Key Outcomes from the ASMFC 2025 Summer Meeting: Striped Bass, Red Drum, and Menhaden Under Scrutiny

Fisheries management along the Atlantic coast is a mess, and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) continues to prove why with its latest moves at the 2025 Summer Meeting, held August 5-7 in Arlington, VA. Striped bass, lobster, and redfish are in trouble. Those are the three most economically important fisheries on the coast. A conservative ballpark figure would be over 15 billion in economic impacts per year for coastal communities. We might have a better chance with a blind monkey driving the bus, but here we are.

This bureaucratic circus gathered to hash out issues for various species, but as usual, it felt like more talk than action. Today, we’re dissecting three fisheries that got the spotlight: Atlantic striped bass, red drum, and Atlantic menhaden. These sessions exposed ongoing failures in rebuilding stocks, ignoring overfishing, and half-hearted ecosystem considerations. Here’s the rundown complete with detailed explanations of the motions that watered down the drafts headed for public “input,” including what sections and subsections they targeted in the draft documents. And mark your calendars: final public documents and state hearing schedules for the related addendums are supposed to drop soon.

Atlantic Striped Bass: More Delays in a Failing Rebuild

The Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board passed Draft Addendum III to Amendment 7 for public comment, but it’s hard to get excited when projections scream that rebuilding by 2029 is becoming more difficult after every terrible decision. Fishing mortality is spiking in 2025 thanks to the 2018 year-class hitting the recreational ocean slot (28-31 inches), and with weak year-classes trailing behind, the stock’s future looks grim—yet ASMFC drags its feet while playing math gymnastics with unquantifiable, unenforceable, and purely punitive options like no-targeting closures.

The draft focuses on a 12% cut in removals starting 2026, with commercial quota reductions and recreational harvest closures. For Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay mess, it suggests tweaking the recreational baseline season to remove the April closures while lengthening the summer.

Motions chipped away at potentially stronger measures. First, a motion approved the 2024 FMP Review and state compliance reports by unanimous consent—no debate, just rubber-stamping the status quo. Then, a motion passed 13-1 (2 abstentions) to remove the 18% reduction options in Section 3.4 (Options D and E), which were likely the more aggressive cuts aimed at commercial and recreational sectors to boost rebuilding odds. Another motion squeaked by 8-6 (2 abstentions) to scrap Section 3.4 Option C, a 0% commercial/-14% recreational reduction split that would have shifted more burden to recreational anglers and further destroy 95% of the striped bass economy while everyone is hanging on by a thread.

No-targeting closures were extremely close to being fully removed. A main motion to remove ocean no-targeting options was amended to include “with the assumption that striped bass only trips are eliminated,” passing 9-6 (1 null) on the amendment and 12-3 (1 null) overall. We can also report that NOAA and NMFS figured out that their arms still work. They actually voted on something. However, in keeping with the NOAA and NMFS brand, they voted for keeping one of the no targeting options. Who would have thought that NOAA and NMFS would want to close the entire ocean to fishing and go against the advice of the Law Enforcement Committee? For one, we did. Do better, or just put your arm back in a sling; it has been in for a few years anyway. They are about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. Not surprised but still disgusted.

For Chesapeake Bay, a motion removed Section 3.4 Option B’s sub-options CB2, CB3, and CB5 (amended to drop CB3, passing 14-0 with 2 abstentions, then unanimous consent on the rest), axing specific Bay closure or limit tweaks. A separate Bay no-targeting removal motion, amended similarly, passed 12-4.

Tagging saw a unanimous consent motion to add an option in Section 3.2 for tagging at the “first point of landing,” slightly expanding enforcement choices but not mandating much. Finally, a motion removed Section 3.3 Option D (a 25% uncertainty buffer for Maryland’s season baseline), passing 10-3 (3 abstentions) after an amendment to add Option B (no buffer) failed 4-8 (4 abstentions)—weakening buffers meant to account for data uncertainty. The board patted itself on the back with unanimous approval. Stripers, an East Coast staple, deserve better than this ASMFC incompetence that’s letting the stock spiral.

