Morning Star Fish Report

Fish Report 11/23/09

Limits of Tog

Regional Cbass/Fluke/Scup/Tog Management

Crockett's Mid-Atlantic Fishery Policy is Wrong

Schumer & Pallone's Bill Isn't

A basic tenant of restoration biology might be that our ability to destroy habitat always precedes our understanding of that habitat's value..

Were the true value of reef--any manner of reef--not found in fishery production, the best course for fishers would be to remove reef, thereby concentrating the remaining fish...

Hi All,

Couple decent days on the rip, just a bit of weather we could fish. Limited all who dropped a line though there were only a couple tog over 10 pounds..

Crazy fishery.. Friday I had 3 accomplished anglers dropping their lines within a few feet of each other -- it wasn't working for two of them! No amount of underhand mugging could break George's lock on the hot drop.

They finally did get going.. Tragic in a funny way for a while.

Only had the birds working where we wanted them Friday. Usually more blues, this day about split between stripers and blues. We get some nicer weather we'll see more of this 'bonus round' of after-tog-limit action - I hope.

Small tog have been a sight. I've never seen so many. Owing to recent artificial reef work there's now at least 10 times as much tog habitat--more & brand new--near the bass grounds. I'm very glad to see the production, the little guys, acorns before oaks.. As these youngsters join the spawning stock we'll have an awful lot of new reef grown-in and ready for colonization.

Ain't all smalls by any means; oh no, we still have a couple anglers everyday that catch their personal best - provided the bar's not set too high!

My thoughts on regional management are below. The writing shows why whole-coast or 'coastwide' management of any species that exhibits short regional migration is a farce; why we must have region-specific regulation to advance fisheries restoration further; and why Lee Crockett, Director of the Pew Environment Group's Fisheries Policy, is steering fishers into disaster, a disaster without benefit to fish or fisher -- a lose lose situation -- and why any concerned with real marine restoration need to support The Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act of 2009 By Senator Schumer & Rep. Frank Pallone.

Still selling out at 12. I'll go toggin everyday the weather's fit through the 30th save Thanksgiving. Tog season closes come December 1st.

Perhaps we'll do some trips in December for blues and even stripers if they'll come inshore, out of the MPA.

Have to haul-out too, briefly.

As ever, winter trips will be announced via 'fish report' emails.

Tog reopen January 1st.

I intend to be there.

Regards,

Monty

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

A Simple Case for Regional Black Sea Bass, Summer Flounder, Tautog & Scup Fishery Management - Monty Hawkins - 11/23/09

If coast-wide management were working sea bass would now be found in incredible numbers off the DelMarVa coast --now-- today in even greater population than the fantastic numbers of the early 2000s.

That is not the case. Management fails to comprehend the finality of the situation; that rebuilding can not occur with a coast-wide plan.

In a few years time I suspect that managing fish without a strong habitat component, indeed with no habitat consideration whatever: That managing species in broad coastwide swaths as opposed to regional zones, these distinct sub-populations of fish set apart by habitat; That such management will be as incongruent, as dramatically inconsistent, as indefensible as declaring "All men are created equal" while feeding slave children trough-swill with the dogs: That the self-evidence of truth in fisheries governance is only as strong as those tasked with bringing it to the fore: That the .org brute strength of money combined with expert skill in societal manipulation now borne with fisheries ignorance can lead to no good outcome for fish nor fisher..

The coast-wide cbass closure presently being endured is a result of reportedly high landings in one region; this northern area vacuuming up the entirety of the recreational quota while every other region had shockingly lower reported landings.

The economic pain created by this particular closure and the many other resultant see-sawing gains and losses of management's goals are an unnecessary burden.

Every tagging study north of Hatteras shows that sea bass will return to the habitat from whence they came, that each reef or region has a distinct population.

The notion that a fishery can not have sub-stocks without genetic difference, or some other obvious manner of speciation, leaves ignored a whole host of useful tools for restoring fish and gauging success while doing so.

