The following was released by the Commercial Anglers Association of Massachusetts:
BOSTON – August 25, 2011 – The 2011 Massachusetts commercial Striped Bass fishery has just completed another successful season. The State Division of Marine Fisheries called for the 2011 fishery to close as of August 10th, anticipating that our commercial quota of 1,061,898 pounds would likely be met by that time.
As of Thursday August 18th 1,062,925 pounds had been reported as landed. This is 100.1% of the quota. The landed amount should increase by a small figure over the next few days as the remaining dealer’s reports are received.
This performance by the commercial fishery was achieved in a particularly short period of time—18 fishing days, spread out over six weeks. Last year the quota was caught, by comparison, in 24 fishing days.
The celerity with which the quota was met suggests a high availability of keeper-sized fish. Cape Cod waters have reportedly been the locus of the preponderance of the fish caught, with the largest concentration of fish found off of Chatham.
The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries at present has not much more than the above for preliminary statistics on the 2011 fishery. But, we can report that with the commercial fishery now closed for 2011 there are large schools of Bass present and available exclusively for the sport fishery for the rest of the year.
Veteran spotter pilot Ralph Pratt, making flights daily for Giant Blue-fin Tuna, continues to see schools of Bass on the Back Side of Cape Cod (Provincetown to the Golf Balls in the Truro Highlands area) mostly in the morning inside the lobster gear. The Southern edge of “Middlebank” (synonym for Stellwagen Bank ) from the Southwest Corner to the Southeast Corner has schools of Bass over the entire region, often in the same area frequented by whales. (The Stellwagen Bank Bass are in the Exclusive Economic Zone, and as such are off-limits to retention by all fishermen due to an Executive Proclamation deriving from the George Bush Administration.)
Flying from the Golf Balls back into Cape Cod Bay Ralph has seen Bass from the cottages to the Wood End Buoy.
Spotter pilot George Breen, flying South of the Golf Ball area, has seen very few Bass in close to shore, possibly repelled by the presence of a large seal population there. But he reports that the fleet more than a mile off the beach has had an abundance of Bass to fish on.
Capt. Bob Luce, of Harwich, reports that post-commercial season there are 200 boats fishing in his area. His charter clients are averaging 20 fish per trip brought to the boat each trip (he allows one per angler to take home). Bass are present in abundance between Chatham and Nauset, and in other areas.
North Shore fish reportedly are off-shore feeding on Mackerel and there have been few reported to us caught in the Merrimac River. Of the fish taken in and near the Merrimac, one angler reports a higher incidence of bite marks apparently from seals than he has seen in past years. This may account for the resource ranging further off-shore lately.
The most recent coast-wide stock assessment for the resource was done in 2009 by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (they are done bi-annually). Although there has recently been a decline in the stock status from its peak in 2004 (70.8 million fish), the ASMFC reports that the resource is neither over-fished nor is experiencing over-fishing.
Since 1982 the Striped Bass population has increased from less than 9 million fish to the current 52.8 million fish.
The female spawning stock biomass at the time of the restoration (1996) was 14,500 metric tons and has most recently (2008) been estimated at 55,500 metric tons.
Here in Massachusetts, since the resource was declared restored coast-wide in 1995 by the ASMFC, the recreational fishery landings have expanded from 1,504,390 pounds (1995) to 5,516,183 pounds (2009).
In short, when measured from the top down, the resource in recent years shows a decline in young fish and a decline in catch per-unit-effort; but when measured from the bottom up the resource manifests itself to be healthy and at an historically high level.
Calls for a ban on the sale of Striped Bass as a conservation measure are absurd when one considers that the commercial fishery is a fraction of the size of the recreational fishery: it constitutes 20% of the harvest; the recreational fishery 80% (2009 assessment).
In numbers of fish harvested, the comparison is as follows (2009 assessment—the most recent):
Commercial harvest: 59,258 fish (15%); the recreational: 336,470 (85%).
If curtailments in harvest are warranted, it is surely the recreational fishery having vaulted ahead of the commercial fishery in recent years, rather than the commercial fishery, that would be due for a reduction. This disparity in the two fisheries was not supposed to have developed under the coast-wide management plan. Both fisheries over-fished in the 1970s, and both sacrificed equally to restore the stock. At present there is no parity, with the recreational fishery responsible for the bulk of the over-all mortality, and the commercial fishery coming in as a very distant second.
Both fisheries, however, remain subject to a coast-wide management plan that mandates only biologically-permissible mortality rates, and triggers a reduction in coast-wide harvests if they are warranted by what has proven to be an eminently successful plan.