It’s going to be a lean year for those who like to catch or eat Atlantic striped bass — with still leaner times perhaps to come.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates inshore fishing for migratory species, has ordered new curbs, starting May 1, on both recreational and commercial catches of the popular finfish, also known as rockfish in the Chesapeake Bay region.

Amid persistent signs of trouble with the species, the commission’s striped bass management board decided Jan. 24 to limit all anglers in the Chesapeake and its tributaries to landing one striper a day, and only if it’s between 19 inches and 24 inches long. Ocean anglers likewise can keep just one fish a day, but with a narrower legal-size window of 28 to 31 inches.

Maryland and Virginia watermen, meanwhile, face a 7% reduction in their allowed commercial harvest of the fish.

The board ordered those curbs with the hope of restoring the species’ abundance after a worrisome decline in recent years. Whether this will be enough for the struggling species to rebound is a toss-up. Equally uncertain is how many people who now earn a living pursuing them will be able to do so in years to come.

One of the most sought-after commercial and sport fish in the Bay and along the coast, striped bass range the Atlantic from Canada to the Carolinas. The Chesapeake serves as the primary spawning and nursery ground for 70–90% of the coastwide population. For five straight years, they’ve suffered from poor reproduction in Maryland’s portion of the Bay and its tributaries, with below-par spawning reported last year in Virginia.

The commission had already tightened catch limits after scientists warned in 2019 that striped bass were being overfished and that the number of adult female fish had fallen below what is needed to sustain the population. Scientists noted then that the widespread practice of catch-and-release fishing was killing a significant number of striped bass, especially in summer when warm water temperatures and lower oxygen levels further stress fish that are caught and handled.

After cutting recreational catches to one fish a day virtually everywhere, East Coast fishery managers thought that would be enough to eventually restore the population.

They were jolted last year when surveys indicated the estimated recreational catch had nearly doubled in 2022.

In response, the commission took emergency action in May 2023, imposing a 31-inch maximum size limit on all recreationally caught fish. That was an interim measure to protect fish spawned in 2015, the last year of abundant reproduction. But managers agreed then that more curbs likely would be needed to help the fish back reach a sustainable level by the legally mandated deadline of 2029.

This is not the first time the Bay’s rockfish have been in trouble. Fishing pressure whittled away at the population until the early 1980s, when surveys found few juveniles in the Bay. In 1985, Maryland imposed a moratorium on recreational and commercial harvests, and Virginia followed suit a few years later. The stock rebounded quickly, allowing limited fishing to resume in 1990.

The situation now is not as dire as it was then, but fishery managers and conservationists say they are determined not to let it go that far.
Strong reactions

Few decisions by the Atlantic states commission have generated as much public debate as the menu of recreational and commercial catch cuts that it weighed prior to the January meeting. Nearly 700 people spoke at 15 hearings in 13 states in November and December; the commission also received more than 2,800 written comments.
Striped bass survey


The debate continued during the board’s five-hour January meeting in Arlington, VA, as commission members from different states pondered how to spread the pain of reducing the catch.

The new recreational catch size “slots” were chosen with the hope of conserving two groups of fish: those not yet old enough to spawn and larger ones that are prolific spawners.

The board’s scientific advisors project that the new size restrictions will reduce the overall recreational catch of striped bass by 14.5%. For Maryland’s charter fishing industry, though, the cutback will be more severe because until now their customers have been allowed to keep two fish a day.

That’s been a sore point with many sports anglers, who pressed the board to impose a one-fish limit across the board this year, with no exceptions.

Mike Luisi, a commission member and fisheries manager with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, warned that cutting the state’s charter boat clients’ catch to one fish a day “will put people out of business.” He tried, without success, to persuade the board to soften the economic impact on the for-hire fleet or place some less onerous alternative restriction on them.

Others, though, insisted on a uniform one-fish daily limit in the Bay and coastwide.

“The dark days are coming,” warned David Sikorski, a commission member and executive director of the Coastal Conservation Association of Maryland. “It’s time to buck up [and] reduce fishing mortality.”

The striped bass management board also struggled over what do about the commercial harvest.

Some members, heeding appeals from recreational anglers, wanted to cut the fishing industry’s catch quota by 14%, roughly on par with the recreational reductions they’d agreed to. But others argued the industry shouldn’t pay for the excesses of recreational anglers along the Atlantic coast, who had been mainly responsible for the big increase in estimated fishing mortality. More than half of the 2022 recreational catch came from New Jersey and New York, the commission said, with just 20% from the Bay.
Striped bass caught

Striped bass lie in the hold of a charter fishing boat in Chesapeake Beach, MD. (Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program)
Will Parson

“The problem is not with the commercial fishery,” argued Robert T. Brown Sr., president of the Maryland Watermen’s Association. Commercial fishing is tightly regulated, he pointed out, with each fish caught, tagged and accounted for, and the catch quota already reduced in previous years. The recreational fishery accounts for 90% of the coastwide loss of striped bass, commission estimates show, though in the Chesapeake, commercial harvest accounts for more than one-third of the total catch.

In the end, the board compromised on a 7% reduction in harvest quota.

“The commercial fishery is responsible for some mortality of striped bass, and I believe they should pay into what’s needed to restore [the population],” said Jeff Kaelin, a commission member from New Jersey.

