CSMA Striped Bass- A Put and Too ManyTake Fishery

The NCWRC monitors striped bass, American and hickory shad, and river herring since it has overlapping jurisdiction of anadromous fishes with NCDMF. Unlike NCDMF, the NCWRC reports its findings annually.

The current data on the Neuse River striped bass fishery is quite compelling, and indicates upwards of 40-70% mortality each year since 1994. Interestingly, the reported harvest and discard from the recreational creel survey, combined with the commercial trip ticket data, do not approach the level that would be required to explain the observed mortality. This is outlined in more detail in Appendix A and B of the linked Neuse River report. The NCWRC also monitors the contribution of hatchery-origin fish to the spawning stock using Parentage Based Tagging, a genetics technique that approaches a 100% ability to accurately assign hatchery/wild origin. The NCWRC results agree with ECU’s otolith microchemistry work that the population is comprised of almost 90% hatchery-origin fish.

It is my understanding that the NCWRC has presented these data and analyses to NCDMF. At this time NCDMF has declined to conduct a stock assessment on CSMA striped bass and given an indication that the DMF will wait until fall 2018 before discussing potential management changes to this important fishery paid for by sportsman's dollars that supports what is basically a hatchery based put and take fishery.

Important: “Interestingly, the reported harvest and discard from the recreational creel survey, combined with the commercial trip ticket data, do not approach the level that would be required to explain the observed mortality.”

I personally wonder what percentage of all the striped bass caught in DMF managed estuarine gill nets are being reported on trip tickets. For those interested in this subject, you can review Appendix A and B in this attached link.

NCWRC- Neuse River 2014 Striped Bass Data- http://1drv.ms/1NDDSoL

The ECU otolith microchemistry study- http://thescholarship.ecu.edu/handle/10342/1806

Edited by Rick - 08 December 2015 at 10:13am

I do not think NCWRC will continue this as the goal was to build a sustaining stock.

So Rick if I recall the commercial CMSA Striped Bass fishery is a directed fishery with an annual quota of 25,000 lbs.  I am presently having trouble downloading the actual comm catches in the CMSA (not at home, and personal hotspot choking on the large doc)-so I dont know comm harvest-perhaps someooe has it handy.

Edited by chriselk - 08 December 2015 at 12:02pm

The exact same scenario exists in the Pamlico River as well.

A lot of those come from the shad fishery. Dominion stocks them to go thru dams grow up and get caught in a net for roe. Sounds stupid is stupid!

Rick wrote: It is my understanding that the NCWRC has presented these data and analyses to NCDMF. At this time NCDMF has declined to conduct a stock assessment on CSMA striped bass and given an indication that the DMF will wait until fall 2018 before discussing potential management changes to this important fishery paid for by sportsman's dollars that supports what is basically a hatchery based put and take fishery.

While I agree the commercial take is disproportionate and need to be reassessed, NCWRC gets about a third of its funding from licenses and about a third from General Fund appropriations. 

Sound like it's become like the trout streams in the western part of the state.

BaitWaster wrote: Rick wrote: [COLOR="black"]<span style="font-family: Calibri"] It is my understanding that the NCWRC has presented these data and analyses to NCDMF. At this time NCDMF has declined to conduct a stock assessment on CSMA striped bass and given an indication that the DMF will wait until fall 2018 before discussing potential management changes to this important fishery paid for by sportsman's dollars that supports what is basically a hatchery based put and take fishery.</span][/COLOR] While I agree the commercial take is disproportionate and need to be reassessed, NCWRC gets about a third of its funding from licenses and about a third from General Fund appropriations.  Sound like it's become like the trout streams in the western part of the state.

I certainly don't fully understand the funding of our hatcheries, but slide three in this link suggests that they are heavily funded, possibly solely funded, through taxes paid by those intended to be the beneficiary, recreational sportsmen.

http://216.27.39.103/Portals/0/Fishing/documents/SFR_Pub.pdf

I think you'll also find this 2015 NCWRC funding report interesting. General funding has dropped from 32% in 2008 to 17% in 2014.

Those Dingell-Johnson dollars gave NCWRC $8,052,302 in 2014.

http://www.ncleg.net/documentsites/committees/JointAppropriationsNER/Reports%20Submitted%20to%20the%20Committee/1e.%20WRC_Federal_Grants.pdf

BW - That money is to cover many acres of water and fish not to mention nonfinned game and lands from Murphy to Manteo. What is NC DMF funding and how much are they contributing to striped bass or even shad stocking? Are they even willing to consider this important information in their regs or use it in a stock assessment when someone else has done most of the work for them? I doubt it! They probably find it interesting but want to wait until 2018 (or sometime thereabouts) for the next scheduled assessment and stacked fishery management team process which would probably take another 4 or 5 years to implement. If so that new grandchild would be half way to needing a license before this info would be used. They'll probably blame it on the Corps since Falls Lake went in at about the same time their was a proliferation of gill net usage.

