Black sea bass, photo by Charlie Witek. When the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Bluefish and Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Management Boards (Management Boards) held a series of joint meetings early in October 2019, they addressed a number of recreational fisheries issues that, in […]
Actions have consequences. At least they should. If someone does something that is contrary to the public interest, they ought to pay an appropriate price for the harm that they do. But when it comes to fisheries management, things don’t always work out that way. For a very long time, fishermen were allowed to overfish, […]
Photo: Capt. Dave Monti with Block Island striped bass. On August 8, 2019, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board (Management Board) met to consider the future of the striped bass fishery. A benchmark stock assessment released in May 2019 (2018 Assessment) had determined that the striped bass stock was […]
Striped bass; photo via Dave Monti Fisheries management breeds controversy. No matter how badly a management measure is needed, some people will argue against it. Sometimes they challenge the science, and say that a stock is healthier than biologists claim. Sometimes, they allege that the economic harm that a measure may cause outweighs any benefit […]
Top Photo: Atlantic Herring Fisheries management is often viewed as a scientific discipline, but science is only one aspect of the management process. Before biologists can determine how a fishery ought to be managed, they need to understand the politics and policies that determine why management measures are needed. These days, we often think of […]
Last November, I was up in Connecticut, fishing with an old friend. We had fished together since the early 1970s, mostly in Long Island Sound and in the ocean south of Long Island, but sometimes as far away as Alaska, the Caribbean and Belize. Over that time, we’ve caught a lot of fish, of many […]
Striped Bass Photo by John McMurray The 1980s and early 1990s were a bad time for Atlantic Coast fisheries. While the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 had successfully pushed most foreign fishing vessels out of U.S. waters, it failed to protect fish populations from overharvest by the United States’ fleet, while providing domestic […]
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. Matthew 6:24 The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) has been maddeningly ineffective when it comes to rebuilding fish stocks […]
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