But in ordering that the cut take effect May 1, the board made it difficult if not impossible for Maryland and Virginia to comply. The 2024 commercial fishing season for striped bass is already underway in both states, and fishery managers said they had already distributed fish tags to individual license holders based on the previous year’s quota. If watermen catch what they’ve been authorized to take by virtue of the tags, they’ll exceed the new quota and be penalized by having their allowable catch reduced that much more next year.

After the commission meeting, Brown acknowledged the reduction imposed on the commercial fishery could have been worse. But he remained opposed to any catch cutbacks for watermen or for charter businesses, saying they are an unwarranted hardship on both industries.
Charter boat impacts

Brian Hardman, head of Maryland’s charter boat association, said he expects at least some of the state’s 377 for-hire fishing businesses to founder. He said many clients won’t be interested in going out for just one fish, and some repeat customers have already called to cancel bookings for this year.

“If we had a whole host of other fish to fish on, we would have other options,” he said. But with business already down from what it had been before the pandemic, Hardman predicted bookings would decline another 35–50%. “How long can we sustain that?” he asked.

The Maryland charter fleet reported catching 101,000 striped bass in 2022, according to state data. That’s a tiny fraction of the total recreational catch of around 3.4 million fish in the Bay and coastwide that year, according to estimates drawn from voluntary angler surveys.

“We’re the smallest user group and catch the least amount of fish,” Hardman said. “You can’t solve any problems on our backs.”
Striped bass Hardman

Captain Brian Hardman (left) of Lead Dog Charters and his mate, Luke Kalhorn, fillet striped bass at a marina in Stevensville, MD.
Dave Harp

Luisi of the state Department of Natural Resources had, to no avail, asked the striped bass board to delay the charter industry’s one-fish-per-customer daily limit until 2025 to give skippers time to prepare for the cutback. The board also rejected his suggestion to impose tighter length limits for the charter catch, which he said would offset the impact of the two-fish allowance.

Afterward, Hardman said he’s called on DNR officials to defy the Atlantic states commission’s directive and let charter fishing clients keep two fish a day, at least for the rest of this year.

But Kristen Fidler, assistant DNR secretary for aquatic resources, said officials aren’t contemplating bucking the commission. Violating the commission’s order, she said, risks the federal government imposing a total moratorium on fishing for striped bass in Maryland. “It would be a worse outcome,” she pointed out.

Conservationists welcomed the commission’s actions while acknowledging it may cause financial hardship for some.

“I think we’re at the point with striped bass that we have to pull every single lever we can pull,” said Allison Colden, Maryland director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “When things get really hard, it’s incumbent on everyone involved in the resource to participate in its conservation.”

She noted that still more curbs may be needed. The cuts made so far improve the odds of restoring striped bass to sustainable levels by 2029, but only to about 50–50, according to the commission’s scientific advisors. They are to provide an updated assessment by year’s end, incorporating more recent data. If the population rebuild is still not on track, the commission agreed to take prompt action.

“This may not be the end of things, depending on how that assessment update turns out,” Colden said.
MD takes extra steps

Meanwhile, Maryland is imposing additional striped bass fishing restrictions beyond what the Atlantic states commission has ordered.

A joint legislative committee in February approved emergency regulations that lengthen the time in spring when recreational fishing for striped bass is prohibited in Maryland’s portion of the Bay and its tributaries. “Targeting” of striped bass, which includes catch-and-release, will be barred from April 1 through May 15.

Fishing for striped bass was already prohibited in April, but the new rules extend the closure by two weeks. That eliminates the state’s “trophy” striped bass season — the first two weeks of May, when recreational and charter anglers had been able to keep one fish a day 35 inches or longer.

The rules also extend an existing early-season prohibition on fishing for striped bass in the Susquehanna Flats, prime fish habitat, until the end of May.

Amid complaints about the rules from both recreational and commercial fishing groups, the House-Senate committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review held a hearing on Feb. 2.

Some recreational anglers have objected to being prohibited from catch-and-release in the spring, arguing that there’s no evidence fish die from being handled then. They did not testify, however.

Before the hearing, DNR’s Luisi acknowledged that there’s little risk in spring of killing spawning striped bass that are hooked and then let go. But scientists don’t know what impact catch-and-release might have on spawning behavior and success, he said.

“We wanted to give striped bass as much chance as possible not to be interacted with [in April and May] to complete their spawning activity,” he said.

Hardman, the charter captain, countered that DNR’s proposal didn’t go far enough. If the state really wants to promote successful spawning, he said, then it should stop allowing recreational catch-and-release fishing even earlier — during the first three months of the year, when there’s evidence the big fish are entering the Bay to spawn earlier than in the past. “You’re going to put a Band-Aid on May and act like you’re doing something. It’s ridiculous,” he said. “If you want to protect them, protect them. Close it down.”

DNR has said it intends to propose further regulations later this year, including a one-week extension of the summertime “no targeting” closure of striped bass fishing. That would run from mid-July through the first week of August, when hot temperatures weaken fish and increase the likelihood that even catch-and-release kills them. Luisi said DNR might consider including a March closure in those proposed rules.

(Comments made by Robert T. Brown Sr., president of the Maryland Watermen's Association, have been revised from the original posting to more fully reflect his overall position on the ASMFC decision.)

By Tim Wheeler, Chesapeake Bay Magazine