Edited by todobien - 09 December 2015 at 8:42am

§80.51   What activities are eligible for funding under the Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration Act?

The following activities are eligible for funding under the Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration Act:

(a) Sport Fish Restoration program. (1) Restore and manage sport fish for the benefit of the public.

(2) Conduct research on the problems of managing fish and their habitat and the problems of fish culture if necessary to administer sport fish resources efficiently.

(3) Obtain data to guide and direct the regulation of fishing. These data may be on:

(i) Size and geographic range of sport fish populations;

(ii) Changes in sport fish populations due to fishing, other human activities, or natural causes; and

(iii) Effects of any measures or regulations applied.

(4) Develop and adopt plans to restock sport fish and forage fish in the natural areas or districts covered by the plans; and obtain data to develop, carry out, and test the effectiveness of the plans.

(5) Stock fish for recreational purposes.

(6) Acquire real property suitable or capable of being made suitable for:

(i) Sport fish habitat or as a buffer to protect that habitat; or

(ii) Public access for sport fishing. Closures to sport fishing must be based on the recommendations of the State fish and wildlife agency for fish and wildlife management purposes.

(7) Restore, rehabilitate, improve, or manage:

(i) Aquatic areas adaptable for sport fish habitat; or

(ii) Land adaptable as a buffer to protect sport fish habitat.

(8) Build structures or acquire equipment, goods, and services to:

(i) Restore, rehabilitate, or improve aquatic habitat for sport fish, or land as a buffer to protect aquatic habitat for sport fish; or

(ii) Provide public access for sport fishing.

(9) Construct, renovate, operate, or maintain pumpout and dump stations. A pumpout station is a facility that pumps or receives sewage from a type III marine sanitation device that the U.S. Coast Guard requires on some vessels. A dump station, also referred to as a “waste reception facility,” is specifically designed to receive waste from portable toilets on vessels.

(10) Operate or maintain:

(i) Projects that the State fish and wildlife agency completed under the Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration Act; or

(ii) Facilities that the agency acquired or constructed with funds other than those authorized by the Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration Act if these facilities are necessary to carry out activities authorized by the Act.

(11) Coordinate grants in the Sport Fish Restoration program and related programs and subprograms.

I would ask if anyone sees the irony in the following NCDMF presentation, but irony is  something that is deliberately contrary to what one expects. 

Sadly, what we've come to expect from management at the NCDMF is exactly what we are getting- management of our resources not for sustainability, best use and highest economic yield, but for building a bureaucracy of funding and staff  supported by keeping as many competing user groups and unsustainable gear and practices fishing on our depleted and declining stocks.

• Approximately 95% of all striped bass in the CSMA are or hatchery origin, paid for by sportsman's dollars.

• Over 66% of those hatchery origin fish are being landed by commercial fishermen seeking income.

Yet, in this 2009 presentation on the NCDMF's use of sportsman's dollars, the Division was spending almost 1/2 million dollars to-

• Monitor the status of striped bass stocks in the Albemarle Sound/Roanoke River in the Albemarle Sound/Roanoke River system to assess the effectiveness of management measures being taken to management measures being taken to support a popular recreational fishery in the region.
• Obtain monthly estimates of striped bass catch, harvest, and effort by recreational anglers for each of the following: Pungo, Tar/Pamlico, Neuse, and Trent rivers.

The Division is spending recreational dollars to monitor the recreational fishery while facilitating the commercial harvest of over 66% of the total landed resource.

It's a slap in the face. 

Just get the nets off our recreational fish.  Spend the money enhancing the resource; it's a put and take fishery.  Simple!

With proper management, a spawning population can be established but not with the current level of commercial pressure.

http://www.ncfisheries.net/mfc/MFC_downloads/sept2009/MFC%20Sport%20Fish%20Restoration%20Presentation%209-25-2009.pdf

 

Edited by Rick - 29 February 2016 at 9:39am

From the study linked above, this is important and must be addressed-

"Recreational harvest and discard, as well as commercial harvest, contributed modestly to
the overall mortality rate (Table B.3). “Cryptic mortality”, or mortality not accounted for
through reported harvest or natural mortality, was greater than the reported recreational or commercial exploitation in all scenarios."

