Saltwater fishing is both big business and a pastime in the U.S., with millions of Americans working in the industry – from commercial trawlers to professional fishing guides and gear manufacturers – and many more pursuing this passion recreationally, whether to catch fish and then release, or for the dinner table. But despite some positive examples, many fish populations have been declining in recent years due to a combination of factors, from overfishing to pollution or habitat loss.

The ocean’s vastness and the large array of people intent upon catching fish makes knowing what’s going on under the waves incredibly difficult, and that much harder to advocate for regulatory measures that can ensure a sustainable harvest for all, and a healthy ecosystem.

Though there are advocacy groups hitched to saltwater fishing that sometimes communicate fisheries science or stock assessments to their members, one is also engaged in directly fostering scientific understanding of saltwater fish and fishing, and uses its data to make cogent advocates of their membership comprised of guides, gear manufacturers, tackle shop owners, and everyday anglers.

Standing behind a tagline of “Promoting sustainable business through marine conservation,” The American Saltwater Guides Association (ASGA) is a small and savvy team of anglers who are also top science communicators and advocates, educating their members on which conservation minded policies to support, while developing new fisheries science tools to help regulators make informed decisions.

“Until we came along, there was no voice for those saltwater anglers who cared about conservation, but didn’t have enough time to put into it to really understanding it,” says ASGA’s vice president and public policy director Tony Friedrich, who was recently involved in developing a new mobile app aimed at boosting regulators’ understanding of saltwater gamefish population trends.

Another way the ASGA brings fisheries researchers, economists and anglers into direct conversation to learn and hear from each other is during their Science Symposiums, including one recently in Louisiana and another scheduled for later this week in Woods Hole, MA.

Mongabay spoke with Friedrich ahead of this latter event, and his responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Mongabay: Most anglers are also conservationists, perhaps in part because it’s an outdoors activity, but do you agree most folks who fish are environmentally minded?

Tony Friedrich: Generally, hunters and fishermen have such a connection to the outdoors. I do both, and what I would say is the biggest difference between hunting and fishing is that when I pull the trigger, it’s over, but when I catch a fish, I can decide the fate of that fish — I can let it go, or I can put it in a cooler. So, I think there’s even a deeper layer with fishing.

The hunters and fishermen that I grew up with are good people and they want to pass their traditions down to their children and grandchildren. So intrinsically, our entire sport and lives depend on conservation.

I think hunters in general are more open to regulation changes. Every year [managers assess] how many baby ducks fledged, and they’ll change the regulations, even depending upon the species of duck: ‘canvasbacks did good, mallards did bad, gadwalls did okay,’ and they’ll adjust the regulations every year to reflect that, and hunters accept it.

Mongabay: The ASGA tagline is ‘promoting sustainable business through marine conservation’ and it makes sense that fishing guides who derive their livelihoods from saltwater would champion good practices, but who else are members of your organization?

Tony Friedrich: We wanted to build a big tent and we certainly don’t limit our membership to just guides. I think it’s the entire conservation community. We represent private recreational anglers, tackle shop owners, guides, and small fishing related businesses from Maine to Texas. You don’t want to limit it to just people who have a vested interest in the business.

What we found out early was that there wasn’t one unifying voice for conservation in the saltwater fishing community – freshwater, I think, has some pretty loud and effective voices for conservation – but in saltwater, frankly, it’s so much more complicated. The resource is shared amongst many more stakeholders, from small or artisanal commercial fishing all the way up to industrial commercial fishing, shellfish aquaculture, finfish aquaculture…until we came along, there was no voice for those saltwater anglers who cared about conservation but didn’t have enough time to put into it to really understanding it.

Mongabay: Your team does a lot of science communication, what kind of backgrounds do they have?

Tony Friedrich: My comms team is second to none, they’re incredible and multiple people have degrees in marine biology, while I have a degree in the school of hard knocks. I understand how to navigate funding the science, and finding scientists who are passionate about their work. There’s gotta be somebody who funds the machine, and I guess that’s my superpower.

