Morning Star Fish Report

Fish Report 2/25/10

After The Rally

Uncertainty

Write!

Toggin'

Try to sneak a few more days of fishing in;

Opening tog trips for - Feb 28 - March 1st & 2cnd - 2010 - Sun, Mon, Tues - West winds forecasted - Boat sells out at 12 - Green crabs provided - Cabin heated - Leave at 7:00 for these trips (or a tad earlier) - Return no later than 3 - 3:30 (usually) - $100.00 buys a spot - Reservation a must, that phone number in signature - Email does not work for reservations - call - leave a good phone number, cell, in case of cancellation.

Hi All,

That was a sight to behold. Lot of fishers in DC yesterday. Thousands! Googles easy..

Message: Management is messing up real bad, destroying livelihoods & coastal economies when fish are in abundance.

Senators/Congressmen-Women there from NY, MA, NC, Florida. They spoke well to our plight: As though they understood.. Honestly understood.

We have politicians in Maryland too..

But they weren't there.

My parents hosted a fund raiser for a young politician seeking his first term in Delaware - long time ago though. I was a kid. Guy's name was Joe Biden. There are fishers in his state deeply affected by Magnuson's present interpretation too.

Crowd was yelling fairly loud at times, maybe they heard up inside the Capitol.

I hope so.

We've been telling Senator Mikulski, Senator Cardin & Congressman Kratovil.. Maybe their offices faced the Rally.. Maybe they heard.

If they did, I'm not at all sure they understand.

Our fisheries are being stolen. We need help.

I think Fisheries Regulators and many of our Political Representatives are now trapped within a culture that accepts basic fallacies as truth; That since we are fishers nothing we say or write is to be trusted; That since we fishers have, historically, created this need of governance through our overfishing actions then we are as Prisoners and deserve, at best, only bread and water; That any Science laid freely upon the table is unworthy if it came from the Prisoners, yet is welcomed with open arms if it came from outside--unrequested.

And, if paid for by the prison system--by NOAA or NMFS--then that science lays beyond any refute.

That is how the data's claim that Maryland shore anglers targeting flounder caught in two months what the state's party/charter fleet will catch in 15 years came to be accepted; That's how that data remains unquestioned by fisheries regulators/managers.

Here, where any acceptance of any proof from the prisoners--from the fishers--would be enough to overturn this terrible catch estimate; Here we see bias writ plain -- Since Fishers in the past tried to exterminate all the fish in the sea & Fisheries Regulators are now tasked with preventing that from ever happening again, Then Fishers can never be trusted by Regulators--not even for the simplest of catch data.

Even law suffers: "The Best Scientific Information Available" shall guide management.

I don't think the drafters of this legislation had any grasp of what rubbish might come to be called science.

They could never have imagined that regulators would call science, would believe, that MA's private boats caught more black sea bass in two months last year than all the data--all together--for that state's party boat history combined.

No, management is messing-up real bad believing some of this data; It's destroying livelihoods & coastal economies while fish are in abundance.

"Precautionary" fish quotas.. "Uncertainty" in the fisheries.. The Uncertainty Principle came from physics. The numbers a physicist might work with -- such as 'ten to the minus twenty sixth power'-- are as to hitting a target on the moon with a .22 caliber bullet with one miss in a trillion tries: That's uncertainty to them, a shot might miss eventually..

Fisheries uncertainty falls a little shorter, perhaps precisely opposite. It's very-much tainted by the bias against fishers..

If fishers profess that no .22 bullet will ever hit the moon, let alone a specific target -- but there's a 'scientific' data set that demonstrates it might..

Managers are going to shoot the moon.

We're toast.

Speaking of physics, which I really shouldn't be..

Von Jolly did great work in his time; However, he is best remembered for telling a student to shift the focus of his studies away from physics because the science was virtually all discovered, there could be nothing new to contribute: The year was 1878, the student Max Planck. He went on to become known as the father of quantum physics. Albert Einstein spoke at his funeral. (The Discoveries - Alan Lightman)

Certain of his assessment, von Jolly spoke with firm belief. The student, Planck, must have thought the advice shallow and turned away from it.. Now we have nuclear bombs and cell phones.

