Recent emergency regulations from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources have canceled the striped bass trophy season in 2024, affecting the Maryland portion of Chesapeake Bay. Currently, anglers can continue to catch-and-release fish for striped bass in Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries until the end of March. From April 1 to May 15, fishing for striped bass is now prohibited.

The changes, approved by the Maryland General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive, and Legislative Review, were made to bolster striped bass spawning populations. Chesapeake Bay is a crucial spawning and nursery area for 70 to 90 percent of Atlantic Coast striped bass, so the emergency measures aim to safeguard mature fish during their spring spawning migration.

More Striped Bass Changes

These Maryland-specific actions are in addition to coast-wide recreational measures set by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC). In January, ASMFC approved an addendum (PDF) to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass that aims to reduce fishing mortality in 2024. For Chesapeake Bay anglers — which includes charter boats — the addendum implements a 19- to 24-inch slot limit and a bag limit of one fish per person, per day. For anglers fishing in the ocean, the addendum implements a 28- to 31-inch slot limit and a coast-wide daily bag limit of one fish.

What Caused the Emergency Striper Closures?

To be blunt, five years of below average spawning success for striped bass has been disastrous. In 2023, Maryland’s annual striped bass young-of-year index had a value of 1.0. That’s significantly lower than the long-term average of 11.1. This key index measures reproductive success. Unfavorable environmental conditions, such as warm winters and low water flows, were identified as contributing factors to the decreased spawning rates.

“The recent recruitment numbers of juvenile striped bass show that additional management efforts are necessary to protect the overall population,” said Lynn Waller Fegley, Maryland’s DNR Fishing and Boating Services Director.

The repercussions of these lowly spawns are expected to really show in the adult striped bass population over the next few years, as the juveniles mature, leading to reduced abundance of legal-sized fish. A comprehensive striped bass stock assessment is scheduled to be released in 2024 to determine how the species responded to previous management actions made by Maryland and other coastal states.

What’s the Future Hold?

Don’t be surprised if the emergency trophy season closure becomes an annual occurrence. Maryland is considering establishing these new rules permanently. In past years, the striped bass trophy season has taken place during the first two weeks of May. This is when large female striped bass typically make their way up the Chesapeake Bay to spawn in the same rivers where they hatched.

Maryland is also considering extending the recreational and charter boat summer closure by an extra week — from July 16 to Aug. 7 — and closing the commercial hook-and-line season during the recreational and charter boat summer closure. Data show this period is the hottest part of summer when striped bass are most vulnerable to dying after being caught and released. 

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New regulations for snook fishing in Florida, effective January 1, 2024, establish nine snook management zones around the state along with seasons and slot limits for each zone. The new zones, like those established by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) for redfish in 2022, allow for a more regionalized and responsive approach to managing snook fishing in Florida’s waters, FWC officials say.

“These regions and regulations are part of our holistic management approach for Florida’s most popular inshore fisheries,” said Emily Abellera, FWC’s Public Information Specialist. “Through this approach, seven metrics are used to evaluate the snook fishery by region, which adds a holistic perspective to management decisions and allows our fisheries managers to be more responsive to regional concerns.”

Those considerations for management of snook include fishing pressure, relative abundance, habitat, stakeholder feedback, spawning potential ratio, air temperature, and harmful algal blooms in local waters. Assessments of these factors will be registered in the annual review of the fishery, which is available for each zone on the FWC’s website.

These localized annual reviews contain vital information about snook in each management zone in a brief, condensed, and graphic format. If an angler wants to know more about a local region’s fishery — possibly their home waters — these reviews are a terrific place to learn. They’re also available for redfish.

The FWC’s approach reflects the increasingly important role of habitat quality in fisheries management in contrast to the overwhelming importance of population assessments that dominated management policy in past years.

“It’s good to see FWC is managing snook through specific regions,” said Giles Murphy, owner of Stuart Angler Bait and Tackle in Martin County. His local waters of the southern Indian River Lagoon are known to produce some of Florida’s biggest snook. “In our area, the seagrass is extremely vital in our ecosystem, and it’s been dying off for 20 years. Now it’s completely gone. The redfish and seatrout fishing has suffered because of it. The snook can adapt and live through it, but that might not last forever with development increasing faster every year,” Murphy said.