We should not be worried if a "stock" could interbreed, as surely the cbass off Virginia Beach, VA. and Jones Beach, NY. could; No, for restoration purposes we should estimate the likelihood that they would interbreed in a given year. In this example it is fantastically unlikely that these two distinct reef habitants/colonists separated by some 300 NM will ever comingle reproductively. It is here that spawning philopatry, or breeding site fidelity, is as much an 'apple & orange' manageable characteristic as having two completely different species; that what defines a fish through some obvious characteristic, such as the difference between weakfish & spotted seatrout, is as much a tool as what reef area a population uses to spawn.

In and of itself, this argues for regional management. There are, however, far greater reasons, foremost is the danger of regional collapse through unregulated concentration of fishing effort.

Whether spikes in fishing effort/catch/landings are brought about by consolidation of permits--as when IFQs or 'catch shares' are being acquired thereby concentrating effort into fewer hands & smaller geographic regions; or by simple economics, this where the most valuable part of a stock is located in one region and targeted by highly mobile gears, even including spikes in recreational effort; the over-pressuring that may have been prevented via regional quota/management is almost applauded under a coastwide plan.

This is not simply theoretical: over-pressuring regional stocks has occurred where larger, more valuable, sea bass were exploited in concentrated multi-state trawl effort.

As ever, regional collapse of a fishery remains unnoticed in coastwide data set, smoothed away in a broad-scale graph..

It will happen again and again and again--forever--until these demersal fisheries are regionally managed. Any hope of true, lasting restoration is lost until this is corrected.

Tagging studies reveal nearly absolute regional habitat fidelity in s. flounder, black sea bass, tautog and, presumably, scup.

Here it becomes obvious that achieving long term restoration goals with a coast-wide management plan is impossible; that any success could only be temporary as effort shifts outside the natural territorial bounds of these regional stocks.

And, it is with this information that the importance of seafloor habitat should leap out from the data to anyone willing to look for it.

A basic tenant of restoration biology might be that our ability to destroy habitat always precedes our understanding of that habitat's value.

Just as the Dustbowl of the 1930s taught the crucial importance of habitat management in farmland, so too should our present state of fisheries teach us the value of reef habitat management in the mid-Atlantic.

There are two reef videos on YouTube http://www.morningstarfishing.com/ -- So far as I know, in 2009, that's all the work on our region's shallow water corals...

Were the true value of reef--any manner of reef--not found in fishery production, the best course for fishers would be to remove reef, thereby concentrating the remaining fish...

Not at all what needs done, but it is exactly what happened in the mid & later parts of the 1900s --- It was only continuous refinement in electronic navigation that disguised a serious downturn in fisheries as a fish-catching jubilee.

Our responsibility is to see, to know, to discover what was and restore it.

Instead, we remain blinded by coastwide fisheries estimates of every manner--economic, recreational catch, stock assessments of reef dwelling fish made with no knowledge of reef--when a regional concept is our only hope.

The Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act of 2009 By Senator Schumer, NY & Rep. Frank Pallone, NJ is our only hope of buying the time needed to save fishers - the businesses - before our present use of law whirlpools the whole industry.

I expect I'll write my DC representatives in support of that legislation.

Meanwhile, the giants trying to cipher the mysteries of the sea while gazing from their distant towers are pushing hard to kill it...

A few simple biological truths would fix the whole business.

Regards,

Monty

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

posted by Monty # Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Fish Report 11/12/09

Tog Limit Blues

Succession

Failings of Ivory Tower Fisheries Economics

If you took what I know about large-scale economic theory and stuffed it in a gnats ear it would rattle around like a BB in a box-car.. Hmm, I wonder what the good Professor knows about fish and fishing..

Hi All,

Saturday we had as fine a start as could be had, folks spread around the whole rail: a military dress-right-dress, not only with left arms extended--rods too--and all nicking away at tog.

Well, almost all, one fellow was solid into cbass no matter what-for crab he baited. He generated some good tags at least; then, later, turned his day around and crushed 'em..

