keep a handful.
“The stocks are in a healthy condition,” said Jimmy Koutalakis of the charter boat On Time.
He held up a sheaf of letters from clients who were canceling, reading one from a Canadian client who said it was too far to travel and too much money to spend for a handful of fish a day.