AFSMC Striper Meeting

Well none of us had it correct, they used a 9% mortality factor for the graph below, but Capt13 came closest without going over...



Figure 1. Total striped bass removals by sector in numbers of fish. *Recreational harvest
includes ASMFC estimates of Wave‐1 harvest for North Carolina and Virginia. † Release
mortality of 9% applied to live releases.

Well none of us had it correct, they used a 9% mortality factor for the graph below, but Capt13 came closest without going over...

View attachment 2114

Figure 1. Total striped bass removals by sector in numbers of fish. *Recreational harvest
includes ASMFC estimates of Wave‐1 harvest for North Carolina and Virginia. † Release
mortality of 9% applied to live releases.

The New York Study found that 100% of fish 20 inches and under survived. There was a lot of money spent on this study in real-world fishing conditions. I remember it well. I'm curious if ASMFC data has this sort of breakdown because according to NY ASMFC's C&R mortality rates are drastically different. I'd be curious to find out how they get to that number. What we have above are real numbers not pie in the sky estimates. If these numbers reflect what's really happening we could throw out all of the Chesapeake bycatch. By their own claims, there are no fish over 20-inches.

View attachment 2115
The New York Study found that 100% of fish 20 inches and under survived. There was a lot of money spent on this study in real-world fishing conditions. I remember it well. I'm curious if ASMFC data has this sort of breakdown because according to NY ASMFC's C&R mortality rates are drastically different. I'd be curious to find out how they get to that number. What we have above are real numbers not pie in the sky estimates. If these numbers reflect what's really happening we could throw out all of the Chesapeake bycatch. By their own claims, there are no fish over 20-inches.

George, do you have a link to that study?

These weren't intercepts. They caught and handled fish as if in real world conditions. They then kept them penned in and then counted which lived and which died after x number of days.

A PDF of the study is below.

These weren't intercepts. They caught and handled fish as if in real world conditions. They then kept them penned in and then counted which lived and which died after x number of days.

A PDF of the study is below.

Understood, but I was looking for a write-up of the study. The PDF is just a brochure on how to release fish. What I was particularly interested in was the water temperature that the fish were kept in while they were being observed. Every other study I've read suggests that water temp. is a major critical factor in release fish mortality. But it is interesting how rapidly mortality shoots up as the fish get bigger.

The fish that I provided for the study were kept in a pen which was located up in the back of Huntington Harbor. As best as I can remember it was summer. Very little tidal flow, I'm guessing water temp in the 70's.

The fish that I provided for the study were kept in a pen which was located up in the back of Huntington Harbor. As best as I can remember it was summer. Very little tidal flow, I'm guessing water temp in the 70's.

Thanks! I'm just trying to get a feel as to whether those 20 inch fish that did so well in the survey are anywhere near akin to the 20 inch fish in the Chesapeake.

Hello again. You know I always hoped that I would be wrong, and stated this during all the arguments I had on noreast back 7 years ago or so when I first started talking about this. Many of you know that I did an assessment of my own a little over a years ago. The video is an hour long and I tried to start at the surface and work my way deeper into the internal workings of the ASMFC. It was an exhausting effort that took months and left me burnt out in the process, so I won't repeat it all here. I do want to make a few points however. First, the ASMFC used terribly skewed biological reference points for their assessments. They were based on the recovery year 1995 stocks, which benefited from several good yoy classes from both Chesapeake (75% TBM) and Hudson (25% TBM) stocks bunched together, as well as stocking programs and of course, the moratorium. In effect, it was a perfect storm of recruitment, meaning fortunate natural happenstance, and never likely to be repeated. Think of it as a barrel that collected rain water during a year that saw the most rainfall ever recorded, this after a year of drought, and then expecting that every year, that much rain would be added back to the barrel. The ASMFC, in it's infinite wisdom, decided to use to use that perfect storm as the norm for measuring recruitment, like it would happen all the time. Well, it didn't and probably never will again. That was their first mistake.