Something is killing more fish than natural mortality+commercial harvest+recreational harvest combined.

This is not an emigration issue-

The potential for migration to affect cryptic mortality must also be addressed as the Neuse River is an open system allowing fish to swim into Pamlico Sound and other adjacent waterbodies. Emigration of Neuse River Striped Bass would be assigned to cryptic mortality. However, analysis of NCDMF tag-return data indicate very little emigration of Neuse River Striped Bass and few reports of immigration by fish originating from other waterbodies(NCDENR 2014). Therefore, considering the Neuse River a closed system is a tenable assumption.

Who is exploiting this fishery and preventing recovery of the breeding stock? 

When cryptic mortality is included, the commercial sector could easily be responsible for 85% or more of all CSMA striped bass mortality.

If cryptic mortality cannot be assigned to natural mortality or migration, it must be assigned to exploitation. Exploitation can be characterized as the “…sum of all fishery-induced moralities occurring directly as a result of catch, or indirectly as a result of contact with or avoidance of the fishing gear…” .  ICES (1995) formalized the components of exploitation by the equation where F is exploitation; FCL represents commercial landing mortality; FRL denotes recreational landing mortality; FSL is subsistence fishing landing mortality; FB represents illegal and misreported landing mortality; FD is discard mortality; FO denotes mortality of fish captured by fishing gear but not landed (drop out mortality); FA represents mortality due to fish who avoid the gear but die from stress or injuries incurred during gear avoidance; FE is mortality resulting from fish contacting but escaping the gear and eventually dying; FG is mortality resulting from “ghost” fishing gears (i.e., abandoned); FP represents predation of fish who escape from or are stressed by fishing gear and would otherwise live; and FH denotes mortality due to fishing gear induced
habitat alterations.


Many of these potential sources of exploitation are likely insignificant for many fisheries,
including the Neuse River Striped Bass fisheries. In the Neuse River, FCL and FRL are reported and were included in this analysis, as well as the recreational component of FD. The NCDMF trip ticket program is a direct census of FCL. Since FRL is calculated from survey data and is not a census, FRL parameter uncertainty should be evaluated to explore its effect on cryptic mortality.  ICES (1995) suggests FB and FD can have a large influence on exploitation, as well as FG in the case of gillnet fisheries. Therefore, FB , FD , and FG should be investigated as they potentially contribute significantly to the cryptic mortality observed in the Neuse River Striped Bass population.

The NCWRC is spending a lot of time, effort and dollars to develop this important fishery.  Mismanagement of this fishery is a NCDMF problem that needs immediate action.

Yield-per-recruit analysis indicated a 26-in MLL would be required to attain an SPR of 0.45 if exploitation is reduced to the CSMA management target (Table C.2). However, harvest regulations in inland waters are unlikely to affect Neuse River Striped Bass mortality at the current level of angling effort. Less than 3% of the angling effort and 2% of the Striped Bass catch (harvest and discards) occurred in inland waters in 2014. The NCDMF creel survey indicates that almost all recreational Striped Bass landings occur in coastal waters. Commercial and recreational harvest in the Neuse River has been low, yet similar, since 2004 (NCDMF, unpublished data). Given the high spawning stock mortality in 2014 and evidence of long-term recruitment overfishing, more conservative management actions are needed in coastal waters to reduce exploitation.

Edited by Rick - 09 December 2015 at 12:54pm

As more is learned it becomes evident the industry is receiving more entitlements than imaginable.

There's a whole lot of interesting stuff here as it pertains to the CSMA striped bass population.

Edited by WaterDog - 09 December 2015 at 10:29pm

bernpackbkr wrote: todobien wrote: Or let the comms pay to stock 66% more fish. Have accuratre reporting and when all their fish are caught then they have to stop landing and using gear that by catches striped bass. This is what we should be demanding - if they want to harvest stocked fish, they ought to pay for them.  Sounds like a great use of the commercial fishing fund that was established to pay for observers.   I think the problem would take care of itself.

First- 
How are commercials going to pay on average a stocking fee $30 to $40 per pound of landed fish when they only receive $2 to $3 per pound in income for that fish?  I don't care what kind of math you do on that fact, it's going to be a negative margin of at least $27 per pound. 

They'll pay $750,000 to harvest $75,000 worth of fish.  You are right, the problem will quickly take care of itself.

Second-
The commercials are responsible for 66% of the landings.  They may be killing close to 85% to 90% of the fish due to unreported landings and discard mortality in the gill net fishery.