But by and large, if we have any hard science to do, we find the right research institute, university, or whatever to do it for us. Most of our consultants have some science degree related to fisheries.

Mongabay: On that note, your podcast, The Guidepost, broadcast sessions in late 2024 from your third science forum, which brought together fisheries scientists, anglers and ASGA members in New Orleans to talk about the science and also the economic impacts of recreational fishing. What practical outcomes have you seen from gatherings like that?

Tony Friedrich: So that’s a great question, generally, whether it’s a state agency, or interstate management body, or NOAA itself, or any of the councils or regulatory frameworks, they have one thing in common: they are terrible at communication. I don’t really think that is something that scientists do really well. And I bring that up because we’re able to put them on a stage and [record] video and audio, and put it forward in a way that normal people can digest. So, we’re giving their work a megaphone, and as we do that, we provide the science to educate our members and listeners, and that’s how we just keep producing better and better advocates.

So, right now, if you want to just look at direct results, we’re in communication – in either the beginning or the final stages – with no less than three states to set formal regulations for false albacore and Atlantic bonito. We haven’t even started our jack crevalle project yet, that’ll be starting in the next 60-90 days, but states are already warming up to us, to look at new regulations that respect the economic impact and angling value of [species like] jack crevalle. And we’ve absolutely moved the needle on striped bass management. I’m not going to stand on a soapbox and say that we’ve won anything, but I can say some fisheries would be in a hell of a lot worse place, if it weren’t for us.

I think that’s true for just about any fish that gets our attention, and that we advocate for, because of the relationships that we build in these agencies, that appreciate our transparency and openness with educating people. Look, if you’re in a state agency and you hold a fisheries meeting, and for 20 years, there’s just been a bunch of angry people that come in and holler and scream and make no sense and don’t understand the science – and probably didn’t bother to read the stock assessment before the meeting – then, all of a sudden, your meetings are filled with 30 professional, polite, considerate people who give well-thought-out comments to support science-based decisions, that’s a pretty big change. So, we are able to kind of leverage this to make a difference – we develop mutual respect.

There were no regulation changes [on redfish] in Louisiana since 1988, and we got regulation changes after being active in Louisiana for one year. That was a focus of one of those forums that you heard, and puts a pretty big exclamation point on it.

Mongabay: One such event shared on the podcast centered on fishing guides worried about a species that has no regulations at all – jack crevalle – a usually common fish that can save a guide’s day if the fishing is slow, because one can pursue this ‘sporty’ species with clients– if the sought after ones like tarpon or redfish aren’t biting–so it was the guides saying to fishery managers, ‘We are seeing fewer of these fish out there, can you help us protect the species?’

Tony Friedrich: My guides are not afraid to come to me and say, ‘This is what we need to do.’ I get those phone calls a lot. We have to do everything that we can for the popular species, like striped bass, bluefish, redfish, snook, right? We have to.

But in the meantime, as those species decline, more emphasis is put on species that are more available like jack crevalle, Atlantic bonito and false albacore. And as more fishing emphasis is put on those species, and you have no regulations on them…look, if you have roads with no speed limits, I promise you, there will be more accidents. Our car insurance rates are going to go through the roof, and meanwhile, there will be other people who are still driving at a responsible speed.

So, I’m not like, ‘yay, more regulations,’ but when you see the [fishing] effort go up on these species, and you just leave the door wide open with no regulations, it’s just an impending disaster, especially when we don’t have any science on these species. ASGA has spent upwards of $400,000 to accumulate the science on Atlantic bonito and false albacore, and we give that freely to the managers, and say, ‘This is why you need to manage these fish.’

So, what it comes down to is that my people cannot afford to lose another fish. They cannot. No one can, not the tackle shops, not the guides, no one. We have to hold what we have, and hope that the species that are in decline recover. And that is an insurance policy to keep tackle shops selling gear, to keep my guides on the water, and to keep people wanting to fish. Besides ‘better business through conservation,’ the number one thing that we keep saying, is ‘abundance drives effort.’