The new zones will provide geographic boundaries for any urgent regulation changes caused by local conditions. In 2018, snook and redfish were declared catch-and-release only along parts of the west coast due to red tide. Extreme cold weather has also caused emergency closures to snook seasons in parts of Florida in the past.

Years ago, Ron Taylor, the snook researcher who helped guide the FWC’s snook management for decades, told me that management aimed to produce consistent numbers of all size classes of snook including slot-sized fish for anglers to keep and over-slot, trophy fish that anglers can brag about.

“Those goals haven’t changed,” Abellera, of the FWC, assured me recently. “What’s new with the holistic regional management approach is that we are judging whether our regulations are meeting those goals using more metrics, and we’re evaluating our success on a smaller scale that better reflects the anglers’ experiences,” she said.

At this time, the main change to last year’s regulations in the new management zones affect two areas on the Gulf Coast.

“For the Charlotte Harbor and Southwest snook management regions, the summer closure now includes the month of September,” said Abellera. “This is one month longer than the other Gulf Coast management regions. Extending the summer season closure provides additional protection for snook during a portion of their spawning period that overlaps with the typical occurrence of red tide in these regions.”

Snook season opens Feb. 1 in the three east coast zones (Southeast, Indian River Lagoon and Northeast) and snook season opens March 1 in the rest of Florida’s zones. Slot and catch limits remain the same. The slot limit is currently 28 to 33 inches across the state, except for the three east coast zones that have a limit of 32 inches. Check the FWC website to see descriptions of the nine zones.

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The sport and the science of sport fishing lost a hero, an advocate for science as a tool for better fisheries management in the Gulf of Mexico, and (in the best sense) a true fish nerd — Bob Shipp, who died on Jan 25.

I make the latter claim because I’m also a total fish nerd, which helps explain my friendship with Dr. Bob for more than 15 years. Besides often comparing notes with Shipp about fishes and their world, as editor-in-chief of Sport Fishing magazine, I edited a ton of content submitted by Shipp all of those years.

The scientist — who earned his PhD in biology and served for years as chair and professor of the Marine Science Department of the University of South Alabama in Mobile — was my go-to guy among a panel of Fish Facts experts who wrote for that ever-popular department in Sport Fishing. No kid in a candy store was ever more enthused than Shipp whenever I challenged him with a reader’s what-the-heck-is-this? fish photo and question.

Of course, he always knew the answer, and always promptly submitted a response in his down-home style — informative yet folksy and never pedantic. Such was his style in general, in a lab, on the docks, and on the water. I had the pleasure to fish the Gulf of Mexico a time or two with Bob, and it was evident that he rejoiced in walking the walk.

Bob wrote the authoritative Dr. Bob Shipp’s Guide to Fishes of the Gulf of Mexico, a real bible for all things piscatorial concerning the Gulf. For every species, his information included but transcended the scientific to include interesting tidbits and often amusing anecdotes by the guy who had “been there” for many species.

Shipp also authored an article in the March 2016 issue of Sport Fishing titled “The Great Gulf Red Snapper Train Wreck.” He did a remarkable job of explaining that wreckage and how we got there, during the height of federal regulations that nearly caused a revolt among Gulf anglers. His research was instrumental in disproving the theory (among some large environmental NGOs particularly) that the thousands of oil rigs in the Gulf were bad for the Gulf’s ecology, only aggregating fish such as red snapper where they could be easily overfished. His data showed that to be the nonsense it was, as he proved that juvenile red snapper flock to the thriving coral habitat covering rigs to grow and spawn. That data showed what anglers knew — that “threatened” red snapper in the Gulf were abundant and increasingly so, which he directly attributed to the astounding amount of habitat these rigs provided in an otherwise mostly barren Gulf.

In nearly every issue of Sport Fishing for many years, Shipp answered at least one inquiry submitted along with a photo in the magazine’s popular department, Fish Facts. Check out some interesting photos and IDs here. I often recognized even obscure species from the photo, but I always learned from the man’s answers.

To have known and worked with Bob Shipp was certainly a privilege.

