Hoping for an Answer

[capt.george]

[q] posted on 27-Dec-2005 6:25:16 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last spring we apparently took between 10,000 and 25,000 trophies more than allotted us during the season - a figure that still is being contested.

------Based on last years OVERAGE of fish, Charged to Maryland--Does anyone know if possibly the 8% mortality rate & 10% charged for poaching, were converted into the fish overharvested figure---If so did it start March 1st or April 15 th ----
[/q]----------------------------------------------------------------------

---Took the Liberty of moving my Question to this site , hoping for an answer----[grin]

[Tom Powers]

George,

Unless there is a fish by fish reporting program in MD, they probably use MRFSS for the number of fish.

I have a pretty good understanding of how MRFSS works. They use A + B1 fish when they count fish killed. Those ar fish kept and released dead. I would suspect that for striped bass that not many are reported as released dead when they do the dockside interviews. Also they would have a hard time justifying a size distribution of the released dead fish.

They do not charge any of the recreational quotas for release mortality fish, which is released alive times mortality rate.

In 2004 March/April MRFSS has MD as landing 33,364 fish and May/June it was 60,871 fish. Using the size distribution from their pages here is the distribution of harvest for those two waves. The third column is the sum of larger than fish. For instance if the cut off is 32 inches (fork length) then there were 14,500 fish in wave 2 and 20,300 fish in wave 3. I do not have access to the 2005 data.

Wave 2
Inches -- # fish -- # fish larger than
21 -- 1,221 -- 33,371
22 -- 137 -- 32,150
23 -- 761 -- 32,013
24 -- 897 -- 31,252
25 -- 881 -- 30,355
26 -- 1,268 -- 29,474
27 -- 824 -- 28,206
28 -- 2,773 -- 27,382
29 -- 3,123 -- 24,609
30 -- 2,335 -- 21,486
31 -- 4,638 -- 19,151
32 -- 3,777 -- 14,513
33 -- 1,101 -- 10,737
34 -- 4,548 -- 9,636
35 -- 340 -- 5,088
36 -- 587 -- 4,748
37 -- 1,011 -- 4,160
38 -- 911 -- 3,150
39 -- 1,325 -- 2,239
40 -- 440 -- 914
41 -- 414 -- 474
42 -- 30 -- 60
43 -- 0 -- 30
44 -- 30 -- 30

Wave 3
Inches -- # fish -- # fish larger than

15 -- 67 -- 60,877
16 -- 262 -- 60,810
17 -- 1,613 -- 60,548
18 -- 1,522 -- 58,935
19 -- 2,380 -- 57,414
20 -- 1,771 -- 55,033
21 -- 359 -- 53,262
22 -- 1,437 -- 52,903
23 -- 901 -- 51,466
24 -- 213 -- 50,566
25 -- 2,593 -- 50,352
26 -- 2,100 -- 47,759
27 -- 3,147 -- 45,659
28 -- 3,622 -- 42,512
29 -- 6,763 -- 38,890
30 -- 3,920 -- 32,128
31 -- 3,932 -- 28,208
32 -- 1,997 -- 24,275
33 -- 5,771 -- 22,279
34 -- 1,936 -- 16,508
35 -- 3,269 -- 14,573
36 -- 2,818 -- 11,304
37 -- 3,257 -- 8,485
38 -- 1,248 -- 5,229
39 -- 2,934 -- 3,981
40 -- 505 -- 1,047
41 -- 542 -- 542



The released alive fish were:

Wave 2 -- 87,028
Wave 3 -- 407,062

Multiplying that by 0.08 you get:

Wave 2 -- 6,962 fish
Wave 3 -- 32,564 fish

Again without any contractor measured fish they would have a difficult time coming up with a size distribution of dead fish.


Tom

[scotty80]

The bottom line is that way too many pre and post spawn fish were caught last year. Unless you want another moratorium, there needs to be cut backs. We can sit here and pretend to be Biologists, or we can accept that this is based on the best available science and studies.

Personally, I don't think spawning fish should be targeted for catch & kill.

[Tom Powers]

Scotty actually this is more of an allocation issue. A while back I did the numbers coast wide by age for 2003 based on an ASMFC report and came up with the following.

The total recreational harvest of age 8 and above (kinda 32 inches) was 948,600 fish.

The total commercial harvest of age 8 and above was 249,000 fish

So you are looking at a MD bay spring quota of 30,000 big fish as compared to a total harvest of about 1,200,000 fish coast wide annually. Something less than 3% of the harvest. Oh and these numbers do not count the recently "discovered" (by MRFSS) harvest off of NC in Jan and Feb. I don't remember how many but it was a goodly fraction of the 1,200,000 fish and it does not count discard mortality coast wide. A dead fish is a dead fish.

All that being said I agree with you that the spawning reaches should be protected in the spring.

Tom

[Matt]

Don't agree its more of an allocation issue, nor should we put any faith in the MRFSS "data." Its not data. Its highly suspect guesswork that will not stand up to any kind of legitimate statistical test.