I saw a press release statement by the new National Marine Fisheries Service--NMFS--Administrator, Eric Schwaab, concerning the DC Rally. It developed into the familiar refrain about rebuilt fisheries being a great economic driver if we could just clear these hurdles; But it began with..."Today, however, more than 20 percent of the nation's fish stocks are overfished and need to be rebuilt to larger, healthier populations so that they can produce their full economic potential for fishermen, coastal communities and the nation."

Our Point Exactly - We were there about the other 80%.. The ones that are rebuilt.

Brand new to the job--been there a week--our new head of NMFS is hardly new to fisheries..

We are at a real crossroads, Mr. Schwaab, a turning point. I offer the Rally offered as evidence. NMFS & NOAA must recognize that we have been on the same team; That together we have rebuilt many species; That we are not the enemy: That management must not follow bad data to where no legislator could have ever foreseen; That regulating economic collapse of fisheries where species are known to be in great abundance was never anyone's intent.

As von Jolly 'knew' it had all been discovered; We are now ready to divide our resources permanently through catch shares, We are now ready to close almost a thousand miles of coast so that red snapper might 'rebuild'-- And We are now ready to choke the recreational sea bass industry to death with data worse than von Jolly's advice..

We have yet to use habitat fidelity in the management of species where it has been well demonstrated: We still manage sea bass on a Coastwide basis.

We have yet to begin restoration--even recognition--of important seafloor habitat, coral reef, in the mid-Atlantic.

We have yet to look for ways to maximize the spawning potential of these regional sub-stocks..

Taken together I assert these preceding sentences place our fishery management of sea bass where physics was in 1878.

We must now decide whether we know it all..

Or will new leaders toss these several decades of mistrust aside, allow the 'precautionary' & 'uncertainty' to fall the other way.. Where since it is known that fish species DID rebuild from an incredibly overfished state with X & Y restrictions, then stricter restrictions are only to be used with the greatest of bioeconomic care.

That would be different.

Might even come to trust that government.

Pressure eased; There's a bunch of new fisheries theories that could be tried small-scale and ramped up. Meanwhile, we've come a long way already. We can demonstrate that what worked previously will prevent fishers from ever catching their way into catastrophic overfishing again.

I wonder what von Jolly would give to be the Professor that brought us Max Planck instead.

History is occurring in the fisheries, of that I'm sure.

I just don't know how it will get written.

I am fairly sure that Fisheries Restoration is among the youngest of sciences; that the good Professor von Jolly has much company in those who believe this is as far as the science will come.

And I am positive that fisher's influence in all this will be found in many of us writing, emailing, faxing, calling and meeting our Representatives.

We need the Flexibility Act. We need--desperately need--a simple test for fisheries data.

Fishers need the regulatory community to apply their uncertainty tests to our businesses, to our communities, to our families & homes..

Things are getting pretty rough out here in this great recession; We don't want government handouts, We don't want the species still in trouble--if they are in trouble; We just want our rebuilt fisheries back: Let us go back to work.

Regards,

Monty

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

posted by Monty # Thursday, February 25, 2010

Fish Report 2/19/10

Blood-Letting

Shell-Shocked

Sue Foster Nails It

Back to the Front!

A few openings for the Monday, Feb 22 tog trip left. See the very bottom of this email if interested.

Hi All,

I did open the book for a tiny sliver of summer--May 22 to June 30th. In a typical year I'd have opened the reservation book on January 1st to sea bass bookings from May 1st through Thanksgiving. Usually, since May offers the best grade of cbass, it books first.

Can't do that this year. Had to refund a lot of reservations last fall too when an 'emergency' closure of the sea bass fishery was enacted.

Cash-flow is the blood of business, it is as oxygen; No business can do without, at least not for long. You can see the effects of blood/oxygen/cash deprivation on any drive through a business district of today.

For two thousand years those who were physicians fancied blood-letting as a wonder cure..

Physicians of today still do--in highly specialized circumstance, and then only in the form of transfusion.

Our fishery managers need to closely examine their procedures here.. We're bleeding out.

Press releases tout the newly doubled sea bass quota - where the Science and Statistical Committee (SSC) reconvened with the Monitoring Committee & new information was brought to the fore regarding the first sea bass quota.. With all information available now input, the quota was doubled; yet still retains a comfortable safety margin that protects spawning stock*.

{*Um, well.. I think that needs work too - been saying so for over a decade; doesn't need to be belabored here.}

NEWS: Quota Doubled!