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A jack commonly caught in Costa Rica and the Gulf of Mexico was recently landed off the coast of North Carolina. Officials at the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries established a new state record for the species: an Almaco Jack (Seriola rivoliana).  

Angler Matt Frattasio, of Massachusetts, caught the 26-pound, 15.6-ounce fast-growing fish near the D Wreck off Morehead City in early November. He was aboard Riptide Charters fishing in 80 feet of water, baiting with a live menhaden on 50-pound gear. There was no previous state record in North Carolina for almacos.

Frattasio’s fish measured 36.4 inches (fork length) and had a 26-inch girth. The fish was weighed and identified by fisheries staff at the Division of Marine Fisheries Headquarters in Morehead City. Almaco jacks are part of the Seriola genus (amberjacks) — not surprisingly, they look similar to an amberjack.

Almaco Jack or Amberjack?

Anglers can have a tough time differentiating the two. Here’s the trick: Almacos are deeper-bodied and less elongated than amberjacks. Also, check the dorsal fins. That second dorsal is higher than the first dorsal on amberjack, but it’s nearly twice as tall as the first dorsal on almaco jacks.

Record Almaco Jack Catches

In Georgia, the current state record almaco is just over 7 pounds, while Florida’s state record tops out at 35 pounds, 9 ounces. The all-tackle world record stands tall at 132 pounds, caught in 1964 in La Paz, Baja California, Mexico. Most IGFA men’s line-class records for the species hail from Costa Rica and Panama.

Still, some almaco jack world records sit completely vacant. Part of that might be because they’re misidentified or possibly it’s that anglers fast-track the great-tasting fish straight into the cooler. At least five women’s line-class records are empty, most of them for fly tackle. The All-Tackle Length fly and junior records are also wide open.

For other instances of warm-water fish catches in states farther north, check out Connecticut’s tarpon, Maryland’s barracuda, New Jersey’s king mackerel and Washington’s dorado.

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California’s state record swordfish was boated this fall by three dedicated and enthusiastic anglers. They like to think a fourth fisherman had a hand in their success, at least in spirit. Dillon Houston, Ezekiel Cruz, and Mason Karafa caught the swordfish on Oct. 27, a broadbill 68 pounds heavier than the previous California record.

They had spent the day fishing but not catching at La Jolla Canyon off San Diego. With the sun sinking in the sky, the moved to 9 Mile Bank, closer to the coast, where Houston — a co-owner of Brothers Sportfishing — last year met and became friends with Capt. Ron Ellis. A skipper from Santa Barbara who had relocated to San Diego, Ellis was lost at sea in February.

Help From a Friend

Houston, Cruz, and Karafa toasted his memory, dropped a squid-tipped hook nearly 2,000 feet, and within an hour had caught the 520-pound swordfish they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.

“We all looked at each other and said, ‘Capt. Ron had to have helped us do battle with that fish,’” Houston said.

The group fished from a 25-foot Davidson Bahia that usually sees bluefins, yellowfins, California yellowtail, mahi, and rockfish on Brothers Sportfishing charters. They only began swordfishing last year, so it’s no surprise they had never caught one this big. No one had, at least in California waters. The former state record fish weighed 452 pounds.

Using squid rigged on a J-hook and 12 pounds of lead, the group hooked up fairly quickly. After watching the rod tip intently for 10 minutes, Karafa jumped up and said, “we just got a bite,” Houston recalled. Karafa felt the rod come tight, and the 45-minute fight was on. A welder and son of a commercial swordfisherman from Chincoteague Island, Virginia, Karafa stayed on the rod throughout the fight.

They were able to unclip the sinker early in the fight, but the swordfish then sounded 900 feet (they watched it on the fishfinder). “When we got it back up, we saw it was a sword, and a big one at that,” Houston said.

The Challenges of Boating a Big Swordfish

The fish made a blistering run at the surface, then abruptly turned and charged the boat. As it thrashed near the stern and tried to spear the motor, Cruz attempted to secure it with the flying gaff, but the fiberglass pole broke on the fish’s bill and the gaff hook came out. The fish, meanwhile, got the line tangled around the motor.

