Stripers Forever - Changes To MA Commercial Regulations

We have attached some graphs and stats from MA DMF to accompany this commentary. The first graph shows that prices dropped to an average of $1.64 a pound last year, and that as the quota has been increased the value has dropped in proportion every year. This graph also shows how the increase in the quota has caused the season to shrink in terms of days on the water. The shrinking season is definitely a good thing for recreational anglers since in last fall’s survey a number of guides and anglers told us that the commercial fishery caused the local quality of striped bass fishing to go right down the drain. Many of the guides are quite bitter about it.

The MA DMF is considering cutting back the commercial bag limit from 40 per day to 10 on Sundays and 20 on Monday thru Wednesday. We hear that some of the pinhookers want this change to raise the price and make the season last longer while the minuscule handful of actual commercial fishermen involved in this fishery don’t want it, because they won’t be able to sell enough fish to make any money. We have also posted a DMF table that organizes the number of fish sold per transaction in terms of the number of times a sale of that exact number of fish occurred, what percent of all sales or transactions were for this number of fish, and then a cumulative percentage that tells us what percentage of all sales are comprised of transactions that were for that number of fish or less. For instance there were 1,078 times when exactly one fish was sold, and these one fish sales were 22.5 percent of all transactions. The second most common transaction was 2 fish, which happened 691 times, and amounted to 14.43 percent of all transactions. 3 fish happened 512 times and amounted to 10.69 percent and made the running total 47.62%. Using the MA DMF average price last year of $1.64 a pound, and an average fish of around 17 pounds, we calculate that half of all transactions resulted in an $80.00 gross or less for that day on the water. That will barely cover the gas for the trip, and that’s if you sell three. 37% of all transactions were for two fish or less, which equates to $50.00 or less. And the MA DMF is projecting that over the next two years the trend in prices will bring striped bass sold in the Massachusetts commercial fishery to under $1.00 a pound. In that eventuality, since 82% of all transactions are for 10 fish or less, only 18% of all daily fishing sales would result in $170.00 or more.