Second, they used those reference points to manage the resource to maximum sustainable yield, simply because of the economic value of the fish. This would be akin to allowing the maximum amount of water (based on the amount collected in the rainiest year against the amount that was in the barrel during the drought and used as the "reference point") to be removed from the barrel each year. Another big mistake because as you see, the barrel had less and less water in it each year. Third, the ASMFC based it's thresholds on the perfect storm of recruitment, as measured against the stock crash of the mid 80's, and again, figuring that the process of replenishment and recruitment of the stocks would magically happen when the stocks fell below the thresholds. This is the same as expecting a whole lot of rain to fill the barrel after many successive years of average rainfall fails to keep the barrel full because of managing to maximum sustainable yield. Again, a complete head in the sand mistake.

So their management methods based on their holy biological reference points were flawed, plain and simple, and they admit it in their documentation. Had they trended data and acted proactively instead of just sleeping at the switch and issuing the same old nonsense ("the stocks are not overfished nor is overfishing occurring according to our biological reference points,...."), then this might have been averted earlier. But it doesn't stop there. It would be easy if it did, but it doesn't. Enter the "M" word, myco for short. You wonder why the fish stocks tail off so severely after year 8, look no further. It's a progressive disease that takes a long time to kill it's hosts and it's everywhere now, even in the Hudson stock. And the problem is that when fish die in the wild, they sink. Mortality has always been difficult to account for, so the ASMFC just uses formulas based on tagging data, commercial discards, etc. They whip up a formula that accounts for all those missing fish and in this case, recreational releases gets to fill in the gap.

Now I've always been careful to leave my personal experiences and observations out of my conclusions, and really just do what I used to do for a living, that being collect, analyze, and make impartial decisions based on data. But at this point I'll interject a little of my own experience as it relates to the rec release mortality estimates. I start by saying that I think they are much less than the ASMFC estimates. Striped Bass are a very hearty fish, and nature has endowed them with a very successful survival strategy. They eat everything that moves, can live in both fresh and salt water and they have a pretty decent natural range, so this idea that they they easily croak after being caught, to me, is total nonsense. I've fished for them for over 40 years and I've caught a LOT of bass during that time. I've caught bass that were missing eyes (one had an old rotted hook in his), had bites taken out of them, crooked spines, and one had a rope tied through it's gills and out it's mouth that had been there for several years, and it had cut into it's gills and gill plate and into the corner of it's mouth. Other stuff also, like tags, hooked and ripped mouths where they had been hooked before, etc. All of these fish had two things in common. One is that they had fat enough bellies that implied they were eating well enough and the other is that they still managed to hit my plug / eel / bait.

So this notion that bass just give up the ghost after being caught really doesn't fit the profile for me, and seems more like an ASMFC effort to fill in the blank with something tangible and actionable. I mean look at all the fish caught and released when the 36" limit was in place. If rec / comm mortality was really that precipitous, then the stocks would have crashed years ago. The number makes no sense whatsoever. The real culprit, from my research, is myco. It fits the math, it fits the observations, it fits the science. The good news is that myco appears to be actionable. It is associated with certain concentrations of pollutants in the breeding areas, at least down here in the Chesapeake Bay, and fortunately while the ASMFC, or basically all of the management bodies, don't talk about it, there has been a strong movement toward cleaning the bay top to bottom and returning it to it's original health. Take myco out of the picture and the stocks will have a much better chance of recuperating. Ignore it and recovery will never happen by management techniques alone.

Just my opinion.

The fish that I provided for the study were kept in a pen which was located up in the back of Huntington Harbor. As best as I can remember it was summer. Very little tidal flow, I'm guessing water temp in the 70's.

You know, I had no idea that you were John of the Noli Eileen lol. I fished out of Huntington quite a bit years ago, prior (and after) you started sailing out of there. Shared time between the south shore, west end bridges, and Huntington. We have some mutual acquaintances I'm sure, like the Collins family, Jimmy Schneider, Sean Driscoll, John (forgot last name) who chartered out of there on his 23 footer. He used to chunk the 3 peaks a lot. I remember Jimmy when he was 15 and was mate on Capt. Don Constantine's old Ever Ready. Sorry to say, I never did fish your boat. I knew Walter from the Captree Fishfinder when he used to mate for Billy on the Ever Ready and later on the west end bridges. Lot's of people from back then. We should talk one day 🙂

We should ....... Looks like I might end up moving down your way in the near future.

.... Alberda.

We should ....... Looks like I might end up moving down your way in the near future.

.... Alberda.

