Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
The concerns last week that the ASMFC might do an early closure for both flounder and black seabass had a lot of local fishermen riled and I'm guessing a lot ears burning on the heads of more than just a few fishery managers. It's easy to see why so many folks were mad, particularly in these parts where we've had a lackluster season for both those species and suddenly we're being told that the quotas have been exceeded! That's a tough pill for any Joe Schmo fisherman to swallow even though most have had to choke down that kind of medicine before.
Controversy between fishermen and fishery managers has likely persisted since the very first fishing regulations were ever imposed and I doubt they'll ever go away. As long as people want to catch fish, and as long as there are others employed to ensure that people don't catch too many fish, then there will be disagreements. But a lot of the venomous anger so often directed towards fishery managers could be avoided if fishermen better understood what goes on within the management process and take advantage of opportunities to be a part of it.
Despite what some among our ranks would like to believe - fishery managers do not strive to "stop anglers from fishing" or "put folks out of business." That's not their goal. Granted, sometimes their actions do put people out of business and stop us from fishing, but if you're trying to manage a resource it only stands to reason that there will be times when fishing effort must be curtailed or stopped altogether, it's just the nature of the beast. The objective is to manage fisheries (natural resources) so that they are sustainable. They often refer to trying to obtain "maximum sustainable yield" or "MSY" which refers to a population level that can be maintained by a species given a certain amount of natural mortality as well as mortality created by man, which would include commercial and recreational fishing and other factors such as pollution and destruction of habitat.
Fishery managers have no control over natural mortality because only God can determine, for instance, how many shrimp will be eaten by flounder, how many flounder will be eaten by bluefish and how many bluefish will be eaten by makos each year, and as far as I know He's always done a pretty good job of balancing things out so that all populations thrive at sustainable levels. Fishery managers can, however, control the mortality created when you, myself, and everyone else tries to pluck "our share" of fish from the sea. So it's their job to determine, after natural mortality, how "many" fish can still be harvested from a population and allow that population to stay sustainable, and then "how" (nets, rod and reel, traps, long line) the fish should be harvested, and finally "who" (commercial or recreational) should do the harvesting.
I don't think any fisherman (who has half a brain) would argue with the fact that to properly do their job fishery managers need first to do whatever it takes to protect the resource, because if they allow the resource to dwindle then we fishermen have nothing to fish for anyway. While much of the conflict is often centered around "how" they go about controlling the harvest (seasons, size and creel limits, boundary lines, whether the fish should be caught by commercial or recreational anglers, what kind of gear must or may not be used, etc.) these days, it seems more often than not, anglers take issue with what we're told the population levels are and/or the amount of fish we've been catching. As is the case right now when they're telling us that we've caught too many flounder and too many seabass.
"Too many? Those pencil-pushing idiots don't know what they're talking about! If they'd just get away from their desks once in a while and go out on the water to see for themselves what's going on they'd know we haven't caught as many fish as they say we have! They have their own agenda and use whatever numbers are necessary to achieve it!"
From blue marlin to blue crabs, for as long as I can remember different versions of that same complaint have been used by both recreational and commercial fishermen for everything that swims. We fishermen see what we see out on the water each day and our observations can be important tools for fishery managers to use when determining the health of a resource. But fishermen have to understand that our experiences are only one small part of the puzzle and in order for managers to get the complete picture they must consider a lot more variables than just what certain anglers are reporting in a particular area. For example: After such a slow season it's hard for local fishermen to understand how they could be telling us that too many seabass have been caught until one learns that up in New York and Massachusetts they've been having an awesome season. Most of us only realize what's happening in the waters we float our own boats in, but the fishery folks must take into account what goes on in the total range of the fish they manage.
Anglers should also keep in mind that there are times when fishery managers are required to take certain actions, not necessarily because they want to, but because it's mandated by federal or state law that they have to. Whether it's good or bad, this means that politicians have a hand in directing fishery management, which of course opens up a whole new can of worms and makes it all the more confusing and aggravating!
The worst thing we fishermen can do is exactly what most of us end up doing - NOTHING. I'd say "nothing but complain," but actually complaining can be helpful in itself if our complaints are directed to the right people so the folks at fisheries get our message and have an opportunity to respond. Fishery managers typically go to great lengths to solicit our comments by sending out notices and press releases, website postings, and setting up countless public meetings. But if all we do is stand around the tackle shop and gripe over our morning coffee, they're going to have a hard time hearing our concerns. And the old line about "it doesn't matter what we say, they're going to do what they want to do anyway" is just a lazy-mans way of getting around writing a letter, picking up the phone, or attending a public meeting. We won't always get what we want, but unless we learn to work "with" rather than "against" our fishery managers we'll never see the day when our fisheries are managed to their fullest potential.
Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and Captain of the charter boat “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.
