More striped bass fishing restrictions loom as East Coast fishery managers weigh whether to ratchet down already tightened catch limits for the struggling finfish known in the Chesapeake Bay region as rockfish.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which oversees near-shore fishing for East Coast migratory fish species, plans to meet on Dec. 16 in Arlington, VA, to consider ordering new recreational and commercial catch restrictions in 2025.

The commission voted on Oct. 23 at its annual meeting in Annapolis to schedule a special December session after hearing that poor striped bass reproduction in the Bay and an expected spike in the catch of the last good crop — spawned six years ago — threatens to undermine efforts to rebuild the coastwide population.

Fishery managers called the December special meeting after hearing an update on the status of the striped bass population, which remains overfished. While catch restrictions ordered in recent years had appeared to be helping, the commission’s technical experts warned at the October meeting that fishing mortality likely would increase next year because the cohort of fish spawned in 2018 would reach the size where they could be legally caught along the Atlantic coast. That, plus the below-average spawning of striped bass in the Bay, lowers the probability of rebuilding their numbers by 2029 to less than 50%.