Panel sides with Maine, protects stripers

A multi-state fisheries panel sided with Maine anglers this week and rejected a proposal to expand the commercial catch of striped bass in coastal states to the south.

Members of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted 8-6 Tuesday in Newport, R.I., to reject a proposal that would have allowed states with commercial fisheries to carry over unused quota from one year to the next.

Sports fishermen and state officials in Maine, which does not allow commercial fishing for stripers but has a valuable recreational fishery, criticized the proposal as a threat to the striped bass population.

Mainers argued it was the wrong time to expand the commercial catch, especially in the Chesapeake Bay region. Maine anglers have caught far fewer fish the past two summers, perhaps because of a new, fatal disease in the Chesapeake, the primary spawning and nursery area for the fish that swim to Maine waters each summer.

Regulators acknowledged a possible link between the disease and the decline of striped bass in Maine, but said the commercial quota change would have an insignificant effect on the striped bass population compared to the much larger impact of the recreational fishery.

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