Hurray! That ought to do it!

Fooled: our Senator's Staff write; our State Fisheries Staff write; NOAA & NMFS write; Many others, friends from the environmental side, customers even..

Sue Foster, our regionally famous OC tackle dealer, said it like this:

"It's amazing. They take away 90 percent, give back 35 per cent, and we're supposed to be grateful?"

Yes, the quota was doubled: But recreational fishers still have a 44% reduction due--owed against this year's catch--because of the now-discredited & dead program, MRFSS*, which still has us having overfished last year. (*Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Program.)

That doubled quota no easy task..

Managers & Regulators--many fishers too--have the thousand yard stare. They are--We are--Shell shocked.

Straight from Wikipedia: "Combat Stress Reaction, Shell Shock.. Battle Fatigue; The most common symptoms are fatigue, slower reaction times, indecision, disconnection from one's surroundings, and inability to prioritize."

Battle fatigued..

What the SSC did, double a quota, was astonishing to those long-in the game. I promise: There was a lot of heavy-lifting that went on behind the scenes to have this body reconvened.

It was not a small task; Rather, it was one of the greatest I have seen in fisheries.

Another battle remains; And there isn't anything more fruitless on this planet than a MRFSS battle.. When troops peer over the trench-top between artillery rounds and see MRFSS with their tanks, mustard & chlorine gas, water cooled machine guns and spotter aircraft; thoughts of victory drift far away..

Shell shock.

A lot, perhaps all, of the people that helped fishers first get across enemy lines, fix the SSC quota error, have this thousand yard stare. They are well and truly battle fatigued, they want fishers to go away; They have done enough and need to get back to their work.

I wish we could simply say, "Thank you for all your hard work. Much appreciated." and leave it at that.

My Kingdom to utter such..

Unfortunately, this next battle is our greatest. Actions against MRFSS have always been the 'storm fishers could not weather..'

We need our front line troops back.

We need truth brought to the attention of the uppermost spheres of our nation's government.

Clearing away all the back screw-ups in MRFSS's catch estimates would be an insanely difficult job.

I think a common sense approach: "We know this worked before: Lets have ____ size limit & ___ creel limit while we await the new MRIP program's data." Such an approach could easily keep our fish populations stable--growing even--while we recalibrate for MRIP and seek truth from the carcass of a not-yet-shredded and land-filled MRFSS..

We fishers will Rally at the Capitol on Feb 24th before noon. We will press ahead. We will try to bring sense to all this.

There can only be one winner; but since MRFSS has already been replaced by a new recreational catch program called MRIP, there could be two losers.

No..

Not without a fight.

If the first wave of troops can not be rejuvenated with a short rest then fishers must send their pleas higher, to the Secretaries and Under Secretaries, to their Senators & Congressmen, indeed to the White House.

We must not let a discredited catch-estimation statistical program--MRFSS--take out a large part of the recreational for-hire industry just before MRFSS gets run through the shredder..

The States; The lower orders of Federal Government -NMFS & NOAA - are shell shocked.

Fishers must now reach higher.

Fishers must also encourage our marine regulators to snap out of it and join us in our fight against bad data.

I could bring this letter to a close right but I press-on; show a few examples of MRFSS data that has had real economic impact despite there being no possible logical agreement with the data......

In Ocean City, Maryland, our partyboat clients outnumber shore fishers targeting flounder most days--I mean really outnumber the shore fishers.

We, the party and charter boats of Maryland, very likely fish harder and better -with more knowledge & with more maneuverability: We certainly cover far more bottom than shore fishers.

I think these MRFSS numbers, these statistically generated catch estimates are still too high for party/charter --but-- here, in this example are probably within a couple hundred fish of being perfectly correct.

Keep in mind that this first data set represents the clients of For-Hire professional captains and--very importantly--is for the year, the whole year: And, for MRFSS, these are great--nearly perfect--estimates.

**Species: SUMMER FLOUNDER - All For Hire - All Waves - Annual**
Year	HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)	PSE
2006	2,314	21.8
2007	2,639	16.5
2008	2,337	18.6
2009	2,774	38.7

This next set is Maryland's recreational shore effort. Granted, there are shore fishers that are very good at catching fish -- I'd wager they complain about party boats catching way too many.

We want visitors to catch fish!

But, despite some local sharpies, no one would say every shore angler is a trained ninja..

