Striped Bass is a Poor Model for Recreational Fishery Management

Striped Bass is a Poor Model for Recreational Fishery Management

Ever since the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) successfully rebuilt the collapsed Atlantic striped bass population in 1995, some segments of the recreational fishing community have used striped bass as an example of how recreational fisheries ought to be managed. Praise for ASMFC’s approach to striped bass management reached a crescendo in the run-up […]

Slot Limits No Panacea for Summer Flounder

Slot Limits No Panacea for Summer Flounder

The summer flounder population has been in a decline. Such decline is due, in large part, not to overfishing (although modest overfishing has occurred in one or two recent years), but to at least six consecutive years of below-average recruitment of young fish into the flounder population. Biologists haven’t yet figured out why such low […]

Defending Magnuson-Stevens from the Lame Duck

Defending Magnuson-Stevens from the Lame Duck

The 115th Congress is on its last legs. Both chambers adjourned before the midterm elections to let their members campaign ahead of the vote. Now, they are meeting in a so-called “lame duck session,” which will provide outgoing members, and outgoing majorities, one last chance to pass their priority legislation before the 116th Congress ushers […]

Encouraging Words at ASMFC

Encouraging Words at ASMFC

Photo: Tautog I’ve often been a critic of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC). I don’t criticize the interstate compact that created the ASMFC, nor do I have any bad words for the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act, which gave the ASMFC the authority to bind East Coast states to its interstate fishery […]

Giving Back

Giving Back

I’ve been a recreational shark fisherman since the late 1970s. Over that time I and the folks who fish with me have caught a lot of fish. We’ve caught blue sharks and sandbars, common threshers and duskies, shortfin makos and tigers. We’ve caught bizarre-looking hammerheads, and we’ve had whites that weighed more than a ton […]