Slick calm in the morning, coming saucy headed home - fair wind, not a worry.

Rode over the newly sited NRG Reef that Capt. Greg/OCRF sank that same day, 11/7. Engineered by good fortune and clever endeavor this one. The pieces just came together at the right time - habitat complexity writ very large - wonderful.

When we 'discover' what reefing can do we'll be engineering on purpose, maximizing the production from each unit's footprint. Whether its oysters, corals, or a specific species of fish; we'll learn to build what's best and do so with a mind to succession--growth succession; the time sequence of organisms actually growing on reef substrate. A year old reef set may have crazy-mad mussels growing on it, but that won't be what's there 40 years from now...

Ah yes, more fishing.

Sunday we had a stunningly beautiful day. Really, you had to just look at the ocean and be thankful.

But we limited out by 9:30.

Ain't no way I'm going in: not yet. Lit up the big radar and--pow--scarcely 2 1/2 miles further offshore worked a flock of gannets, the WWII Avenger-like torpedo dive bombers of the marine bird world that add a visual and audible component to the fishing, their cacophony of calls either to alert others to food or warn them to get out of the way as they--whoosh--plunge into their feast; the sudden swirls of fish--unexpected--only adding to the experience..

Nice.

Caught all the blues we wanted, yet far-far less than a limit; headed for home and still got in early.

Monday we were a tad further out and nearly limited when the tog bite quit.

..radar ain't fair.

Those birds pulled me 7 miles down the beach before it was over.. Blues. Wonderful fun.

One young fellow struggling.. what's up with that fish..foul-hooked? Dylan's too tired?

Ah, no.

Ritch: "Capt! Capt! Gimme the big net!"

Forty four inch striper.

Amidst these many blues we caught two very large striped bass. Tagged & released both because they were caught in the MPA, arguably the largest recreational no-fish MPA in the world, this the striped bass closed area from 3 to 200 miles offshore - all of the EEZ.

If I wrote the rules we wouldn't have kept them anyway--too big--but we'd be able to take one-a-man if ever that fortunate. Its been a no-take, closed to recreational fishing area for 24 years because commercial fishers exploited a loop-hole--then state regs didn't count in federal waters--so the fed slammed the door on 'em..

And us.

Dang thing's stuck.

Some say stripers are a rebuilt fishery..

Perhaps this is where Pew's "economic benefits accruing to recreational fishers through rebuilding" starts to occur.. but just not yet, not after 24 years.

Lot more on that below...

Buoy Report: 44009 - 15 NM East Fenwick Island, DE. - Tuesday - 11/10/09 - 5:50 PM - East wind 1.9 knots - 1.3 foot seas - 13 second period.

Coming in from a dive trip--an artificial reef monitoring trip--greasy-calm, ocean smooth as I've ever seen, the calmest calm-before-the-storm you could hope to witness.

Had spent the day anchored over a reef similar to what the Radford--a 560 foot Destroyer set to sink next summer--might look like in the future; somewhat alike but, at 165 feet, smaller.

Nick Caloyianis and Clarita Berger were aboard, their underwater video work seen around the world. Just unloading their van worthy of marvel; carefully packed, Rubik's Cube perfect: no fisher ever had such equipment.

But then, we do try to stay in the boat.

Anyway, Nick--joshing--says he'd "like to drop right on the smoke stack."

I reply, "How about the wheelhouse?"

Set enough anchors for toggin.. Get a little practice.

They came back up from their first dive thrilled. Water warm, visibility wonderful, fish and growth in abundance..

And had down-lined directly to the wheelhouse.

An extremely late school of spadefish--their numbers huge by the standards of these past two decades though of very modest size some three decades ago--swam all around the upper structure of the once & now again proud Coast Guard ship Red Beech.

Breathtaking video--at least for a lover of marine life--still photos; a jelly in full bioluminescence, its lit up colors neoning along in a stream of natural wonder; those spades caught broadside to the lens, a yellow tagged sea bass trying to evade these filming intruders..