These next MRFSS catch estimates are for Shore Fishers in a single Wave, a Two Month Period---Not All Year as above--Two Months, Wave 5, September & October - Not an annual catch estimate.

Species: SUMMER FLOUNDER - Wave 5 - MD - Shore Effort - September/October
Year	HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)	PSE
2006	0	0
2007	36,017	48.4
2008	14,962	51.8

That's one shore-effort two month wave vs. a party & charter boat's annual catch.. 36,017 caught in two months ashore vs. 2,639 by professionals. That's the data that affects us--makes us appear to have greedily gone far over-quota; the data that makes size limits go up & creel limits go down.. all with shorter seasons.

Look at the numbers again.

That is happening in America.

Its every bit as bad in these same years for the 'private/rental boat' MRFSS category.

We fought these data sets hard. In the end it was a "Can't prove a negative" a "Can't push with a rope" argument that kept fishers from having some truth brought in: That all there had to be was more fishers, hundreds of thousands of them I suppose, and they would have indeed caught those kinds of fish - NMFS won..

Always does.

What a bunch of horse-feathers.

And now, outflanking sea bass fishers---red snapper too I hear-told---is another battalion of these crazy catch estimates, the MRFSS catch-estimates that could only be loved by a crazed statistician--because the ones I know, sane, don't like this type of data at all..

We can not push with a rope, We can not argue a negative until true; No one can assert enough proof.. From Wiki: "The argumentum ad ignorantiam [fallacy] is committed whenever it is argued that a proposition is true simply on the basis that it has not been proven false.."

But, look, when you're the government this argument works fine..

All there ever had to be to achieve any catch estimate was more fishers, lots and lots of imaginary fishers...

More.

In each of the following two-month data sets MRFSS asserts 2009 to have been fantastically-incredibly better than any cbass fishing previously known to anglers in these northern regions.

Here too MRFSS asserts that our fisheries bureaucracy allowed the entirety of the coast's black sea bass quota to be captured in one region, despite the proof that habitat fidelity would make that a tragically ruinous event for a single region's fish 'stock' or population..

A quick glance; call it as you see it.

**Species: BLACK SEA BASS - Wave 4 - Private Boat - MA**
Year	HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)	PSE
2007	13,062	71.3
2008	13,548	69.4
2009	165,595	25.6

**Species: BLACK SEA BASS - Wave 3 - Party Boat - MA**
Year	HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)	PSE
2007	3,015	31.1
2008	526	19
2009	77,136	32

Wave 2 NJ Party Boats

**Species: BLACK SEA BASS**
Year	HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)	PSE
2005	61	71.1
2006	30	99.6
2008	134	100.1
2009	20,543	37.7

Wave 2, 1998 - 2009 New Jersey, Private

**Species: BLACK SEA BASS**
Year	HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)	PSE
2002	9,921	92.9
2007	3,302	74.1
2009	34,418	56.4

Years ago ol' Doc Mann, a WWII combat medic vet, used to stitch-up our bait cutting & fish cleaning slices without a local; all while chain smoking Marlboros in the treatment room.

Soviet and other European factory trawlers used to routinely ply our waters in competition with a growing American fleet.

An era past; This was overfishing!

That and the single greatest loss of seafloor habitat in the world, the unregulated hydraulic-super-dredge surf clam boom: It's all part of our fishing history.

So is MRFSS.

Many fishing businesses are finely balanced in this already adverse economic environment. I know there is nothing but zeros where I once had a retirement nest egg; I know last fall my boat ran fantastically light, sometimes without prayer of a day's profit; I know this spring the same thing will happen again.

This restored boat, her skilled crew, her skipper of 30 years professional experience; This boat where so many veterans of both war and fishing have had a smile cross their face, where fathers and sons have enjoyed an experience unlike that which can be found ashore, and along her rails where small children have come to be fascinated with our marine world: This boat and many others stand to be lost because we could not win the fool's argument, because we let blatantly bad data into an already shaky system..
A system whose data must be extracted from beneath the sea and, apparently, from thin-air.

Its not good governance and needs to change.

It will be letters struck on a keyboard; pen to paper that wins this fight. There will be no real bullets, no real bombs..

The bankruptcies however..

Shake it off!

Back to the front!

Set aside the MRFSS data - or at least truth these sets with data submitted by professionals -- the Vessel Trip Reports, VTRs..