As Waterdog pointed out above-  high-culling for the biggest 10 fish will contribute significantly to cryptic mortality, unaccounted for mortality.

You can see in the proclamation below that targeting striped bass in the Pamlico, Pungo, Neuse and Bay rivers along with Jones Bay is acceptable.  There is no associated "primary catch" target % required.  Target % of primary catch in the Pamlico Sound and West Bay is an enforcement joke, just like the red drum fishery.

http://portal.ncdenr.org/web/mf/proclamation-ff-08-2015?p_p_id=56_INSTANCE_yeO7&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-2&p_p_col_count=2&page=1

You can also see that a "fishing operation" can consist of the fishermen and his 9-year old daughter who also possesses a SCFL in her name.  This allows a boat on the Neuse, Tar, Pungo, Bay and Jone Bay to target schools of striped bass and keep targeting those schools high-culling for the twenty largest fish.

FF-8-2015

PROCLAMATION

RE: STRIPED BASS SEASON - COMMERCIAL FISHING OPERATIONS - INTERNAL COASTAL WATERS OF CRAVEN, BEAUFORT, AND PAMLICO COUNTIES, PUNGO RIVER, WEST BAY, AND PAMLICO SOUND

Louis B. Daniel III, Director, Division of Marine Fisheries, hereby announces that effective at 8 :00 A.M., Sunday, March 1, 2015, the striped bass season WILL OPEN in the areas described below for COMMERCIAL FISHING OPERATIONS. The following restrictions will apply:

I. AREA DESCRIPTION (See Map)

A. Pamlico and Pungo rivers and their joint and coastal water tributaries west of a line beginning at a point on the north shore 35° 22.3622' N - 76° 28.2032’ W (Roos Point) running southerly to a point on the south shore 35° 18.5906’ N - 76° 28.9530’ W (Pamlico Point).

B. Jones Bay/Bay River - west of a line beginningat Sow Island Point at 35° 13.0167’ N - 76° 29.7000’ W, running southwest to a point at Bay Point at 35° 11.0833’ N-76° 31.5667’ W, then running southerly to Maw Point at 35° 09.0333’ N-76° 32.1667’ W.

C. Neuse River - west of a line beginning at Maw Point at 35°09.0333’N - 76° 32.1667’ W, running southeast to Point of Marsh at 35° 04.5500’ N - 76° 28.2333’ W.

D. West Bay- south of a line beginning at a point at 35° 03.5167’ N - 76° 26.1333’ W, running southeasterly to a point at 35° 02.1833’ N-76° 21.7500’ W.

E. Pamlico Sound- south of a line beginning at a point on Roanoke Marshes Point 35° 48.3693’N- 75° 43.7232’ W, running southeasterly to the north point of Eagle Nest Bay 35° 44.1710’N – 75° 31.0520' W [southern boundary of the Albemarle Sound Management Area (ASMA)] and north of the boundaries of I.A. – I.D. and north of a line from Camp Point at 35° 00.0833’ N - 76° 14.8000’ W, through Wainwright Island running southeasterly to a point on Core Banks at 34° 58.7853’ N -76°09.8922’ W.

II. SIZE and HARVEST RESTRICTIONS

A. It is unlawful to take, possess, buy, sell or offer for sale striped bass less than 18 inches in total length.

B. In Areas I.A., I.B. and I.C., it is unlawful for an individual or fishing operation, regardless of the number of persons or boats involved or the number of areas fished, to take, possess, transport, buy, sell, or offer for sale more than ten (10) striped bass per day in any combined commercial fishing operation, except that a fishing operation consisting of more than one SCFL holder onboard may be in possession of up to two daily harvest limits. A SCFL holder must accompany each single harvest until the time of sale to a dealer that holds a valid 2014/2015 Striped Bass Dealer Permit validated for the Central Southern Management Area.

C. In Areas I.D. and I.E., it is unlawful for an individual or fishing operation, regardless of the number of persons or boats involved or the number of areas fished, to take, possess, transport, buy, sell, or offer for sale more than ten (10) striped bass per day in any combined commercial fishing operation, except that a fishing operation consisting of more than one SCFL holder onboard may be in possession of up to two daily harvest limits. A SCFL holder must accompany each single harvest until the time of sale to a dealer that holds a valid 2014/2015 Striped Bass Dealer Permit validated for the Central Southern Management Area. Striped bass shall only be taken in conjunction with other finfish species and striped bass are limited to 50% by weight of the combined daily harvest.

Edited by Rick - 10 December 2015 at 2:42pm