Eventually the line was cleared, although the crew had to cut off three deep-drop lights to get the loop through the guides. Then, Cruz successfully gaffed the fish. Houston was at the helm and drove to the sword, the crew recovering line as they went. As they got close, it became apparent the fish was nearly finished. The flying gaff line had wrapped around the fish’s bill. With the fish expiring, “we gave it our all and it finally got it into the boat,” Houston said.

Along with all the other challenges of boating a record fish is finding a scale big enough to weigh it. Back at Dana Landing, the scale only went to 499 pounds. Phone calls were made and the group drove another half hour by boat to Chula Seafood at Driscoll Wharf, where the weight was recorded on a certified scale. The fish was processed, vacuum sealed, and split three ways, with plenty going to family and friends.

A Record Breaker

The record sword was caught on an 11/0 J-hook tipped with squid and tied to a 5-foot, 300-pound bite leader, followed by 200 feet of 100-pound mono, with 80-pound Izorline braid spooled on a Hooker Electric Shimano Tiagra 50-wide reel.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife certified the record Thanksgiving week. Big as it was, the record sword was only about half the size of the International Game Fish Association all-tackle world record. That fish, caught in Iquique, Chile, way back in 1953, weighed 1,182 pounds.

Houston noted the broken gaff, the combative fish, the tangles, and the sheer size of the fish, and marveled that the group prevailed. “It was insane, honestly,” he said. “Nothing was normal about the fish, from the start all the way to the end. If the stars didn’t align the way they did, we would have been fighting that thing all night.

“To this day, when we’re sitting having a beer, we say, ‘Thank you Capt. Ron for helping us find that fish,” he added. “We honestly think that even though he’s gone, we still feel like he’s out there. We honestly feel like if it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t have landed that fish.”

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Anglers fishing in Louisiana must follow new speckled trout regulations starting Monday, Nov. 20, 2023. The state’s past bag limit of 25 seatrout per day was shortened to 15 specks per angler, with guides and crew no longer allowed to box a limit while on a charter.

Secondly, a 12-incher is no longer a keeper. The old minimum size limit of 12 inches total length is gone, replaced with a new slot of 13 to 20 inches. Of note, two seatrout over the 20-inch max — overslot fish — can be kept as part of a daily bag limit.

“The timing probably isn’t the best, considering the number of casual anglers who fish the week [of Thanksgiving],” says Louisiana angler Todd Masson, who runs the popular Marsh Man Masson YouTube fishing channel. “We simply no longer have the population to support 25 fish at 12 inches. The change should have been made years ago, but the species is highly fecund and short-lived so the rebound should be rather quick.”

CCA Louisiana supports the new creel limit of 15 fish as a reasonable move in the spirit of conservation. “Fishery managers are quick to propose recreational creel and size limit adjustments, but recreational changes cannot be the only remedy,” said CCA Louisiana, in a statement. Other factors must be considered as part of the overall seatrout rebuilding plan, including coastwide and regional forage reduction, marine habitat and reef degradation, bycatch, fisheries restocking programs, stock evaluation protocols and programs, and ecosystem level management.

The new seatrout regulations are scheduled to sunset at midnight on Jan. 1, 2028. State scientists will provide an up-to-date stock assessment on seatrout before the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission’s April 2027 meeting. The updated assessment affords the commission the ability to modify the regulations, if needed.

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Researchers and scientists know surprisingly little about the migrations of many offshore sportfish. But with determined efforts by anglers to tag released fish for tracking, steady progress is happening in real time.

One example of fishermen-fueled research is the Dolphinfish Research Program that relies on anglers to tag mahi, but also report back captured tagged dolphinfish, with the goal to identify this gamefish’s long-distance migration routes. Over the last 16 years, 32,630 dorado were tagged and 784 were recaptured, according to the program.

Different billfish species, such as blue marlin, have also received major attention, thanks to the International Game Fish Association and supportive fishing teams.

The IGFA Great Marlin Race is a billfish research and conservation initiative that allows recreational anglers — armed with expensive satellite tag technology — to become citizen scientists and deploy tags on the billfish they catch. Each year the race takes place from Oct. 1 – Sept. 30. The winning team is decided by the tagged billfish that travels the farthest distance. But the race is just one part of it. The larger goal is for scientists, anglers, and policymakers to better understand billfish migration patterns and habitat utilization.