Scotty has it right. Anadromous fish should not be targeted for harvest during the spawn. Thats just good conservation. Unfortunately there are still too many people who really believe striped bass are fine

[Tom Powers]

Matt,

The MRFSS data on striped bass is probably pretty good when it is looked at coast wide. When I say pretty good I mean +/- 20 % maybe as good as +/- 10 %. Probably not much better.

For MD for 3 or 4 months in bay MAYBE it is as good as +/- 50%. It gets worse as you make the area or number of months smaller. The problem is a lack of intercepted fish. There are also issues regarding localized fisheries that are expanded to state wide effort, etc.

How many fish over 8 years old are harvested each year coast wide? My best guess is between 900,000 and 1,400,000 fish. In MD during the spring it is a whole other matter. But hey that is the data that the managers are looking at. If you don't like it try working within the system to get it changed.

Tom

BTW the best data in Virginia is probably croaker because there were several thousand intercepted fish each wave.

[capt.george]

[q] Personally, I don't think spawning fish should be targeted for catch & kill.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scotty
-------------------------------Scotty & Others, I must respectfully address this negetive thought in this manner ---WHEN is a female fish not a spawner?
----Unfortunatly Maryland, being the largest provider of replacement stock to the East Coast fishery, it is under constant pressure , & a Jaundiced eye from other states to save THIER fish from the Maryland spring season----
----In ANY given year's catch figures based on fish caught & fish Allowed---It stands to reason that Some of the fish in the 28"---35" class are resident MALES--Could we safely say 25% ?------OR more,-- as so many of Maryland anglers state they return roe laden fish-------------
------The April---May Spring season is a 30 day or less (weather loss) season when anglers get a well deserved shot at fish that return to our waters ---These SAME POST SPAWN fish are targeted by every TOM Dick & Harry, for the remaning 335 days of the year-----AND YES a percentage of these ARE potential spawners--
----As long as our young of the year studies, & our fishery management continues to provide positive results , Maryland's spring season should not be unjustly singled out as problem--

----If anything Maryland should be the subject of Praise & Achivement in it's role of "Nannie" to the east coast's success of this fishery----
----It should be obvious that with a state record of only 67#, that our BIG FISH reduction is limited in time & access----OH WELL-[wink]

[Capt Frank]

When is Md/Va going to consider mycobacteriosis in their count. Seems to me that this disease is like HIV, politically protected.

[Tom Powers]

Frank,

There has been a lot of grumbling in the background about adjusting the natural mortality used in the models upward for just that reason.

Tom

[Matt]

Tom, "grumbling" makes it sound unwarranted. I think it would be fair to say there's a desire for a more scientific approach, not grumbling.

Also, I would really appreciate it if you could support the statement: " MRFSS data on striped bass is probably pretty good when it is looked at coast wide. When I say pretty good I mean +/- 20 % maybe as good as +/- 10 %. Probably not much better."

I think the agency conducting the survey and politically appointed fishery managers want to believe the MRFSS findings are better than nothing, but I think the facts will show MRFSS was never intended to be an in-season assessment of quota, and survey itself does not attempt to generate an accurate assessment of landings.

Most serious recreational fishermen share concerns about the accuracy and reliability of the information MRFSS is reporting, because most of us have not been surveyed. DNR suggests that some of us will not be surveyed ever, and some of us will get surveyed two or three times a year. I don't think that argument will hold up in the court of public opinion, but thats just my opinion.

Based on the questions asked in the survey, I don't think there is a reasonable argument that MRFSS has a scientific basis of assessing recreational landings. Plus or minus 20% is as much a guess as the landings "data" presented earlier in this thread. It could be plus or minus 100%, or 1000%. First of all, the actual survey relies heavily on uses cold calling techniques, dialing phone numbers randomly. There is a relatively small amount of "intercept" data that is used to assess effort and landings, but I don't think the sample sizes are adequate to make generalizations about the entire recreational fishing community, in terms of landings or effort.

Questions asked in the surveys tend to be wordy and leading, which appears to skew the findings. NMFS openly admits the survey was designed to assess economic data and fishing effort, but not specific landings by species. If you've ever participated in the survey, you will recognize many of the questions here:

http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/st1/recreational/documents/MRFSS%20Telephone/Appendix_D_CHTS_Questionnaire.pdf

Tom wrote: "If you don't like it try working within the system to get it changed."

I appreciate that sentiment, but one thing is certain: the "system" doesn't reward freethinking. The system rewards dogmatic rhetoric more than critical thinking. Right or wrong, marine fishery management is designed for economic sustainment more than wildlife management. I do not begrudge our politicians for using marine fishery management to do constituent service, and I don't really care if the fishery people choose to be political pawns. Just don't tell me we're using the best available science to conserve the bay. Thats not true.

With regards to George's question: WHEN is a female fish not a spawner? Its a good question. I guess the answer is never. Once she's part of the spawning stock, she's a spawner. My point, and support for Scotty's statement relates to timing. Harvesting spawners during migration constitues an "intercept fishery." Intercept fisheries tend to cause overfishing at an unacceptably high rate. Maryland's spring trophy season is an intercept fishery.