STRIPED BASS HEARING

Hi Everyone,
I received this email, I thought to pass it along to anyone interested. I will post more details when I get that email, thanks.
Maurissa
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STRIPED BASS HEARING ON JANUARY 14


The MA Striped Bass Conservation Bill hearing is set for Thursday, Jan 14th at 11 a.m. at the State House in Boston. Details and directions will follow in a separate e-mail.


Plan to arrive at the State House by 10:00 a.m. on the 14th for a pre-hearing briefing. The proceedings will probably last into the early afternoon.


All anglers who fish for striped bass in Massachusetts – whether they are residents of Massachusetts or not - are invited to attend and to be heard if they wish. The economic value of tourist fishing is an important part of this bill. So ask your fishing friends to join you. Remember there is great strength in numbers. This is YOUR CHANCE TO HELP US MAKE A DIFFERENCE.


Thank you and look for a follow-up email in a few days with all the details.


The MA Legislative Coordinating Committee
in Support of the Striped Bass Conservation Bill

DAMN i ll be in newton the next town over on the 11th on valuim getting a cortozone shot in my neck ... id be perfect for that ... a mumbling idiot

THANKS for the info MISS RISS

Here is the follow up email:

The hearing on the Massachusetts Striped Bass Conservation Bill happens this week.
When: Thursday, January 14th 11:00 AM. Come early to avoid delays.
Where: Room A-2 at the State House 24 Beacon St. in Boston. How to get there: how to get to state house link
The Bill Number and Name: H796 An Act Relative to the Conservation of Atlantic Striped Bass.
Who: The Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources & Agriculture
Pre Hearing Meeting That Morning: At 9:30 AM in Room 109 we will hold a pre-hearing gathering where coffee plus will be served. We will have an information packet designed for you to drop off at your legislator’s office during the day to help secure his or her support for the bill. Stripers Forever staff will be on hand to answer any questions that you have.
Submitting Testimony: You will need to sign-in to get your name on the list to speak. Your verbal testimony will be heard and recorded; you don’t need to do anything else. If you also want to submit comments or information in writing, i.e. data, articles, graphics etc. you can give these to the committee for their consideration.
Press Conference: We will hold a brief rally and press conference in the State House Building that morning. We urge everyone who can do so to come and lend their support.
Dress: ~We are encouraging our members to wear casual, fishing-related clothing to the State House and hearing. The idea here is to show that there are a lot of recreational fishermen interested in this bill. Many of our members have committed to come to this hearing; we could use a lot more. Nothing will be more persuasive to the legislators than seeing how important striped bass fishing is to members of the public. The presence of every supporter is vital.
Out of state members who fish or own property in MA, and who feel that their fishing is being negatively affected by the MA commercial fishery should come too! Illustrating the financial value of tourism fishing to the economy of MA is a very important part of the rationale for H796.

thanks miss riss .... i wish it was today when i was there

no problem, glad to share with everyone.

Stripers Forever members – last Thursday, at the State House in Boston, Stripers Forever MA state committee representatives and independent recreational anglers presented the rationale for striped bass game fish in MA to the Natural Resources Committee. The hearing was run by a handful of Representatives from the Coastal Communities who were friendly to the commercial side of the argument. There were also a significant number of commercial fishermen in attendance as well as the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fisherman’s Association and Mass Bass, who represent those interests. All claimed that they would not be able to make ends meet if they could not sell striped bass. They also claimed that the ASMFC and the Division of Marine Fisheries can effectively manage this fishery, that recreational concerns are unfounded since there are plenty of stripers, that recreational fishing mortality is much higher than commercial, and that they are the big tourist attractions. As any of you who are veterans of the fishery management business know, these self serving, largely inaccurate and emotional arguments are nothing new, but it is hard for their legislators to ignore them. Thankfully only a handful of committee members were in attendance. The committee hearing is a necessary part of the process, but those of us concerned with the striped bass resource can now continue to work with the legislators individually throughout the state while keeping an eye out for other opportunities to further this legislation.


