October 21, 2021 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Tautog Management Board reviewed the results of 2021 Regional Stock Assessments Update, which found improvements in most regions. Stocks within the Long Island Sound (LIS) and Delaware/ Maryland/Virginia (DelMarVa) regions are not overfished, with improved stock status for both regions from the last assessment in 2017. For LIS, New Jersey/New York Bight (NJ-NYB), and DelMarVa, fishing mortality also decreased with the stock not experiencing overfishing in any regions; also an improvement from the previous assessment. In the Massachusetts and Rhode Island (MARI) region, stock status remains unchanged with the stock not overfished nor experiencing overfishing.
Each regional assessment used information through 2020, including calibrated recreational data from the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP). Over 90% of the total harvest of tautog across all regions comes from the recreational fishery. In addition to regional indices of abundance from fishery- independent surveys, a catch per unit effort index was developed using MRIP data for each region because tautog are not easily sampled by standard fishery-independent surveys. The new MRIP estimates resulted in higher estimates of spawning stock biomass (SSB) and recruitment in all regions, but had less of an impact on fishing mortality.