Discussing black sea bass regulations

I attended the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Advisory Committee on Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass meeting Nov. 14. I have been a member of this group for several years and try to bring the view of a recreational fisherman to the proceedings. I have, in the past, run a small guide service, so I have some idea of the problems faced by those in that business. Since the COVID pandemic, all the meetings are held via Webex.

During the previous meeting, it was disclosed that the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, under the recommendation of its scientific and statistical committee, were going to recommend a 20% cut in the landing of black sea bass. If they wanted to get everyone’s attention, that was a sure way to do it!

For those unfamiliar with Webex, there is a little hand sign next to your name on the computer screen that lights up when you wish to speak. I think every hand lit up at once.

Everyone wanted to know how in the world anyone could suggest that a species that has a population two-and-a-half times the amount needed to sustain a healthy base could now require a cut of 20%. The reply was something only Joseph Heller could love.

Since the population was so high, we caught more than our allotted quota. Since we overfished our quota, we had to cut the quota for the following year. The fact that our overfished quota had no negative effect on the black sea bass base didn’t seem to matter. The law says when a quota is overfished, it must be made up the following year.  

You may ask, who makes up these quotas? The councils do, with advice from the scientific and statistical committee.  

This all goes back to 1976, when the Magnuson-Stevens Act was passed to prevent foreign fishing fleets from entering U.S. waters and scooping up our fish. Prior to this law, catch and factory boats would take enormous amounts of herring, mackerel and shad back to their home ports packed up and ready for sale.

Before the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the United States only claimed 12 miles as its territorial waters. Once the law passed, we claimed 200 miles as federal water with 3 miles as state water. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission regulates fish inside state water. Since most fish can’t read, they may swim between the two jurisdictions. Such is the case with striped bass.

Somehow, somebody with just a tad of common sense decided it made no sense to cut the black sea bass quota by 20% when there were so many black sea bass in the ocean. I read the reason for not following the recommendation of the scientific and statistical committee, and you would never think the advisory council existed. In spite of every member of the advisory council that spoke in the previous meeting saying the 20% cut in quota was the dumbest thing they had ever heard, no mention of the council and its comments was made. It was just a bunch of government double-talk, but the end result was what the advisory council wanted.

The Nov. 14 meeting was well attended, and most of those who made comments asked for more quota. For once, I kept my big mouth shut, and just listened to the others and what they had to say.

One idea that seemed to have some traction was, instead of a size and number of fish quota for black sea bass, why not have a total inches quota? As I understand it, the way that would work is, say, today you may keep 15 black sea bass at 13 inches. That is a total of 195 inches of black sea bass. If you cut the size to 12 inches, you can now keep 16 fish; cut it to 11 inches and you get one more fish, and then drop down one more inch to 10 so you get to keep 19 black sea bass.

Unfortunately, black sea bass don’t come aboard in just one size. As anyone familiar with sea bass fishing will tell you, they tend to come on big at the beginning of a drop and then the little ones finish out the set. The only way to keep track of how many inches you have in the cooler is to measure each fish as you catch it and keep a running record. Get lucky and catch a couple of big ones early and your day will soon be over. Sounds like this idea still needs a bit of work.