You won't regret moving down to the Chesapeake area, or the NC coast. Much, much cheaper to live. Alberda, that's it! I guess I'm getting old lol.

Walter worked as deckhand on the Eveready for me when Artie Tubertini owned it. I was running the Eveready for Artie at the time and my charter boat. It was a long time ago ...... 1988. Both Packy and Billy ran the Noli for me at times in the mid 90's.

Walter worked as deckhand on the Eveready for me when Artie Tubertini owned it. I was running the Eveready for Artie at the time and my charter boat. It was a long time ago ...... 1988. Both Packy and Billy ran the Noli for me at times in the mid 90's.

I started with Capt Dom on the Everready ... My first job as a 16 year old was to belt sand the cabin down to wood , stain and varnish it ....
I decked his first 'Sunrise " Bluefish trip ... We ended up in Lyon Harbor 4.30 in the morning on a Bunker school , plenty of fish in the teens where decked , Capt Dom was afraid of those fish and stayed up on the flybridge , warning me to be careful . , His slogan was ..... . "Blues bite best at Sunrise " ..... We did a bunch of ' Hawaiian Lua's at Sand City , most of which was either blowing , raiining or bug infested ........ We would shuttle folks to the beach by the ruins via a work skiff ........ Interesting man .........

Walter worked as deckhand on the Eveready for me when Artie Tubertini owned it. I was running the Eveready for Artie at the time and my charter boat. It was a long time ago ...... 1988. Both Packy and Billy ran the Noli for me at times in the mid 90's.

I'm assuming that Artie bought the boat / business from the Collins family. I used to fish with Billy and Packy on the weekends. A little foggy as to the exact timing of everything, but I first started fishing with Capt Don (or is it Dom?) on the original Ever Ready. There was a mate named Richie working for him at the time. I think he was a school teacher and it was his summer / weekend job. Don was running 3 trips a day back then, which was really a waste considering how slow that old water plow was. He would usually run out to someplace in the triangle, pull a dozen drifts and then head in lol. I remember being in the head on a rolly day and watching the roof / bridge floor pull away from the head wall. That boat was pretty scary when it got lumpy. Packy would run the boat sometimes. Then Don took the boat to NC. Packy and Billy got a slightly larger boat and ran it as the Every Ready and I fished on that quite a bit on the weekends. You started running the Noli during that time. I was on the boat when Packy smacked into a rock coming back in from a trip. He cut too close Eatons Neck, way inside 13. That was not a good sound or feeling lol. After they stopped running the Ever Ready, I fished with Billy on his boat for a while. I also fished with Jimmy off and on for a bit but lost interest in catching bluefish. Jimmy had bought the old Casey Lee and married Neil's mate. I used to fish blackfish with Capt. Neil and I took ranges on a lot of his bay wrecks. It didn't end well when he caught me anchored up on one of them when I was on my friends boat lol. Walter was a good guy, I always like him.

I started with Capt Dom on the Everready ... My first job as a 16 year old was to belt sand the cabin down to wood , stain and varnish it ....
I decked his first 'Sunrise " Bluefish trip ... We ended up in Lyon Harbor 4.30 in the morning on a Bunker school , plenty of fish in the teens where decked , Capt Dom was afraid of those fish and stayed up on the flybridge , warning me to be careful . , His slogan was ..... . "Blues bite best at Sunrise " ..... We did a bunch of ' Hawaiian Lua's at Sand City , most of which was either blowing , raiining or bug infested ........ We would shuttle folks to the beach by the ruins via a work skiff ........ Interesting man .........

Scupper, our paths may have crossed during that time. I remember Don jumping down from the bridge and netting the bluefish. I used to fish the bow and would just jack them over rail lol. The amazing thing for me was during the whole time I jigged bluefish on those boats, I never got hooked by a loose jig. Just lucky I guess lol.

At night, during the week days, I would fish the west end bays and bridges, and much of the south shore. I had a lot of energy back then lol. Those were the days. Now it's big bull Reds for me ? John, you will like it down here, particularly if you can trail your boat. There are a lot of good species to catch. Surprisingly, there is even a tarpon fishery that the locals are pretty closed mouth about lol. Can't blame them.

