Morning Star Fish Report

Fish Report 5/30/09

Sea Bass & The Bite

Still Openings For Fisheries Personnel

Hi All,

The sea bass bite was considerably better a few days this week.. Maybe it was the fog.

Probably not, but that's how it played.

Today's positively huge school of sea bass - biggest I've seen in years - rapidly petered into a s l o w bite. Ones we did catch had bellies full of krill.

Wonder if anyone's ever done a fisher success study based on prey abundance. Guarantee there's a correlation.

Very glad to have it as a 'problem'. Fat and hearty, these fish are going to spawn well.

And, unlike the early 2000's, the majority of throwbacks appear to be in the spawning class.

All sea bass start female. (Yup, weird fish stuff.) As I recall, one study had some females transitioning to male just a few weeks after the large males were removed in an aquarium setting.

Earlier this decade the smallest male sea bass we'd see would be +-14 inches. Now we're seeing 8 inch fish fully transitioned.

Took a lot more than a few weeks to work through our region's sub-stock though. Finding out why is key to managing mid-Atlantic sea bass for abundance.

Consistently getting everyone dinner & lots of throw-backs. Occasionally making them glad for the rest on our homeward journey.

Always nice to have the gals on board, especially when they bring fishing talent; better still, luck!

Thursday's grizzled veterans were still muttering.. Eh, maybe the regulars on the stern conspired to keep as many shorts away from Cathy as they could. Fishing and chivalry hand-in-hand? Or was that a tear I saw when she caught her fifth keeper double..

A few weeks earlier I heard a many-year veteran of the Chesapeake swear he'd never fish between two women again. He might not either.

What a thrashing the ladies gave that day.

No limits this week. Certainly would have had many with last year's size limit.

Lots of dinners.

Tropical Depression #1 formed off the coast. We only lost one day to it and that before it was declared TD1.

Strange thing was spiny dogfish were near about gone - yet came right back with the blow.

Colder on the bottom I think. Caught a keeper codfish, a throwback too. Personal trial that, had to tag my only cod in years.

34 inch striper too - its GPS clearly malfunctioning; bit on a sea bass rig in almost 125 feet of water. That's way-way outside the 3 mile Marine Protected Area for stripers. Put that one back as well.

Have 4 or 5 Fisheries folks lined up for June 8th. Room for a few more.

I booked out the stern so that we can measure and release sea bass into lanes graded by size. Float times and release mortality..

So far there's very few fishers signed up. Regular price trip that leaves at 6:30am and returns when the science crew threatens mutiny.

Trip's free to federal or any state's fisheries personnel, though they may hear more about habitat and stock grooming than they'd care for.

I aim to generate some data - have to catch fish to do it. Legal ones are not part of the study and should be fried golden brown.

Meanwhile, put some keepers in the box, throw some back.

Makes a day - 7 days a week.

Regards,

Monty

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

posted by Monty # Saturday, May 30, 2009

Fish Report 5/24/09

Sea Bass

Reef

An Offer To Federal & State Fishery Personnel

Hi All,

I knew this wasn't going to be a fantastic sea bass year. I didn't know the size limit was going up.

That extra 1/2 inch.. Pretty tough out there.

Not without reward, there are days when the bite is on and the keeper/throwback ratio isn't too high.

And days when the mandatory release rate approaches anything ever seen as the smalls move offshore in the fall. This when a regular client might well anticipate 'weeding'.

Is what it is. Keepers and throwbacks, they're all fat! Pool winners are generally north of 4 pounds with several above 5. Someone's going to win the reef raffle too.

Sea water just bumping in and out of the 60 degree mark. First waves of loggerhead sea turtles have come, giant mola-mola too.

In migration now, after a few weeks loggerheads can give away a reef's location. Not sure how reef fits into their feeding, but old timers always checked the bottom where turtles rest. That much I do understand - reptilian fish-finders work.

Slipped out to a recently built reef today. Forty four NYCTA subway cars spread over a 1/4 of a mile.

On the up-current edge there was a huge school of sub-legal cbass. Suspended off the bottom, they were feeding on krill.

Ahead of schedule this year; we've been seeing fish with gobs of krill for almost a week.

Earlier on it was sand eels. Mixed throughout there have been some cbass eating small rock crabs.

(Fussy bite - having just left Outback, would you eat a free crab cake?)

Whether they use reef to lie in ambush for sand eels & butterfish, safe hiding if blues or shark move in while suspension feeding, or to dine on primary reef production such as rock crab, mussel, lobster, shrimp or tubularian hydroids. (Field-like, reminiscent of wildflowers, they are a pink topped filter-feeder - fish just eat the heads.)

If it serves the purposes of feeding, sheltering, and congregating for spawning, it is reef.

How best to manage our temperate reef dwelling fish is yet to be learned.

Like those launching Tomahawk missiles at a target hundreds of miles away, fishery managers can only act on information from others - then hope it was good.

Would that it were never so, but great decisions based on poor information have uncertain outcomes.

At least if the definition of 'fishery' includes not just the fish but the human participants as well.

I think an 11 1/2 inch black sea bass size limit is the threshold for benefit to the stock.

I'm certain that the new 12 1/2 inch limit is neither good for the participants or the fish.

Lonely advocate, I begged for a federal size limit on sea bass and any regulation on tautog - was the only boat on the coast with a self-imposed 9 inch limit for at least 5 years.

Now it has gone too far.

I'd like to show those in the fisheries what I'm seeing and propose a bit of research - free trip.

I've booked the whole stern out for note-pad observation on Monday, June 8th.