Should have pieces up on Maryland's reef website soon.

Truly splendid.

All a sign of what this reef-site centerpiece, the Radford, might look like in a decade; just a glimpse of her in several decades.

Then, sun having set and dockside, Clarita, with her thousands of hours diving, experiences revelation: "Those spadefish could have been among the 5 inch juveniles we saw on artificial reef in the Chesapeake.."

..this the same bay that is missing 99% of its natural hard-bottom oyster reef.

That calm buoy report now replaced by Storm Warnings, gusts to 52 knots, and 23 foot waves with an 11 second period; its fantastically rough.

Going fishing for tog when the weather breaks.

If we limit - or get all we want - we can hope for blues to finish the day.

Below is a direct refutation of the report by Professor Gates published--and presumably funded--by the Pew Environment Group, titled:

One Last Chance: The Economic Case for Rebuilding Mid-Atlantic Fish Populations.

Fishing is more fun, but derned if there doesn't need to be some truthing too.

'Sancho, my lance.'

'This will be worse than the adventure of the windmills,' quoth Sancho.

Is what it is..

Regards,

Monty

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

11/12/09

Capt. Monty Hawkins' refutation of: "One Last Chance: The Economic Case for Rebuilding Mid-Atlantic Fish Populations" Professor Gates, University of Rhode Island.

Alright Professor,

You have presented "One Last Chance" while I am at that exact point. You presume to tell me/us how fisheries restoration is going to play out in the Mid-Atlantic, how "an additional 570 million per year in perpetuity in direct economic benefits" is being missed out on by our reluctance to just STOP overfishing & rebuild.

Now granted, if you took what I know about large-scale economic theory and stuffed it in a gnats ear it would rattle around like a BB in a box-car.. Hmm, I wonder what the good Professor knows about fish and fishing.. About marine ecology.. About where little fishes come from.. And about the whittling away, sometimes bulldozing, hydraulically liquefying, Joint Foreign Fishing Venture selling of our original production engine - the habitat, that Essential Fish Habitat of Magnuson that we just can't seem to grasp unless we can wade into it..

I think the good Professor is standing slam in the middle of my proverbial Nebraska wheatfield, stretching horizon to horizon, telling me how hunting controls are going to rebuild the squirrels: how a rebounding economy of returning hunters filling motels, buying dinners, breakfasts, thermoses full of coffee, guns of every sort, ammo, dropping serious coin on ATV four-wheelers so they can get deep in the woods quicker, buying homes closer to the....woods?

No.

Its a wheatfield.

This giant wheatfield ain't gonna restore no squirrels.

From the Professor's Report: In the recreational sector, rebuilding these four fish populations {black sea bass, bluefish, butterfish and summer flounder} would increase landings by 24 percent more per year than status quo management, with an economic value of approximately $536 million per year (in 2007 dollars) in perpetuity. These direct economic benefits would have potential secondary impacts in the region through increased income, sales and jobs for related businesses such as bait and tackle shops, lodging and restaurants. Thus, the estimates reported here are conservative and the actual benefits are likely to be more expansive. These results provide analytical evidence that there is both significant value in rebuilding fish populations and foregone economic benefits from delaying rebuilding.

Bragging about a 24% increase? That's the plan?

We're toast.

Estuaries great & small, and our present marine seafloor the wheatfield, our fish the squirrels: the professor and all the great might of his fantastically deep pocketed sponsor, Pew, a sponsor who can get the NMFS's Chief Scientist to repeat word-for-word from this report; he, they, and all others who believe these words are simply missing a supremely significant point: Repairing the impact of up to several centuries of extensive habitat loss, though mostly from the last 60 years, is an incredibly important part of fisheries restoration.

Read the whole report - it Googles - habitat ain't there. This economic theory is either misleading--dishonest with a purpose--or ill-informed of fisheries ecology.

