Maryland charter boats, anglers grapple with rockfish limit amid population decline

STEVENSVILLE — When first mate Steph Shields got the text message, it felt like more of the same.

It was a customer who typically booked striped bass fishing trips on her boat, the Kent Island-based Chasin’ Tail, once or twice per year. But when she told the angler about this year’s regulations, which limit customers to one fish per person, he said he’d have to get back to her.

“That’s what everyone says: ‘We’ll get back to you,’” Shields said. “And then you don’t hear back.”

This year in Maryland, the rules around catching the state fish, known by the nickname rockfish, are among the tightest in recent memory, not counting a moratorium in the late 1980s that spurred a resurgence of the depleted species.

Maryland charter boat crews, who make their living guiding anglers to the prized sportfish, say the catch restrictions have dampened enthusiasm and diminished bookings.

But they come amid troubling population data for the species, including five straight years of below-average tallies of baby rockfish in Maryland’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay, the birthplace of the majority of the species’ Atlantic stock. The population is considered overfished.

This year, the one-fish limit applies to all recreational anglers in the bay, whether they fish aboard private boats or on charters, which can cost upward of $125 per person. And every keeper must fit within a narrow size limit from 19 to 24 inches long. Maryland officials also canceled the trophy season, a two-week period that previously opened the spring season, during which anglers targeted the largest striped bass after their arrival in the bay to spawn.

Limits for commercial watermen were slashed 7% in the Chesapeake and the Atlantic Ocean this year. But in Maryland, that quota reduction won’t be enforced until 2025.

In March, two organizations representing charter boat companies and other watermen filed a lawsuit against the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the multistate compact that determines fishing regulations for rockfish and a host of other nearshore species. A federal judge in Baltimore rejected their request for an injunction against the rules; they’ve appealed to a higher court.

Charter captains argue the regulations’ impact on charters is excessive.

“Some people straight up say, ‘Man, I’m not coming for one fish,’” Shields said.

Some captains said they anticipate the season’s bookings could be cut in half, dealing a blow not only to their businesses, but also to the hotels, tackle shops, and bars and restaurants frequented by their customers.

“There was no consideration of the economic impact,” said retired Capt. Robert Newberry, chair of the Delmarva Fisheries Association, which represents local watermen.

Delmarva Fisheries is part of the lawsuit against the Atlantic States commission, alongside the Maryland Charter Boat Association.

“We haven’t lost,” Newberry said. “We haven’t lost until we’re out of gas, and we’ve still got three-quarters of a tank.”

Maryland officials actually fought against the one-fish limit at the Atlantic States commission, said Mike Luisi, associate director of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ Fishing and Boating Services. Luisi proposed that charter boats, unlike regular recreational anglers, be eligible to keep two fish per person. But other states nixed the proposal, and Maryland did not appeal.

“We had an objective and it was challenging, to say the least, when we got back, to explain to people that this is what the rules are going to be,” Luisi said.

For some customers, the pull of a day on the bay is still enough. Marc Combs, a resident of Taylorsville in Carroll County, traveled across the Bay Bridge to Kent Island for his charter trip on the second day of the season, with three friends.

“Right now, you’re just doing it for fun — to get away from work — versus coming down here to try and get fish to put in the refrigerator,” he said, pulling four Ziploc bags of pink, freshly fileted stripers from a cooler in the bed of his truck.

“One 19-inch fish isn’t going to do a lot of feeding too many people,” he said.

The story of this year’s limits goes back to a 2019 stock assessment, which found the rockfish in the Atlantic and the Chesapeake to be overfished, said Emilie Franke, fishery management plan coordinator at the Atlantic States commission. That triggered a target: recovering the species by 2029.

A few years in, rockfish seemed on pace for a 10-year recovery. But in 2022, the commission noticed a worrisome jump in recreational harvest, Franke said: an 88% increase relative to 2021’s data. The high mortality slashed the likelihood of a resurgence by 2029.

The likely cause? The coming-of-age of the rockfish born in 2015 — the last time there was a truly robust birth year for stripers in the Chesapeake.

“When more fish become available to the fishery, oftentimes that can lead to increased effort,” Franke said. “However, the unexpected part here is the magnitude of that increase.”

The number of spawning-age females has been mostly declining since about 2010, when it was 230 million pounds, she said. In 2021, the most recent year with data, it was 143 million pounds, compared with a target of 235 million pounds.

Still, “we’re not in the dark days of striped bass depletion that we were in the 1980s,” said Dave Secor, a professor and fisheries scientist at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons Island.

But new hazards have entered the fray against stripers.

Invasive blue catfish could be “a big smoking gun,” Secor said. The ever-hungry predators have taken hold in Maryland’s bay tributaries, arriving from Virginia, where they were introduced, and they have been known to gobble up large quantities of young striped bass.

“I hope I’m wrong. I hope that we get a strong year class. It’s still very feasible to get a strong year class,” Secor said. “It’s just this constant, serial, year-after-year low recruitment is suggestive of the actions of a dominant predator — blue catfish.”

Warming waters in the Chesapeake also could be playing a role. The spring migration of rockfish is driven by water temperature, and with recent warm winters and less snowmelt, adult stripers are arriving earlier for spawning, when juvenile’s food sources such as zooplankton are less abundant.

The availability of prey for older striped bass, such as Atlantic menhaden, a small baitfish that is harvested for fishmeal and oil production, is another critical factor in the species’ survival. And the pollution of the bay, which creates low-oxygen “dead zones” can threaten the beloved fish.

Meanwhile, some watermen and charter captains are skeptical about the data behind the limits. Maryland’s annual “young-of-the-year” survey, which estimates the amount of recently hatched rockfish in the bay, has happened mostly in the same locations since the survey began in 1954.

With fish behaviors potentially changing, some watermen want the survey to expand to new places, where rockfish may be more plentiful than they once were.

“It’s tough, because we know where the fish are and we’re seeing them there,” said Capt. Brandon Moore of Chasin’ Tail charters.

But maintaining the survey’s locations is key to making sound comparisons from year to year, Luisi said. The state could keep the original list intact and survey extra sites, but doing so would come at a cost of time and resources for the department, he said.

Still, aboard the charters, some things haven’t changed. For customers who catch a silvery striped bass within the limits, the thrill remains.

“I cast the rod and then within two minutes I had the first bite,” said Rodolfo “Rudy” Burgos Salazar, who caught three rockfish during a recent trip, though he was new to fishing.

Kneeling down, Burgos Salazar pulled folded dollar bills from his sock.

“I wanted three fish, so I put three dollars in,” he said with a laugh.

But the narrow size window causes plenty of disappointment, particularly for young children or first-time anglers, said Capt. Tilghman Hemsley. It’s a dramatic decline from last year’s, when anglers could keep fish up to 31 inches.

“You’re throwing the big fish,” Hemsley said. “People have never caught a big fish like that before.”

Not all of the released fish survive. As waters warm, the catch-and-release process becomes even more arduous for the rockfish. Maryland has instituted a two-week summer closure this year, as in past years, opting not to extend it further.

When his charter boat reaches its limit, the crew turns its attention to other species, including baitfish such as spot, Hemsley said. When waters warm, crabbing could fill the time, or fishing for Spanish mackerel and bluefish.

Aboard the Breezin’ Thru, a 75-year-old charter, customers are served a menu of fresh Chesapeake fare to pass the time, including crabcakes, steamed crabs and fried fish.

“The real value is, we’re going to take you away from what you do for a whole day,” Hemsley said. “And you don’t have to travel to Mexico to do it. You can do it right here in Maryland.”