Red Drum: Ignoring Urgency in the South, Piecemeal Fixes Elsewhere

Down south, the Sciaenids Management Board pushed Draft Addendum II to Amendment 2 out for comment, but it’s another potential for ASMFC to demolish an economic and cultural juggernaut. The 2024 Benchmark Assessment confirmed the southern stock (South Carolina to Florida) is overfished and hammered by overfishing, yet the northern one (New Jersey to North Carolina) skates by without those labels—though climbing mortality should have set off alarms the ASMFC conveniently muted.

The draft proposes two weak mortality caps to “end” southern overfishing, northern recreational bag/slot tweaks, and ways for states to sync rules, especially in Chesapeake Bay. It also adds bureaucracy: processes for proposing assessment responses, submitting outside analyses, and tweaking de minimis exemptions for states that barely impact the stock.

Motions further diluted it, focusing on removals and approvals. One motion removed Section 3.4 Option D by consent. Another axed Section 3.5 sub-option b1 by consent. Then, unanimous consent approved the modified Draft Addendum II, locking in the watered-down version.

They tasked Plan Review Teams to rethink de minimis across sciaenids, but that’s just kicking the can. Redfish anglers, especially in the battered south, are left wondering when ASMFC will stop failing these iconic fighters.

Atlantic Menhaden: Bay Bottlenecks and Empty Promises

The Atlantic Menhaden Management Board zeroed in on Chesapeake Bay woes, assigning a Plan Development Team (PDT) to brainstorm ways to spread reduction fishery harvest evenly across the season. This follows a Work Group report on “precautionary” management, noting predator demands, Bay fishery quirks, and shifting menhaden availability—though ASMFC dodged declaring if there’s enough forage for species like stripers.

Coastwide shifts and Bay trends got airtime: Maryland’s bait harvest tanking, summer reduction effort surging, pound net declines. The PDT’s quota period ideas aim to ease “effort bottlenecks” hurting small fisheries and the ecosystem, with review at the 2026 Winter Meeting—maybe leading to actual management, if the ASMFC doesn’t flake. They punted broader environmental tasks to the Annual Meeting, prioritizing the ERP benchmark assessment (SEDAR peer-review in August 2025), which tweaks natural mortality for single-species models in ERP forage balancing.

We are being a little too nice and trying to help understand how things are going with menhaden. Here is the short take on the hour-plus-long meeting. Maryland wants to close the Chesapeake to reduction fishing for a short amount of time so the Maryland pound netters have more menhaden to kill. No mention of osprey recruitment failure. No mention of there being no adult menhaden left in the bay. No mention of anything honestly except “let us kill some too”. If you don’t believe us, listen to the meeting on the ASMFC youtube channel HERE.

Looking Ahead: Force Your Voice In, Despite the Barriers

This meeting underscores ASMFC’s chronic shortcomings: endless motions weakening drafts, deferred decisions, and a rebuild timeline that’s laughable. Striped bass teeters on collapse, red drum suffers southern neglect, and menhaden’s Bay issues fester without bold fixes. Public comment is your shot to call them out—final Draft Addendums III (stripers) and II (red drum) docs, plus hearing schedules, should hit in a week. We will immediately publish our positions, reasoning, and best ways to make an impact.

State agencies, wake up: Mandate hybrid hearings! In-person-only setups exclude workers, families, and remote folks, stifling real input. Virtual access is essential—anything less is ASMFC enabling low turnout to push their flawed agendas. From Maine to Florida, demand better; these fisheries can’t afford more ASMFC failures.

We know you are done with the entire process, and we don’t blame you. We deserve better. The fisheries deserve better. If you decide to sit this out, all we can say is thank you for coming with us this far. If you have some fight left in you, buckle up. We are going to throw everything at this, and we’d love to go to battle with you again. Lastly, from North to South, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Dave Borden (RI), Connecticut, Marty Gary (NY), and Chris Batsavage (NC) deserve our thanks and respect for their steadfast conservation leadership.