Howard King, head of fisheries for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, is jumping through hoops again with the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission. However, King is jumping quite nicely this year to create what looks like the best possible scenario for Maryland anglers during the spring trophy striped bass season.
This was a particularly difficult feat for King this season, considering the Maryland quota system for striped bass catches. We exceeded the allowable catch quota by 30,000 fish in 2005 and 25,000 in 2006. Allowable catches were supposed to be 36,000 in 2005 ? we caught 66,000. In 2006, the quota was 41,000 fish but 66,000 were caught.
At the recent ASMFC meetings in Alexandria, Va., King proposed nixing the quota system in a motion that got shot down. His second motion passed, one that said almost the same thing with different semantics by referring to a “target” for this year only of 30,000 fish for the spring season. But the word “quota” was still in there.
King also got ASMFC to forgive us for the overage of stripers for the 2006 season, but not the “paybacks” of the 2005 striper excess.
What has to be realized is that any regulation or quota is not a conservation measure. We are perhaps nearing the top of the numbers of fish that we can take of the 168 million striper population coastwise, but Maryland anglers are taking less than three percent of the total coastal migrant stripers, according to DNR fisheries biologist Marty Gary.
“We are not going to tilt the scales by catching another 10,000 or 20,000 fish,” Gary said.
With Maryland producing about 85 to 90 percent of the coastal fish, we are vital to the health of the striped bass fishery for states from Georgia through Maine.
Maryland has been the only state with a quota, since the Chesapeake Bay spawning success is important coastwise. But from here, it seems that the quota system has not, does not and will not work. The only way we get figures is when or after the fish are caught ? something akin to shutting the barn door after the horse is out or protecting the hen house after the chickens are stolen.
What does work ? and is yet to be decided ? are the management tools in terms of when, where and how we are allowed to catch rockfish during the spring trophy season. These can include season length, days and times to fish, fish size limits, creel limits per day or per season, use of tags or a permit system, gear allowed, etc.
That is yet to come, after public meetings, angler/charter boat captain input, in-house DNR conferences, stakeholder discussions, approval by the ASMFC and a final legislative approval. That could all happen in anywhere from a few weeks to two months from now. Don?t touch that dial! Stay tuned!
C. Boyd Pfeiffer is an internationally known sportsman and award-winning writer on fishing, hunting, and the outdoors, and is currently working on his 25th book. He can be reached at [email protected].
