Management of a Top Inshore Predator: Differing Goals of Recreational and Commercial Fishers of Atlantic Striped Bass and the Unforeseen Impacts on Other Fisheries

            Striped Bass are produced in Mid-Atlantic estuaries, then migrate into New England waters in summer. They are the only inshore teleost in the Northeast that attains a fabled big game status for the recreational fishery; they also serve an economically important commercial fishery.   After a crash in the 1980s attributed variously to acid rain/water quality and overfishing, striped bass recovered by the mid-1990s. Conservative management driven by recreational interests seeking high catch rates and large sizes brought the stocks to unprecedented abundance by the 2000s. High bass predation has been linked to severe declines in fisheries for weakfish, American shad and river herring. The Chesapeake Bay resident male stock, at a high density, has suffered starvation and an epidemic of Mycobacteriosis. Despite high spawning stock biomass, the Chesapeake Bay stock also failed for seven years to produce a dominant year class until 2011, leading to a slow coastwide decline in abundance. Due to their political dominance of the management process, recreational anglers have driven a 25% cut in commercial quotas, despite the dominant 2011 year class now beginning to recruit to the coastal fishery. Having lost the fisheries for weakfish and American shad, commercial baymen have few alternative finfish targets.