You can't spend five seconds reading about salmon without crossing into deforestation and dam construction: yet sea bass? Their habitat is apparently unworthy of inspection.

We can not simply take the heat off fish populations and expect a glorious revival. We must do the heavy lifting, the habitat restoration; its not going to happen by reviewing 15 year old studies of recreational fishing's economic impacts.

Fiddle. I bet a regionally based management plan would, based on the factual previous 4 years catch, increase sea bass catch by 378.26%.

Still, I have to agree, if you cut off all fishing for these species they would rebuild to the holding capacity of the remaining habitat - even higher. By today's standards that would be a lot of fish.

I saw a preschooler hold his shoelace as his mother tied the knot, "I did it!" Big hugs..

Like so, reducing fishing mortality to nearly zero increases populations.

I would call that neither fishery restoration nor management.

These theoretical stocks now rebuilt to new heights, an economic state of grace, they find their reproductive success too fruitful: and, outpacing the available prey base, they crash.

Where too is the diverted effort, the fishers patiently fishing other species while this nest-egg of income 'in perpetuity' gathers interest: these fishers are targeting something.. Tautog? Are we rebuilding in a vacuum? Where will this latent pressure go? As Yogi Berra said, "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is."

Where are fishers to shelter while regulatory nirvana, this magical stasis, is being created..

There is no shelter. We fish - or else..

Using recreational catch data well-known to be rather barnyardy to effectively reduce fishing pressure as much as possible, while spouting fisheries restoration theory that can't pass simple scrutiny, represents railroading in the grandest tradition; its not modern management - its all the brute force money can buy, not the best use of available science....

The four fish in the study:

Butterfish? Can't speak to it.

Bluefish are not scarce, but they do not use our region as they once did: now only migrating through, not staying far into summer. A case for global warming? Eh, the summer spadefish and amberjacks of southern seas have diminished more too - used to frequently have the three species together. Lessened prey availability/findability a cause I think. Importantly, the blues we do have are remaining much further offshore - in clearer water - seas less sullied by the regurgitation of the region's un-biofiltered major estuaries.

Sea Bass management has created an abundance/scarcity stock oscillation that will repeat every 4 to 7 years by region depending on industrial winter effort. This "coastwide" plan fails to accept that no sea bass swim coastwide; they'll only migrate a small distance then return, often exactly--with the precision of GPS--to their home reef. The economic restoration of this fishery is not going to be found in broad-scale management or economic theory. It will never be well-restored, or bettered, without shouldering habitat management.

Summer flounder are at a population never seen in my life, nor that of any other party boat skipper that ever sailed from Ocean City, Maryland. Never targeted in my industry here prior to 2005, we now spend upwards of 100 days a year targeting these fish on the still-unfound reef system. Far beyond fully restored, we fishers await stock assessments that account this apparently new use of habitat--but it isn't new, its an adaptation: biological stock assessment having caught up, fishers could then enjoy the fruits of this success.

The worst enemy of fish and fisheries is ignorance.

There's coral out there in the mid-Atlantic. Bryozoans, hydrozoans, tube worms, sea whip, star coral; lots of varieties: my success at fishing depends on finding these emergent growths--reefs if you will, and you must.. for they are.

Those now barren bottoms that once yielded catches unimaginable to modern fishers, whose fish were caught without benefit of modern navigational equipment; they must be accounted for in restoration economics.

But aren't.

Can't.

At least not yet. Habitat's not been found.

Science sure hasn't - the councils don't seem to want to - fishers have to.

I await an unveiling of a large project by The Nature Conservancy in the coming weeks. Newcomers to the marine eco-wars; we may well see that their monumental effort at GIS mapping reveals information on habitat never before quantified; a peeling back of the veil through computerized mapping..

Management's success can not, must not, focus on catch restriction alone. Being blind to prey availability, water quality, seafloor habitat, estuarine habitat & more is never going to offer the least hope of driving fishers toward bioeconomic stability. In fact, accelerating along our present course is, right now, driving the whole industry off an economic cliff.