“The IGFA Great Marlin Race was established [in 2011] to involve the angling community in citizen science,” said IGFA President, Jason Schratwieser. “By coupling competitive spirit with conservation, we’re able to gather invaluable data that helps ensure the survival of these magnificent species. This year’s winners exemplify the heart of this program: a deep commitment to conservation and the betterment of sport fishing.”

The SAT tags deployed on marlin and sailfish transmit information to researchers at Stanford University who analyze and disseminate the data, leading to a better understanding of these incredible animals and how to better manage them. To date, the IGFA Great Marlin Race has deployed nearly 600 satellite tags on billfish around the world.

In 2023, a total of 59 satellite tags were deployed across five billfish species during 23 global tagging events. Often, these events might be billfish fishing tournaments, such as the Bermuda Triple Crown. While some tags are set to provide data for the 2023-2024 race, 29 tags surfaced during this year’s race. This year’s winner (2022-2023) was the Waste Knot fishing team, a longtime supporter of the program. The tag was deployed during the 2022 Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament, with the tag sponsored by Scott and Ven Poole of Waste Knot.

• First Place: The winning blue marlin, caught by Ven Poole and tagged by Scott Poole, traveled an impressive straight-line distance of 4,149 nautical miles from the US East Coast to the coast of Brazil. This route was this year’s longest — also the 5th longest in the program’s history and the 3rd longest for a blue marlin — with a total estimated track of 7,819 nm.
• Second Place: The runner-up, a blue marlin tagged aboard Stream Weaver during the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament and deployed by Bobby Schlegel, marked a straight distance of 2,543 nm, with an estimated total track of 3,689 nm.
• Third Place: The third place was claimed by a striped marlin tagged off New Zealand, sponsored and deployed by the crew of Trident, which traveled 1,545 nm in just 85 days.

The post Where Do Blue Marlin Go? appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

A pair of new state records have come over gunnels in the canyons off the coast of Maryland – for species that weren’t even on the books when the fish were caught. In late September, Chris Stafford of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, found himself with a rare-for-the-area species of dolphinfish; a couple weeks later, Stephen Humphrey of Elliott City, Maryland, pulled in a surprise, and sizable, barracuda.

The 52 Atlantic Ocean species on Maryland’s record list now include pompano dolphinfish and great barracuda. Neither species is unheard of in the mid-Atlantic, but typically range farther south. In the two recent cases, however, the anglers realized they had something unusual and contacted the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

“We have received reports of these two relatively rare species being caught off Ocean City in the past, but they were never properly documented or photographed for a state record,” said Erik Zlokovitz, recreational fisheries outreach coordinator for the DNR. “We are excited to add both of these new species to the Atlantic Division of the Maryland State Fishing Records program.”

New Maryland State Record Pompano Dolphinfish

Stafford was fishing from a private boat in Poor Man’s Canyon, one of more than 70 underwater valleys along the East Coast’s continental shelf, on Sept. 21. His party had caught and released a white marlin in the morning and, and later started catching dolphinfish on their trolling gear.

“There were so many we stopped and started ‘hand-feeding’ the dolphin,” using squid chunks on bare hooks, Stafford said. “They were basically swimming around a lobster pot buoy off shore. There were 50 to 100 of them swimming around the boat.”

The pompano dolphinfish was among them. Back at the dock, the fish cleaner at Bahia Marina in Ocean City noticed the difference between the pompano dolphinfish and the more common mahi. “All the local guys around the dock were saying it’s a pompano mahi and there hadn’t been one caught in Maryland waters,” Stafford said.

Zlokovitz came and confirmed the species for Stafford’s first entry in the record books. The pompano dolphinfish weighed 2 pounds and measured 20 inches nose to fork.

New Maryland State Record Barracuda

On Oct. 6, Humphrey was aboard a Wrecker Sportfishing vessel, trolling with a sea witch ballyhoo rig for yellowfin tuna in Washington Canyon, the next valley to the south. “The rod alarm went off, we brought it in, and it was a barracuda,” Humphrey said. It wasn’t his first encounter with the toothy species; he had caught them in Florida. As the fish came to the boat, “we knew right away,” Humphrey said. “Our captain, Bobby Layton, mated in Florida and has been in the industry a long time, and he knows more than most people.”