Those interested in fishing this trip should know I have no intention of wasting the day. Where there's 12 3/8s sea bass there will be keepers too. Rest of the rail --spots 3 to 18-- open to regular booking.

We'll create three 'lanes' for fish to be released into; one for under 10 1/2, another for 10 1/2 to 11 1/2 and the last for over 11 1/2.

I anticipate a much higher release mortality in the last lane.

Stop-watch timing the reacclimation of air-bladders may be beneficial. Certainly some ought to measure and count fish as they are released. Fish that don't make it back down are primary.

Could do an off-the-cuff assessment of Kahle vs. J hooks too.

There's no grant money involved on my end. This just needs to get done.

Up to 10 biologists/managers welcome -on me- please email and I'll keep track.

Meanwhile, nicking dinner and sometimes better.

Regards,

Monty

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

posted by Monty # Sunday, May 24, 2009

Fish Report 5/15/09

Sea Bass - A Limit

Spiny Dogfish

Tale of Tautog

Eleven Summer Flounder

Hi All,

Friday, May 15, 2009 - a passenger caught a 25 fish limit.

Someone probably hit a big jackpot at the Dover slots too.

The new 12 1/2 size makes it tough.

Definitely sending all home with enough for a big fish fry - rarely have to count what's in the cooler though.

This fishing beats the heck out of grinding fiberglass.

It does not beat the sea bassing earlier this decade. You know, before there were creel limits and the legal size was just starting to mosey up towards twelve inches.

Management ought to seriously ponder that. Might be some other tools beside the recreational fishers' shock collar/choke chain of more restriction.

Really.

Dogfish, devilish scourge of the Mid-Atlantic, seem to be thinning. Not wishing them on fishers to our north - won't miss 'em either. Mid-May is extremely late for spinys here. Good riddance.

That, I expect, also explains the less than robust start to this spring's sea bassing. Not that the spiny sharks were scaring/preying upon/competing for prey with sea bass, but that the water temp suited the gray devils and even a few early May codfish.

Colder on the bottom. Some sea bass would chew - the rest shiver.

Better bite today.

Once in a lifetime overhaul took me out of the loop for toggin' this winter.

We've nicked just enough to remind me that I miss it. Next year.

On the dock I listen while a great angler describes losing a dandy last week.

I know the pain.

Next day I watch as another skilled fisher breaks off the perfect tog. Already a 13 pounder in the box - this next fish could not be stopped on 50 pound.

Wrenching.

Really, these guys are on point, yet this species...

January.

Got the rod holders mounted. Spots 1, 20 & 23 have vanished like the southern stocks of scup, red hake and Atlantic mackerel.

Only amounts to a few more inches per spot, sometimes a foot, but its a big difference. Nice.

The lost fish are attributed to warmer water - couple degrees. Horse feathers. I think its colder on the bottom. Ice melt flows down coast with the Labrador current..

Habitat fidelity renders 'coastal stock assessments' nearly useless in restoration. Act local - restore coastal. Warm water is not why scup/ling/mackerel have left - fishing is. It can be fixed.

So I was at a meeting. Missed a bunch of 'em this winter; made this one.

"No one was whining and crying about these numbers." as she pointed to some fairly realistic catch estimates from past years.

My head almost exploded.

Near as I can tell we have this fall flounder closure because two guys had 11 flounder for one MRFSS interview last year. Could be wrong about that. That's what I got.

Shore bound effort is fairly constant in the early fall. Same regulars. Same spots. None seem to recall catching 30 times what the party/charter guys caught in that period.

Odd.

Statistically perfect, these shore bound anglers caught between 2000 and 60,000 some flatties. Unfortunately, managers have to use the mean - 30 some thousand.

Therefore, shore bound anglers did catch 30,000+ in September/October - that put Maryland way over their recreational flounder quota.

I tried to understand. I know Copernicus's proof was hard won, Einstein's 'light will be bent by gravity' too. Mathematics require proof - testing.

If Pythagoras hadn't been right they'd have berated the heck out him - we sure wouldn't know of him today.

Yet the assertion that the center of this statistical spread is suitable for management is unquestioned and, apparently, unprovable.

Hmm.

Needs to be a test - a proof, something that will narrow the spread of the numbers.

Lot of talk about more interviews. Funding for same.

More kerosene to put out the fire.

Hammer at the data - where is the CPUE (catch per unit of effort)comparison from the fairly hard data of the charter/party fishers? Where in blazes is the computation of the number of participants?

Can it be that statistics simply 'are'; there's no proof required?

Can it be that managers will watch participants suffocate from such swill?

That's how it is now.

Think I'll go nick a few sea bass.

Regards,

Monty

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

posted by Monty # Friday, May 15, 2009

Fish Report 5/8/09

Boat's Done

SEA BASS

Hi All,

Five months.. Finally took that dagoned tent down.

Went fishing. That's better!

Sea bass were not as thick as I've ever seen - wasn't terrible though.

12 1/2 inch size limit this year will take some getting used to. Chunky, tasty, pan-ready with a Perdue pop-up 'perfectly cooked' indicator - those 12 1/4 inch bass have to go back.

But not the 12 1/2s - nor the 6lb 1oz dandy that graced the rail today. Guy with the 9 pound cod was looking forward to dinner..

Fishing 7 days a week. As of this email the reservation book is open through November.

Will resume deeper writings after some rest.

Regards,

Monty

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

posted by Monty # Friday, May 08, 2009

Morning Star Fish Report

Fish Report 5/30/09

Fish Report 5/24/09

Fish Report 5/15/09

Fish Report 5/8/09

Archives