Wonderfully large-scale spontaneous generation--sky-fall--as our primary fisheries restoration plan isn't where I thought we'd be in 2009.

It is my strongest desire that some of the world's leading fisheries ecologists hear this plea for sanity in fisheries management and, using new tools, attack this economic thesis in a more scholarly fashion: that a truer path to restoration based on sound biological ecosystem restoration will emerge..

It will surely include catch restriction, but in no way rely exclusively upon it.

A boundless din of opinion across the fisheries, from Eskimo whaling captain to Virgin Island reef fisher to bloodworm digger in New England; the great truth of habitat production is all but absent in the ever-present fight for more quota.

From the many environmental groups now concerned with the fate of these fisheries are a few that have habitat in mind, at the fore even; but they lack the strength, the voice, the ability to be heard above that din that the behemoths posses.

Rebuild now these giants cry, economic splendor awaits - catch shares for all!

Billions of dollars vs. some several millions vs. some hundreds of thousands vs. a fisher that can still afford an internet connection.

Real world, real seas, real habitat loss: absent is a real foundation of habitat to support their restoration goals.

I believe that fisheries management in broad spectrum can fully restore fisheries. Using habitat technologies & protections, I believe that some species can be made more abundant than ever before.

I also believe that we are not going to succeed in the least with the present strategy. And, if we remain unconcerned with these other aspects of restoration our last chance has already occurred; that "One More Chance" will become someone else's first chance.

And their chance too is doomed without deepening efforts of management to directly grapple these many habitat issues.

Regards,

Capt. Monty Hawkins

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

posted by Monty # Thursday, November 12, 2009

Fish Report 11/6/09

Toggin Better Than OK

Sea Bass in Converse

Hi All,

Couple good tog of late, tad north of 10 pounds. Just a very few. Very steady on stout mediums, the 3 to 7 pound fish.

Ran through all my tags - now reloaded - tagged a 21 3/4 inch sea bass, bunch of others..

Fished with 2 people on Wednesday. Wore 'em out - in early. Grind it out Thursday but well worth the effort. All limits save one, that though we threw back plenty of tagged legals.

Blown out Friday but did manage to site anchors at Kelly's for the coolest reef unit I have ever seen. I'm telling you, though small, the tog are gonna party there like cowhands at a Nevada chicken ranch - its going to be a tog factory. Sinking Saturday morning - weather permitting.

Have decided to sell out at 12 for toggin. Getting everyone on the structure is what this fishery is about - less is better. Stick with what I know: Crabs provided - sell out at 12 people - leave at 7 - Saturday's different - leave the best phone contact possible with reservation staff in case of bad weather....

Would prefer to be selling 22 tickets for sea bass--often busier in November than August--but NMFS perceived there was an emergency: Overfished Recreational Quota - Closed for 180 Days.

Seems the fellows up north outfished the party boats by a wide margin, private boats catching 5.34 cbass for every one caught on a party boat. That would defy belief here off Maryland's coast; I can't speak to it up there however.
Coastwide, way over quota they say..

I carried 2 MRFSS interviewers the other day. A perfect data capture - pristine. No doubt that NMFS believes their MRFSS data. But what happens between that perfect interview, intercept they call it, and a large area catch estimate is..

Driving me crazy.

Seems it would be so easy to truth, if they wanted the truth - really wanted it.

Not a whisper of that that I've heard. They trust the MRFSS data. Trust it enough to treat their clients like pirates did traitors: economically, I may as well be buried to my neck in sand, watching the tide come in. The fishers that Pew thinks are going to enjoy a pleasant life of quiet bioeconomic stability wait, watching from behind the pirate's island palms as this cohort of fishers meets their watery death.

NMFS: This data's solid, more than good enough to issue an economic death sentence - fishery closed.

..And now, like the brown eyed children in Jane Elliot's 3rd grade class, to most of the public and virtually all of the environmental community, we greedy evil fishers have perpetrated yet another vile foulness upon this ocean: 'You deserve to be closed, animal.'

