Morning Star Fish Report

From: Fish Report: Easter '08

Would that the rule of 72 could work here, the population of fish would double in a year and a bit at 68% or 11 years at 6.6%. Rule of 115 ~ it triples in 1.7 years at 68% or 17.5 years at 6.6%.

While no fish stock is ever going to be this predictable; dern sure be better fishing if we could bump up the percentage of YOY survivors in any similar fashion.

Fishery management without habitat management is like wealth management without regard to protection of the principle, let alone annual interest.

Still undiscovered and certainly unmanaged, constant attrition of our region's natural reefs leave we users exposed to asset disaster.

By building new artificial reefs and protecting the natural ones we'll add to our region's 'principal'. Done well, we could be fishing the interest of the interest.

Fish Report 3/30/08

Tautog's Windy Blues

Spawning Habits of Outdoor Equipment

An Odd Piece of Evidence

 

Hi All,

True. Anyone who has ever put more than two shotguns in a darkened gun cabinet will testify to their reproductive success (RS). Breeders have been trying to manipulate the yield and characteristics of plants and animals for thousands of years. However, the mysteries of sporting equipment's non-linear hereditary transmission remain unresolved.

McManus's work attempted to discover why, for instance, one pair of single shots in different gauges will conceive a 16 gauge side-by-side; while in another cabinet with a similar breeding pair the offspring may well be an automatic, say a Belgian Browning round-knob. 

Such dissimilar offspring strongly contradict Mendel's early twentieth-century work on dominant/recessive gene characteristics.

Unfortunately, McManus's study was inconclusive.

Any outdoor equipment might have been used in the study. Duck and goose decoys are incredibly prolific spawners, shut away in a dark place for long months as they are. Archers have reported similar behavior with their bows; kayaks out behind the shed ~ and yes, sporting optics such as might separate a sharpshin from coopers hawk cannot be left alone in a rucksack either.

Once the second piece of equipment has been purchased you daren't turn out the lights.

"Fishing equipment's no different," I said to my wife as I was trying to explain the new Diawa 20 H Saltist ~ a reel that seems perfect for the microbraids.

Stranger still was the arrival of my old friend Clyde's handiwork - the gift of a handsome custom-made rod into which the Saltist nestled so perfectly.

While she wrestled with the thought that outdoor gear might procreate -or even spontaneously generate- I pointed out that there was a reason why there was a door on her shoe closet. Dang things would probably keep us up all night if not...

The rod coincidental, reel accepted, doghouse escaped; 'science' won ~ even with it's inability to explain and with no way to predict spawning success...

Each fall flounder migrate to overwinter areas off our coast, spawning as they go. Science -real science- identified this behavior some years ago. In the fall of 2007 we saw our last flounder roes depleted by early November ~ spawned out. Fifty percent of male summer flounder are mature at 9.7 inches and 12.7 for the females. (NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-NE-151)  I don't think we saw a fish less than 15 inches all year.

From reports and personal experience, during last fall there were flounder thoroughly dispersed from inside the coastal bays to at least 30 fathoms. I somehow doubt any missed that deeply ingrained urge to spawn.

Not considered a 'reef dweller,' more of a reef's edge user for ambush feeding, they certainly have taken over many reef-like environments in the last few years.

And I mean just the last few years. According to tightening regulations one might suppose this is a change in behavior; that there's not that many more fish, they're just using the habitat differently.

I don't think so. I think it's an exploding fish population.

The 'odd piece of evidence' that I referred to in the title is this: My website, written in late 2002 after 23 years in the business, has not one mention of summer flounder. Not a peep. Yet in the last few years we've spent more and more time targeting them; close to 100 days in '07. And doing that in precisely ~exactly~ the same places that I would be normally be targeting sea bass. 

It wasn't a mistake. I didn't forget years spent fluking. We never had the fishery before '05....

Regulators need to back-off and switch focus to the many species that seriously need management's attention. All the brouhaha surrounding flounder is, in my opinion, wasted energy. The rebuilding plan worked. Put it in auto-pilot and check the radar for new targets..

The NMFS recognizes that there 'might' be a southern stock of scup (porgy). I have heard many accounts and seen the pictures of these fish being caught off Maryland's coast - all before my time. I'd wager scup made up 1/2 of the recreational bottom fishing landings from the 40s through mid 60's ~ 1969 was about the last of it. Of late we are seeing a few juveniles using the shallow water artificial reefs in high summer, and perhaps more south-bound migrants into late fall. Wonder what we could do with a targeted management strategy.

Speaking of southern stocks, here's an odd coincidence: According to their website, in 1991 the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council -MAFMC- "Limited the activity of directed foreign fishing and joint venture transfers to foreign vessels." Not to be bitter or anything, I mean I understand sometimes it's hard to get a sentence to say just what you mean; but that year they actually allowed unlimited mackerel processing on foreign ships. And, from that year to this, severely limited -crushed- the recreational mackerel fishery in this region. Perhaps it was the last chapter of the 'underutilized' fisheries whose first pages were written when the National Marine Fisheries Service was the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries..

Certainly the #1 party-boat fish by landings here in the 80's; in 1998 I wrote that the red hake (ling) were declining so rapidly that soon the closest one might be at the Smithsonian in DC. Hope they have a couple specimens ~ we sure don't.

But we've got enough flounder to force a change in the region's reef life.

With no ability to predict spawning success, science & management have won their restoration.

It may be that the management plan has been too successful. I've picked the memories of many that fished off OC even before WWII; captains and mates that reported marlin commonly caught within sight of land. They never had this flounder fishery.

Make a final regulation. Set a reasonable day's catch and size limit then leave it be.

Call the battle won. There's far more serious fishery restoration work to be done.

Maybe even some habitat work...

Regards,

Monty

 

Capt. Monty Hawkins
mhawkins@siteone.net
Party Boat "Morning Star"
Reservation Line 410 520 2076
http://www.morningstarfishing.com/