“As far as barracuda go, it’s not a big one, but it was long,” he said. “And it’s rare to catch them in Maryland.” It wasn’t exactly small, either, measuring 40 inches to the tail fork and 42 inches overall.

The DNR has noticed plenty of fish and animals that typically lived in more southern states, and says part of the reason is likely warming ocean temperatures, noting that average water temps at monitoring stations in Chesapeake Bay have increased as much as 2 degrees since the 1980s. Warm-water fish like cobia, sheepshead, red drum, and spotted sea trout are becoming more common in Maryland.

And of course, there’s the 5-foot tarpon caught on Cape Cod in late August.

Stafford, however, has observed another shift while monitoring water conditions for marlin and other species. “These last few weeks, the Gulf Stream swung a little closer than normal for our waters,” he said, noting three weeks of storms that pressed the coast with wind from the east. “It’s just a matter of that current being pushed in closer than normal.”

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Fish regulators will close the gag grouper season early this year in federal waters, leaving anglers scrambling to get in one last trip or two during any favorable weather windows. In South Atlantic federal waters, the gag grouper season closes on Oct. 23. For Gulf anglers, the gag season ends Oct. 19 in federal waters. The state of Florida will mirror federal regulations, closing state waters to gag grouper fishing on the same days in October.

“It’s been a good year for gag grouper,” says Capt. Jarrod Tuttle, of Driftwood Charters in Daytona Beach, Florida. “Fishing also gets better when its colder, as the grouper move in a bit closer. There are going to be some angry anglers about the early closure.”

In years past, recreational anglers blazed offshore, chasing oversized gag grouper late into the year. In the southeast, the winter months were prime time for bottom fishing, all the way up to December.

“This will be the first time that the recreational season has closed early for Gag in the South Atlantic,” says Kim Iverson, public information officer for the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council. “This year’s closures for both the recreational and commercial sectors are due to the reduction catch limits. There’s also the annual spawning season closure for shallow water grouper in South Atlantic federal waters January 1 through April 30.”

The Gulf federal recreational gag season in the recent past, including 2021 and 2022, started on June 1 and was open until the end of the year, points out Dan Luers, with NOAA Fisheries. But gag grouper are currently undergoing overfishing in Atlantic and Gulf waters, according to NOAA, leading to tightened management plans and interim measures.

“I will 100 percent lose charters over the early closure,” says Capt. Ryan Harrington, of No Bananas Sportfishing in Tampa Bay, Florida. “Already, I’ve had about a dozen people cancel. Who knows how many more would have booked if the season was open until Dec 31.”

Harrington mentioned he’s noticing good numbers of gag grouper, especially inshore.  

“I fish for them year-round as bycatch,” he said. “I have seen as many this year as I have any other year. I’ve actually seen more of the small juvenile females on the flats than previously. I’m catching 6 to 12 gags on artificials every charter while targeting seatrout.”

Gag Grouper Rebuilding Plans

The Gulf gag grouper rebuilding plan is part of Amendment 56 to the Fishery Management Plan, developed by the Gulf Council. The Southeast Fishery Science Center calculated that 2023’s Gulf catch limit must not surpass 661,901 pounds to be consistent with Amendment 56’s timeline. (Amendment 56 has not officially been implemented yet, but NOAA Fisheries is required to implement the amendment by January 26, 2024.)

In the Atlantic, Amendment 53 to the Snapper Grouper Fishery Management Plan incorporates gag grouper’s rebuilding guidelines, running from 2023 to 2032. For 2023, the total annual catch limit is equal to the acceptable biological catch of 175,632 pounds gutted weight.

The post Gag Grouper Season Closes Early in October appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

When NOAA Fisheries announced that yet another major flaw had been discovered in its recreational data collection program, called the Marine Recreational Information Program — Fishing Effort Survey (MRIP-FES), it didn’t come entirely as a shock. After all, this data system that NOAA uses to estimate recreational (rec) catch and effort on various species has been reworked three times in the last 13 years and has been labeled “fatally flawed” by the National Academies of Sciences. It is known for producing results that leave rational people scratching their heads.