I have worked far too hard at restoration to suffer willfully uninformed bureaucratic ineptitude casting me as a dolphin slayer in some tidal pool..

The folks that own this town are all in tongues.. quota-restoration-Magnusson-big environmental rebuilt fisheries-quota-stop overfishing-over quota-quota-economic pot of gold at the end when restored-quota too high-overfishing.. worked themselves into a tizzy I think, their serotonin release coming at great cost to fishers.

Honestly, if rational thought held sway, if this was really about fish and not some pretty paperwork decorating an inbox, if the management community were truly concerned with black sea bass populations and not just another footnote in their flowery report to congress, if restoration of a fishery--whose definition is never just a fish population; no, defining fishery must include the entirety of its environmental, economic & societal tendrils as well as those fish stocks which it uses: this current black sea bass restoration emergency would not, could not, be where cbass fishers are having good catches: no, if this system were fine-tuned and functioning, the emergency would be where fishers did not catch sea bass, not where they did--those skunked warranting attention, not those slamming 'em--emergency management where local collapse of a local stock known is occurring, this need-of-work plain as stench coming from the head door on a rough day; where regional absence of sea bass represents very real trouble, proactive management now afield looking for disruptors of their fishery..

Perhaps that is exactly what they would do though--show concern for low catches--if they believed Maryland really only caught 1,355 sea bass or Delaware's fleet of partyboats caught none at all. Maybe they'd be all over it.. but are, laughingly, content to toss out obviously bad catch estimates: the low ones.

That we might have the same fate for overestimates.. Estimates high protected by the brotherhood of tongues, estimates low of no consequence.

The worst trouble businesses can have is being perpetrated by those in government who are tasked with sustaining them.

No one questions the validity of catch-restriction as a tool:

This fishery can not be managed as it is. ALS and Federal tag returns unambiguous; it must be split into regions.

When a lot of fishers complain about data do not suppose management to have suffered injustice to good work - something's wrong with the data.

When trawl net surveys have great difficulty catching but the fewest sea bass it is because those fish live on corals, places where nets can not go--or--where operators of conscience know they should not go. Data-poor does not have to make fishers poor. Use solid catch/release data to model the stock.

Sea bass change sex according to the size of the male spawning population. This can be used to take oscillation out of regional populations, or it can be ignored to make the swings wilder.

To close this fishery based on strict adherence to law while conveniently ignoring the habitat provisions in that same law should be punishable by law.

There's plenty here that needs to get straightened out.

Irritating enough as is; it will get far worse by spring.

Unless it gets better.

A fisherman - I know that's possible.

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, November 06, 2009

Fish Report 11/3/09

Toggin'

Reefing Possibilities

Hi All,

Long stretch of bad weather.. might not be done yet. Snuck in Tuesday, eased on out; paced as an enjoyable walk.

Throttle down - over structure - lay starboard anchor well up into a considerable but diminishing swell - port anchor far below the wind & off a stern cleat; drawn tight, we're saddled just so: not gonna ring the bell on that one piece of steel, no sinkers banging-clanging: won't spoke 'em..

Man did the tog chew. Hungry.

My aft deck, despite 40 some legal fish tags today, wasn't a picture of conservation.

Or was it?

I promise this, we could have taken an awful lot of tog today, but stopped.

Limited.

Perhaps the single best illustration of fisheries management I can recall this year.. except..

Have I mentioned artificial reef lately? ..those scurvied rascals managing sea bass will wait a bit, a little bit...

Department of Defense--DOD - They are, one day, going to be given a lot of credit for fisheries enhancement. SHA too.. More?

Anyway, Maryland's at a jog, then a sprint, trying to catch-up.. For the first time in over a decade the State has just staffed the Reef Director's position - Erik Zlokovitz - strait-up - good guy.

DOD's putting in new 'green roofing' at a facility. With a little luck the old roof, plain ol' concrete--and clean--is going to get a very green recycle in way of oyster reef..