Pasted in below is a report from the Associated Press sent out yesterday to its membership network This AP story will undoubtedly spark a fair amount of newspaper coverage about the MA game fish bill. According to our PR consultant, it is vital that our members write letters to the editor in support of the MA game fish bill whenever and wherever they see stories about it surface. These letters should be short and right to the point. Perhaps, beyond the truth, the greatest asset that we have in this battle is the wide distribution of members that belong to Stripers Forever. The influence of the commercial striped bass community is limited to a few legislators whose districts are right along the coast. If you care about striped bass and want quality striped bass fishing, now is the time to let your voice be heard. Brad Burns


BOSTON (AP) _ The feisty and enormously popular striped bass would be off limits to all commercial fishermen in Massachusetts under a proposal being considered by state lawmakers.
The bill would ban the commercial catch of striped bass in state waters and limit recreational fishermen to taking home one striped bass per day _ down from two _ while imposing new size restrictions.
The proposal to make stripers a "game fish" comes at a time when regulators say the once-rare sport fish is abundant, not overfished and reproducing at a healthy clip. But the bill's backers say the science is off and fear regulators are setting up a population crash by allowing commercial fishermen to pluck out the most productive stripers _ large females.
"They managed to crash the fish once before, why do we want to let them do it again?" said Craig Caldwell, a recreational fisherman and member of Stripers Forever, a group that supports the bill and "advocates eliminating all commercial fishing for wild striped bass," according to a mission statement.
Darren Saletta, a commercial fishermen from Chatham, said the bill is being driven by Stripers Forever's "greedy intention of retaining the entire catch for their recreational side."
If saving fish is the goal, Saletta said, it makes no sense to go after commercial fishermen when recreational fishermen catch more than 80 percent of the stripers landed in Massachusetts. Still, he added, there are plenty of striped bass.
"(Striped bass) is a poster child for fisheries," he said. "It's healthy. It's flourishing. ... It's creating jobs. It's putting food on the table."
Stripers are popular among sport fishermen because they can be tough to catch and are fiery fighters when hooked. Fishermen are protective of the stripers because they saw the stock collapse to about 5 million fish in 1982, before rebounding to an estimated 56 million in 2007, according to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which manages stripers on the Atlantic coast.
The bill's sponsor, Rep. Matthew Patrick, D-Falmouth, said a healthy striper stock is worth about $1 billion to the state's tourism business, and keeping it robust is essential.
"The worst thing that could happen is for this fishery to collapse again," he said.
The bill's advocates see troubling signs, including a wasting disease that's hit the species, anecdotal evidence of fewer fish and federal numbers that showed a steep 71 percent drop in stripers landed in Massachusetts _ from about 9 million in 2006 to about 2.6 million last year.
Patrick said he's also troubled by a decline in the number of breeding females, which fell from 2003 to 2008, though the 2008 estimate is still higher than any year in the two decades before 2003.
Caldwell, 46, of Harwich, said he caught about 40 stripers last year, compared with 100 or more in years past. And he didn't see the mid-sized fish that would become the fishery's key spawners in future years.
"What the old guys tell me is this is exactly what happened before the last crash," he said
Stripers Forever says ending commercial striper fishing has worked to improve the stock's health in other New England states _ including Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine _ and, subsequently, the value of the recreational fishery. Meanwhile, it would affect what group spokesman Jeffrey Krasner called a "tiny handful" of commercial fishermen.
The state Division of Marine Fisheries issues an annual average of 4,000 commercial striped bass fishing permits, but only about 1,200 permit-holders report selling at least one fish, said agency spokeswoman Catherine Williams. About 275 fishermen sell a thousand pounds or more (at around $3 per pound), with 35 or those selling 5,000 pounds or more.
Saletta says he's in the latter group this year, but is also a shellfisherman and lobsterman. It would be devastating to hundreds of fishermen if the bill passed and they suddenly lost a chunk of income, he said.
"You've got to take part in several fisheries in order to piece together a living," said Saletta, 34.
The dropping catch is not a sign of an unhealthy stock, but a changing environment that's moving the stock away from fishermen, said Ben Martens, a policy analyst for the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association. All striper fishermen are restricted to state waters, which extend three miles from shore, but the fish are following their food to deeper waters and also moving away from rising inshore water temperatures, he said.
Nichola Meserve, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's striper coordinator, said the stock assessments are based on the best available science and show striped bass, including the female population, well above target levels. The drops in recent years reflect a return to the average from a historic high in 2004, she said.
"It's considered, I think, to be one of the healthier (stocks) along the Atlantic coast," Meserve said.
The Massachusetts bill has yet to move before the House, and Patrick said Friday he's open to compromise, perhaps buyouts for commercial fishermen or tighter restrictions on them.
"I just want to get to resolution of this problem that I foresee," Patrick said.

4000 permits sold and only 1200 say they caught fish ... but they say they need to sell striper in order to survive .. sounds like the comercial guys are full of it ... puts more proff towards there selling the stuff black market