The agency confessed a couple of months ago in a series of dramatic conference calls with Congress, Councils and stakeholders that its data program is overstating recreational effort by 30 to 40 percent, and the more cynical among us were somewhat expecting it. As the latest iteration of the rec data system, the MRIP-FES was driving corrections in the allocation of allowable catch to the rec sector in some prized fisheries. NOAA Fisheries is loath to reallocate fisheries under any circumstances, and being forced to correct its allocations in favor of the rec sector because of its own data system was undoubtedly a bitter pill for a commercially oriented agency to swallow.

It was somewhat startling to note, however, that the flawed data is the result of how the questions were arranged in a survey that is randomly mailed to anglers. Nothing could more clearly drive home how fragile and unreliable this system is than that.

Fixing MRIP-FES

What happens next will be years of study on the problem. NOAA is very good at studying things until most people forget about them and then circling back to business as usual. Even if the agency can “fix” MRIP-FES, it will likely insist on calibrating the new data with all the suspect historical data that came before it. That is what the agency has done after previous tweaks, but it is simply impossible to understand how this is done with any confidence. How do you calibrate a historical number that was never right in the first place with a new number you have no confidence in when it is finally rolled out? 

Eventually, the recalibrated numbers — such as they are — will have to be plugged into new stock assessments, resulting in another round of corrections to allocations. In the Gulf, it will trigger another round of calibrations with data that the states are collecting on their recreational sectors. Before NOAA admitted errors with FES, calibrating between FES and Gulf state data was an extremely controversial exercise and state fisheries managers had been adamant for years that FES must be flawed based on the findings of their own data systems. Their arguments fell on deaf ears as the red snapper fisheries of Alabama and Mississippi in particular were mercilessly pared down by NOAA during the conversion of state data to FES data. In a step in the right direction, as of right now those two states are moving toward assuming recreational data collection for all federally managed species, not just red snapper. If they get there and all the Gulf states can adjust their programs to be compatible with each other, there might not be any need for calibrations with MRIP at all.

The Fishing Effort Survey Debacle

In the meantime, the FES debacle will take years to unravel and NOAA has no choice but to continue to use the flawed FES data as the best available science. Understandably, the fishery management councils are somewhat shellshocked at having to make decisions based on information known to be wrong for the foreseeable future.

While officials at the top of NOAA may truly believe the agency needs to take a hard look at how it manages the recreational sector — and some of them are saying the right things in private in the wake of the FES announcement — the bureaucratic core of the agency will no doubt wallpaper over the FES problem as quickly as possible. There will be another tweak, the questions will be rearranged, maybe the program will be renamed yet again, the surveys will go out and the rec data will magically be “right.” Until the next upheaval.

The biggest question to come out of this latest twist in federal fisheries management is why does Congress continue to put up with it? Why do coastal states continue to endure it? There are better ways to do this.

Give Power to the States

The West Coast states rejected the federal data system decades ago and collect all recreational angling data with their own systems. Every Gulf Coast state has developed recreational data programs at least for their red snapper fisheries that are much more hands-on than anything NOAA could implement. After having their concerns over FES data dismissed out of hand, the states of Alabama and Mississippi should be leading the charge to abandon the federal system once and for all. The South Atlantic states have been staring down the threat of massive bottom closures due to erroneous bycatch data based largely on FES — why would anyone in those states continue to leave their fate in the hands of an agency that has done nothing to earn their trust?

The answer, like so many things, usually comes down to funding but that is not as insurmountable as it may seem. Like many federal agencies, NOAA is receiving a huge injection of funds from the Inflation Reduction Act, some of which could be applied here. Money currently being wasted on MRIP could be redirected to the states to carry out these responsibilities. State fishery agencies are not fond of going to their legislatures and asking for funding, but the recreational angling community has never shied away from paying for its management. Particularly when the alternative has no track record of success but does have an unwavering penchant for wielding its authority like a sledgehammer.

This latest break in the federal fisheries management system offers a brief window of opportunity to get out of this repeating, dysfunctional cycle, and it is up to anglers to motivate their states agencies and elected officials to seize it. Otherwise, we will no doubt relive the same miserable experiences of the last many decades, just waiting for NOAA’s next shoe to drop.

About the Author: Ted Venker is the Vice President and Conservation Director of the Coastal Conservation Association.

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