And I have some numbers that prove that, but it’s pretty simple: the healthier the fish populations, the more likely it is that you go out and you catch 10 stripers instead of one, and so the more fishing trips you’re going to take, because it’s exciting, and you know you’re going to be successful.

So, I went to the NOAA website and I pulled the MRIP (Marine Recreational Information Program) numbers, which is the statistical program that estimates how many fish we catch and harvest, for a multitude of species on all the coasts. I pulled data on what’s called the B2s – the fish that are released alive – because they were undersized, or oversized, or the person just wanted to release the fish.

Mongabay: What did the numbers show for striped bass?

Tony Friedrich: People are not fishing as much. When they do go fishing, they’re not catching as much, it’s really scary [so] I have to make sure that albacore and bonito are around, because the trend is clearly showing me that people aren’t fishing or don’t want to go fishing as much for striped bass, because they’re just not having the same success rate. So, this effects hotels, sandwich shops, boat mechanics, gas docks…it’s just this cascading, devastating economic multiplier effect.

Mongabay: We often cover the use of new technologies that can advance conservation science, from drones to satellites and bioacoustics. So, can you say a few words about the GotOne Fishing Log app that your team built, that allows anglers to log their catches with a mobile phone?

Tony Friedrich: Our focus was to fill glaring holes in the stock assessment data. A lot of the stock assessments do not know how many fish are caught and then released, or what size those fish are. But in the last two years, we’ve cataloged over 10,000 striped bass that have been caught and released: after someone records their catch with the app, we get the data and anonymize it. When you hold that striper up for the phone, you do not need to tell the app it’s a striper. And soon it’s not going to be necessary for you to measure the fish.

Mongabay: Because the app will be able to estimate the fish’s size via the phone camera?

Tony Friedrich: Yes, and this is really cool, right now we are providing monthly downloads – to multiple state agencies, NOAA, and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission – with the size of fish that are being released, the species, and how many of them.

So, that gives them a much better gauge on the population dynamics that we’re seeing out there [to] make good decisions on how to manage these fish. And what do I get out of it as an angler besides just contributing to science? As saltwater fishermen, we [can] log into websites and look at water temperature, wave height, moon phase [that offshore weather] buoy systems can collect for us.

Well now, as soon as you register that fish [the app will] find the buoys closest to you, download all that environmental information, and then ultimately, you end up with the best fishing log you’ve ever seen. That’s our gift to you, for helping us make science better.

Mongabay: The ASGA also takes conservation stances on harvest limits for ‘baitfish’ species like menhaden, which are key forage for gamefish, and whose populations also have ecosystem-wide benefits – have those efforts spawned relationships with other interest groups, like birdwatchers or whale researchers?

Tony Friedrich: Everything eats menhaden, from ospreys to seals. We first started back in probably like 2006 ringing the alarm bells about menhaden. And yes, we do look to build consensus, and that could be with Audubon, for the needs of migratory birds. It could be with the whale watching boats in New York – Gotham Whale is a group that we’ve worked with.

On my wall [is a drawing] that one of my friends did 15 years ago [of] my two hands holding a menhaden [and] we put it on a shirt that we made back in 2011 that said, “The future’s in our hands.”

I remember 400 menhaden advocates in a room together, everyone wearing that same shirt. And that was when we got the first reduction of the menhaden harvest in the Chesapeake Bay, a 20% reduction. That’s the result.

Erik Hoffner is an editor and award-winning podcast producer for Mongabay, find his photojournalism at Instagram and his latest thoughts are posted on Bluesky.

Banner image: North Carolina State University PhD student Bethany Wagner helps tag a false albacore for The Albie Project. Image courtesy of American Saltwater Guides Association.

Related audio from Mongabay’s podcast:Regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) regulate commercially valuable fish species across the world’s oceans, but their own activities often go unregulated, listen here:

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