Find some truth.

The Fish are doing fine.

Save the Fishers.

I'll see you in DC.

Regards,

Monty

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

Opening tog trips for this weekend coming - Feb 20-21-22 -

West winds forecasted - Boat sells out at 12 - Green crabs provided - Cabin heated - Leave at 7:00 for these trips (or a tad earlier) - Return no later than 3 - 3:30 (usually) - $100.00 buys a spot - Reservation a must, that phone number in signature - Email does not work for reservations - call - leave a good phone number, cell, in case of cancellation.

Also opening the book for sea bass trips from May 22cnd to the end of June. Even though these dates are not 100%, I'm pretty sure we'll have open season then.

The folks at the reservation service are ready to book.

posted by Monty # Friday, February 19, 2010

Fish Report 2/7/10

Nice Toggin'

Calm Before The Blizzard

Murfs & Chlorine Gas

Hi All,

Friday, 2/5/10, was an amazingly calm day despite the reddest of "Red in the morning, sailor take warning" sunrises.. a day with virtually no sea, certainly no wind and just enough current to hold straddle-set danforths tight.

Wonderful.

A slow bite all around the rail at the first stop. Decent toggin' for the patient angler; not-so-patient anglers need not apply.. Dipped one a tad better than 15 pounds, tagged some shorts, some legal females too.. worked it out, waiting for the tide and bite to pick-up their respective paces.

Wasn't to be.

Weather forecast full of doom and dire warning, we picked up anchors and moved.

How nice. A very light WNW breeze where there should have been an increasing NE; most of our 30 tags for the day came from this second spot: none were sub-legal. The biggest was a 28 inch female that Dennis put back, his personal best...

The week had begun with mate Mike getting to the boat Monday to make her ready for Tuesday's trip. Not a lot of work, just a general going-over and warm the engines; get last weekend's snow off the decks..

Yeah.

He sent me a picture.
Snow off the boat one thing; all that snow had frozen up the marina cut. Daughter & friend with school snow-day pressed into duty; ended up doing a day's work just to get the ice broken, clearing a way out so we could fish the next morning.

Next day--Tuesday & slick-calm too--Frank caught his 19 lb 10 oz tog; Friday we caught Dennis's personal best, 16 lb 2 oz, and released it.

Truly wonderful days at sea in-between some of the worst winter weather I can recall in the mid-Atlantic, even pulling icebreaker duty.

Sadly, I think it will be a while before we can go again. This crazy blizzard followed by yet another snow expected mid-week.. Need to send the EPIRB off for fresh batteries and a hydrostatic release anyway.. Change the batteries in the life jackets, the float lights; a thousand things that go into another set of government regulations that underlie the fisheries: The Coast Guard Regs. Any who complain of those has likely never seen heavy weather, nor failed hose, nor had a drunk jump off a perfectly good boat..

This week the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, MAFMC, meets in Cambridge, MD. Its very likely here that the sea bass season will be decided--but not cast in stone until NOAA's regional administrator removes the 180 day emergency closure, if she indeed does.

The Coast Guard asks 'what went wrong' in their investigations; why did these men die, why did these boats sink, why did this boat survive when others did not. With pinpoint accuracy they learn, then go from there to make the public safer.

Neither NOAA, Council, nor Commission has, thus far, delved that deep; they've never sought to isolate successes for cause, nor failures for pressure point: Its only about catch, catches on paper at that, and catch-restriction. It is these broad "Coastwide" fisheries analyses that camouflage the key to understanding a better way forward; where regional populations -not coastwide- have skyrocketed and collapsed without catching management's eye.

Two men deep within the fisheries have written me recently that the striped bass rebuilding is the only model where they see success. They are perhaps surprised when I tell them there's no success evident on the coast for stripers, that we are still closed; that the over-pressure on the prey supply from super-rebuilt stripers comes at the cost of no progress, no success whatsoever in sea trout restoration; that a more holistic approach in our fisheries is needed.

My kingdom that they would investigate why the sea bass juvenile index is through the roof in this region just now, that they could understand the value of a sub-legal spawning stock; that they would cease the shoulder-shrug, "Some luck, eh?" That they would see reef every bit as important to preserving/restoring fisheries as life jackets, rafts & emergency radios are to the mariner in dire circumstance...