Packy never owned the boat. He ran it for Al Mott, who bought it from Don. I do remember something about Don running his first boat down to NC. Artie, ny city school teacher, bought it from Al. The only time I recall that boat running into a rock cutting Eatons too close Jimmy was running it for Artie. As I remember he beached the boat north of Sand City to prevent it from sinking. I have a picture somewhere of me and Packy with a load of big bass (one over 50) that we had caught fishing Plum Gut. I was 17 and was brought along to help put fish on the boat.

I'm assuming that Artie bought the boat / business from the Collins family. I used to fish with Billy and Packy on the weekends. A little foggy as to the exact timing of everything, but I first started fishing with Capt Don (or is it Dom?) on the original Ever Ready. There was a mate named Richie working for him at the time. I think he was a school teacher and it was his summer / weekend job. Don was running 3 trips a day back then, which was really a waste considering how slow that old water plow was. He would usually run out to someplace in the triangle, pull a dozen drifts and then head in lol. I remember being in the head on a rolly day and watching the roof / bridge floor pull away from the head wall. That boat was pretty scary when it got lumpy. Packy would run the boat sometimes. Then Don took the boat to NC. Packy and Billy got a slightly larger boat and ran it as the Every Ready and I fished on that quite a bit on the weekends. You started running the Noli during that time. I was on the boat when Packy smacked into a rock coming back in from a trip. He cut too close Eatons Neck, way inside 13. That was not a good sound or feeling lol. After they stopped running the Ever Ready, I fished with Billy on his boat for a while. I also fished with Jimmy off and on for a bit but lost interest in catching bluefish. Jimmy had bought the old Casey Lee and married Neil's mate. I used to fish blackfish with Capt. Neil and I took ranges on a lot of his bay wrecks. It didn't end well when he caught me anchored up on one of them when I was on my friends boat lol. Walter was a good guy, I always like him.


Scupper, our paths may have crossed during that time. I remember Don jumping down from the bridge and netting the bluefish. I used to fish the bow and would just jack them over rail lol. The amazing thing for me was during the whole time I jigged bluefish on those boats, I never got hooked by a loose jig. Just lucky I guess lol.

At night, during the week days, I would fish the west end bays and bridges, and much of the south shore. I had a lot of energy back then lol. Those were the days. Now it's big bull Reds for me ? John, you will like it down here, particularly if you can trail your boat. There are a lot of good species to catch. Surprisingly, there is even a tarpon fishery that the locals are pretty closed mouth about lol. Can't blame them.

Don had two boats back then , the original Eveready the white boat which he claimed was owned by the Eveready Battery Co ,gas engine .
The other Eveready had a Mahogany cabin with a 'nicer' cabin down below , she had a Palmer 6 gas engine [ if memory serves me ] . .. Knutsons had a old timer named "Doggie ' working in the yard , Doggie and his dog "Willie ' would be around seemed like 24/7 . Doggie would take me fishing in his boatyard launch as we chased bunker in the moorings ... He would troll bunker snags and circle the fish and snag as many as we needed .......
Capt Don had no idea back then how to jig a Bluefish , though he learned that summer to drift between 13 and the OB buoy .....
His father in law Capt Bob also ran the boat at times .... Big porgies back then around the corner near the oil dock .. Nice fishing .
Packy was a good hard working PATIENT Blue fisherman , he and I checked every slope , rock hill , gulley , etc in search of fish ......... We worked well together ..........

Packy never owned the boat. He ran it for Al Mott, who bought it from Don. I do remember something about Don running his first boat down to NC. Artie, ny city school teacher, bought it from Al. The only time I recall that boat running into a rock cutting Eatons too close Jimmy was running it for Artie. As I remember he beached the boat north of Sand City to prevent it from sinking. I have a picture somewhere of me and Packy with a load of big bass (one over 50) that we had caught fishing Plum Gut. I was 17 and was brought along to help put fish on the boat.

I never knew Packy didn't own that boat . Learn something new everyday . Al Mott the Insurance guy ?

Yes ....

Yes ....

Don had a 'upper level " job with the Town of Huntington .... His Father an 'old timer ' back then owned a garage door company I believe in Huntington Station .. They has donuts on the boat most every day which 'dad ' often brought down . Wife's name was "Mary " ?????
Yankee player Willie Randolph fished on the side with Packy . Packy was proud of the association .

Yes he was ......

I believe Billy is still in touch with Willie.