Morning Star Fish Report

Fish Report 6/14/06

Of Lobster and Fish...

Hi All,

Consistent. I actually used that word to describe the fishing in my last report. At the time it was true!

You could say there's variety in catch levels now. Still, almost everyday there are at least a few limits or dern close to it. The two tough days were mostly due to wind but some schools of sea bass are spawning too. That makes for an odd bite - or no bite at all! Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be an alarm that makes ALL the cbass in this region go on the spawn at once. Often times I can leave one place and 1/4 mile away find a different feeding behavior. Sometimes I'll have to 'punt' - move a fair distance. Work a little harder - no worries.

The weather has been remarkably unstable for June I think. Alberto is as early a tropical event as I can recall. Several times strong westerly wind forced me to work tighter to the beach than I'd like. NWesterlies are far more typical of fall. Tough to hunt bass in tight. Last Saturday we had NW gusts to 41 knots. 10 to 15 was the forecast! Nicked a few bass offshore before the wind came on. I really hugged the beach on the way home. Some of the charter boats came in that day flying tuna flags - Great Night! They earned those fish!

It's not May anymore - I'd call the bass fishing pretty decent for June with just a tease of last year's flounder now and again.

An article two weeks ago in Nature described how Caribbean lobsters would avoid other 'sick' lobsters. Apparently they pile in pretty chummy in a good hiding hole - but if it's occupied by a lobster with a virus called PaV1 they'll leave that one alone. All alone. The lobsters can tell weeks before any outward signs appear. This interesting work, funded by VIMS and Old Dominion University, has applications in our region too.

If this disease avoidance could be said to be intelligence; croakers, then, are probably as dumb as a rock. (that's rock as in granite...) I saw no sign of 'flight' in the croaker kill a few years back. The smaller fish inshore went about their business while the susceptible larger ones offshore died.

The events that began on June 22, 2003 were rather different. On that day I found the area east of the Delaware Lightship, an area where I had been fishing quite regularly, to be devoid of fish. There were NONE anywhere - except for a pocket of sea bass on some natural bottom. Many of those cbass, that single school in a huge area, were infected with small white spheres under the scales - a virus or bacterial infection infection. Lesions and fin rot were readily evident on the worst cases.

For miles around there were no other bass to be found... I think the Caribbean Lobster might not be the only marine critter that senses disease...

After about 2 weeks of trying I got a few scientists to go with me and scope it out but things had piped down. There still weren't a lot of fish around but some had returned. The sickly ones had died or moved on. The area has long since returned to 'normal'.

Two weeks is too long but better than never! Oil spills, trash slicks, fish kills - if it isn't washing up on the beach it's not a problem.

Ah well, that was three years ago. Still, we fishers are the canaries in this marine coal mine; there really ought to be some mechanism to look at what we report.

Property values rule. Things that erode that "oceanfront" tax base get attention quick.

If they'd just look past the breakers perhaps whatever event is coming next could be taken care of before it hits the beach.

Regards,

Monty

Capt. Monty Hawkins
mhawkins@siteone.net
Party Boat "Morning Star"
Reservations 410 520 2076
www.morningstarfishing.com

posted by Monty # Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Fish Report 6/5/06

The Monsoon

Hi All,

Fishing has been what you might want it to be - consistent.

The majority of trips have seen limits of sea bass around the rail or dern close to it. At exactly 12 inches that's 25 feet of fish per person. 28 feet more likely. An odd way of looking at it - a fellow pointed it out the other day. It was a grin. Maybe there's a new fishery management tool there! (I'm kidding!)

Good fishing? Yes. This Saturday past was the exception. West at 10 to 15 was the forecast and then it was changed to 15 to 20 SW with some showers and rain late.

Ho Boy! While most of the morning wasn't too bad, a building sea had a few folks laid out for the duration. Not nice. Usually customers spend the day prone as a result of closing a local bar the night before (there's a mistake you should only make once!) but not this time. Plenty doable, but just plain rough. And then it rained.

And rained harder.

Then it poured.

Everyone was inside waiting for the monsoon to pass... Not. Most were outside setting the hooks and taking off fish; some without even a raincoat. At least one fellow truly enjoyed it. One of those 'man versus nature' events from English Lit...

Gumption.

Caught some nice fish that day, biggest of the week in fact. At one point folks were catching cbass 25 feet down - the fish had risen way off the bottom before growing fussy. In about as tough a weather condition as I'll fish in, one guy limited and many were in the upper teens.

The fishing's much easier on a pretty day...

Heavy fog also came into the picture last week. Great Scott! I do dislike 'limited visibility'. That's why I have the equivalent of a brand new pick-up truck tied up in my radar sets. Multi-color plotter-overlay Furuno NavNets for those that wonder. The best feature is a borrowed military technology called ARPA - Automatic Radar Plotting Aid. With a couple keystrokes you 'lock-up' a target and get a plot of that vessel's course and speed. It tells you how close it will come and when - up to ten separate targets. Neat stuff. You still can't relax, but it really simplifies a difficult problem - especially when there's a lot of other stuff to watch too.

Just before those foggy days last week I'd finally finished installing a family heirloom - the air-horn from my great grandfather's boat. Yes, my boat's always had a horn - now it has two.

Point is, with the new technology you can watch the old technology work. Several times I had boats 'locked-up' on radar and watched them alter course away when I laid on the old air horn. It's loud.

There are skippers that have absolute faith in their electronics. They'll run same speed as ever and just look at the radar instead of over the bow. Others have absolute faith in fate - they run at normal cruise without radar at all! Me, I'll go slow and make a lot of noise...

Ah yes, a fish report...

Tog are scarcely worth mentioning but there have been a few, mostly taggers. With my own eyes I saw two caught on the soft plastic "gulps". What's the world coming to - fishing the noble tog with plastic.

It's safe to bet money that they do work. However, if you see a couple guys with funny looking side-mounted reels or big flat sinkers don't bet that they'll out-fish bait!

Trust me on that...

We are in 'sea bass season' when I go to a 3 tog at 16 inches limit. Of the 3 only one can be female. It's rarely a consideration.

Flounder too hardly deserve a sentence ~ 7 all week. There's some high hopes there I'll promise. A lot of folks want to know when the flounder will 'run' offshore. Using last year alone as a guide I'd say July, August and September. Using the 2 1/2 decades prior I'd say it ain't gonna happen - but it might...

There were many days last summer when we had more flounder on a single trip than I'd had in my entire career. Many were caught on standard sea bass rigs baited with clam. Hard to figure what caused it; I think they were from somewhere else - an anomaly. Perhaps not though - time will tell.

Wherever you're fishing - enjoy.