So here's DOD wanting to reef. Will truck a scadjillion loads to near Baltimore Harbor.

Maryland's NRG, Erik, needs a tug & barge company - big time & low budget!

Erik Zlokovitz <ezlokovitz@dnr.state.md.us>

Upper Bay reef looks like...

Heck of opportunity.

Some readers know players - some readers are players - make this happen - key parts falling in place - legacy of improved water quality and fishing.. not just possible, probable.

And so is the Radford. Navy Destroyer almost 600 feet long.. In what is already a well developed reef site, though not yet seasoned; DelJerseyLand promises to be a serious fishing and diving destination.

I guarantee it.

Need to fund Maryland's share of the Radford - The Morning Star reef-raffle ponied-up $1000.00..

Need a big donor - TV coverage, show of its own kind of deal.

And I don't even know where to send you, except certainly to Erik.. We'll get the CCA website switched up a little for us regular folk http://www.ccamd.org/MARI/MARI_home.htm Here you can still "Buy a Ton" but it doesn't say Radford yet.

You can, of course, funnel donations through the Ocean City Reef Foundation at http://www.ocreeffoundation.com/index1.php .. Call Marta at OCRF, she'll straighten you out.

Down-home here, our small foundation has a couple projects rolling into place - another tautog/trigger/cbass/spadefish super-sturdy hilltop piece is ready, waiting for a calm-spell for deployment..

Oysters & temperate corals.. we're going to make a lot more; fish that live on 'em too.

Ah good, we limited on tog. That was awesome.

But we're fishing for tog in the height of sea bass season. That's not cool.

Data is starting to become available, data that should firm-up NMFS's decision to throw lives under a bus by closing sea bass.

Just a real quick data affirmation:

Ricky up in Delaware.. hmmm, poor guy, my peer, a friend.. fishing forever, what of today? MRFSS has DE partyboats catching zero sea bass - none. Yet the state's anglers caught 44,322? Goodness Rick.. I've nearly lost it all, but I can still catch a sea bass..

Yeah, well, that didn't happen. Ricky caught fish. Others too. Maybe MRFSS will catch-up to DE later.

Here in MD we killed 1,355 sea bass. That's just the party boats. Everyone else got skunked - I swear it. http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/st1/recreational/queries/catch/time_series.html

Of course those VTRs I talk about - the Vessel Trip Report that has to be filled out daily by Rick & I and all other charter/party skippers - I reported to the government more than twice as many sea bass in May as they have for MD's year.

I must not have been to the right places in Jersey, I've seen party boats everywhere - even outnumbering charters in some places. But they only caught 1 out of 7 cbass in the state.

At least in MD we get credit for killing 'em all; an opinion widely held in the fisheries.

"But the sampling improves over greater area." This in an an age where even manure fertilizer is targeted with pinpoint precision.

Mix a little wrong with little right - you got wrong.

That just a tiny sample of the "Real-Time Hard Data" that was used to close sea bass.. Good riddance to the whole sorry no-good mess of rat infested bilge slime.

The Marine Recreational Information Program--MRIP--starts January 1st. Replacing MRFSS, we'll soon see that horrible mistakes have occurred over the years. Lots of 'em.

These errors in catch estimation will be like rats at the city dump with kids pickin 'em off as they scramble from the light.

I don't know what I'll do with the carcasses, but I'm going to collect 'em. Show everyone what we were focused on in the decades we wasted watching the waves, suspecting nothing amiss at the bottom of the sea.

Rebuilding. Restoring..

As if fish populations occurred without any other influence, save fishing..

Sanity in catch estimates will allow a hard won truce; allow the troops weary of fighting this alien--catch estimate--beast that can not be bested an opportunity, a chance to look for other ways to bolster fisheries production; they're out there.

Bad time for truth, fishers & tautog.

Except the fishers that want tog.

They should do OK..

Regards,

Monty

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

posted by Monty # Tuesday, November 03, 2009

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