Bluefish

In June of 2021, the Board and Council jointly recommended approval of Amendment 2 (the Bluefish Allocation and Rebuilding Amendment) to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Bluefish. The Amendment updates the FMP goals and objectives, initiates a 7-year rebuilding plan, establishes new allocations between the commercial and recreational sectors, implements new commercial allocations to the states, revises the process for quota transfers between sectors, and revises how the management plan accounts for management uncertainty. Bluefish are now managed under Amendments 1 and 2 and Addendum I.

Since the passage of Addendum I in 2012, a coastwide biological sampling program has been underway to improve the quantity and quality of information used in future bluefish stock assessments. Amendment 2 to the Bluefish FMP allocates 86% of the resource to recreational fisheries and 14% to commercial fisheries. Annually, a portion of the recreational or the commercial sector’s quota can be transferred to the other sector (not to exceed 10% of the acceptable biological catch) if it is anticipated that one of the sectors will not harvest its full quota. The commercial fishery is controlled through state-by-state quotas based on historic landings from 2009-2018. These new state-by-state quotas implemented through Amendment 2 will be phased in over a seven-year period to minimize the economic impact on commercial fisheries. Since 2020, recreational fishery has been managed under a coastwide 3-fish bag limit for private anglers and shore-based fishermen, and a 5-fish bag limit for for-hire anglers.  

Based on the 2025 management track stock assessment findings and rebuilding plan projections, the Board and Council set new specifications for the 2026 and 2027 fishing seasons. For 2026, the commercial quota was set at 4.66 million pounds and the recreational harvest limit (RHL) was set at 22.02 million pounds. Due to the increase in RHL, recreational bag limits will increase in 2026 and 2027 to include a 5-fish bag limit for private anglers and a 7-fish bag limit for for-hire anglers.

The 2019 operational assessment for bluefish indicated the stock as overfished, but overfishing was not occurring. In 2022, a research track stock assessment, which can incorporate larger revisions to the stock assessment model was conducted to inform future management track stock assessments for the species. The research track stock assessment made a number of notable data and model changes designed to improve the assessment and reduce uncertainty.

Results of the 2025 management track stock assessment conducted by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center found the Atlantic bluefish stock was not overfished and not experiencing overfishing in 2024. Although the stock is no longer overfished, Atlantic bluefish will remain in the rebuilding plan outlined in Amendment 2 until the stock rebuilds to the target level of spawning stock biomass (SSB). The updated stock assessment incorporated data through 2024. SSB in 2024 was estimated to be 170 million pounds, which is 89% of the SSB target.

Fishing mortality (F) in 2024 was estimated to be 0.108, which is 47% of the overfishing threshold of F_{MSY proxy}=0.232. Although fishing mortality was below the threshold in 2024, fishing mortality exceeded the updated threshold every year from 1985 to 2019. The largest recruitment in the time series occurred in 1989 at 350 million fish, and the lowest recruitment was in 2019 at 67 million fish. Recruitment has increased since 2019, but has remined below the time series average over the past 10 years except in 2024. The next management track stock assessment for bluefish is scheduled for 2027.

Bluefish are predominantly a recreational fishery, with recreational landings accounting for approximately 85% of total landings by weight in recent years. As bluefish migrate seasonally up and down the Atlantic coast, anglers from Maine to Florida target these voracious predators near inlets, shoals, and rips, where they come to feed on large schools of bait.

Recreational harvest peaked at 166 million pounds in 1986, but quickly declined in the 80s and 90s. The most recent 10 year average annual recreational harvest of bluefish is approximately 18 million pounds. In 2024, recreational anglers harvested an estimated 5.1 million fish weighing 13 million pounds. Harvest during 2018-2024 was exceptionally low compared to the ten-year average. Bluefish recreational releases have averaged approximately two thirds of the total catch in numbers of fish since 1999.

Commercial landings decreased from 13.5 million pounds in 1985 to 7.4 million pounds in 1999. Since a state-specific quota system was implemented in 2000, commercial landings have averaged around 5.3 million pounds annually. 2022 marks a commercial landings time series low of 2.3 million pounds. In 2024, the majority of commercial bluefish landings came from North Carolina, New York, Virginia and Massachusetts.