It's also very important, as Capt. Adam Nowalsky points out, that we double check their math..

He's not kidding. I don't know what Adam gets paid for his efforts. I fear its the same as my advocacy salary. He's certainly one of the good guys.

Some help, not everyone.

The Petersons and Powers of the region put their mega-donations into our restoration efforts. Without these heavy-hitters we would not have come so far with Maryland's reefing.

Mike & Brian, who have resurrected the Maryland Fisherman's Annual, made a fat donation to the MD artificial reef initiative, MARI, based on sales of their new magazine.

Capt. Danny on the Fin Chaser has piled-on the reef donations and written many letters to his representatives.

Fellows working for Maryland, Marty Gary & Erik Zlokovitz, go way beyond their salaried efforts; often work well into night to put new reef on state permits.

Fellows from the Atlantic Coast Chapter of the MSSA and OPAC have been burning through some ink writing letters to representatives.

So too have many of you: Determination...

Spoke with another captain that fishes a fair-many bottom trips the other day. He said he 'hopes' the sea bass season is extended. I asked if he'd written comment..

Hope without action leaves little likelihood of success.

A woman hollers from inside a brand new Mercedes convertible, "I bought it with my sea bass money!"

She's kidding of course. No one made 'money' fishing sea bass recently; never-ever that kind of money.. Still, tip of humor's edge caught & thrust completely through; sword's hilt struck hard upon breast-plate..

Ought to consider an artificial reef stamp, even as an option, when the state license comes in 2011. "User pays" works, look at our highways.. some manner of dedicating license revenue toward this important part of fisheries restoration is needed.

Fishing is not on our nation's radar; falling off, it's an antiquated sport being pushed aside by frozen groceries and electronic gaming. For most residents--even along the coast--quaint, old-fashioned 'extractive' fishing is of no concern, of no consequence: Until, that is, room taxes and home values fall like a rock, the result of some pathogen and associated fish kill: The only binding-tie is water quality.

The truly profitable fisheries, surf-clam & menhaden reduction---now fully consolidated and an extreme representation of what to watch out for as 'catch shares' advance---are protected in ways most can not fathom; the deepest of well-positioned and paid lobbying efforts shield these businesses.

We are not there.

But there can be success in grass-roots efforts.

Carry a sign February 24th on the Capitol steps, just be there at the Rally.

Putting the "Flexibility in American Fisheries Restoration Act" into law is key to preserving what is left of our marine fishing businesses while science & regulation catch pace.

We do not yet grasp what can be done to restore fisheries. We can not possibly value catch-shares until we have a fuller and more complete understanding of what is missing from the production model; the 'where do little fish come from' angle of fisheries.

The success of that "Take a Kid Fishing" trip is crucial.. bending rods and smiling faces are the only preservative fishing needs.

We do not know how many will want to 'go extracting' when the research has been well-bound with regulation, when fisheries have been pushed far beyond restored..

A day when clients can chose to throw back jumbo tog on every trip, when clients can select cbass based on the size they want to cook..

That day is coming, I've seen shadows of it.

White marlin every summer on the twenty fathom line and we'll have arrived.

Instead, this week coming there will be a clash as recreational for-hire sea bass fishers vie for the somewhat less-skimpy leavings regulators offer; the quota of a fishery they clearly do not understand, divided based on catch estimates created by MRFSS--apparently after many months Uncle Murfs spent scrubbing heads with bleach and ammonia.

The reason this year's sea bass season is being cut 3 1/2 months is because MRFSS has small private boats out-fishing, out-catching, partyboats by huge margins; even the numerous Jersey partyboats in March.

I won't even take my boat to the sea bass in March, to the canyons.

I do dislike having my life run-through by deceitful, misleading data.

The lack of "Flexibility" means regulators have to use this MRFSS data because it is "The Best Scientific Information Available." That offers a clear depiction of why fishers need to write representatives & go to DC to advocate for the Flexibility Act.

Better direct full and complete attention to it for a while.

Wife sez there's some game on TV, its commercials worth more than US reef restoration.

Will return to toggin as soon as the EPIRB is back!

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, February 07, 2010

Fish Report 2/3/10

Delaware Frank's Jumbo

Regional Management

Letters Lost

Toggin Again Friday - 5 to 10 knot winds forecasted - February 5th, 2010 - Boat sells out at 12 - Green crabs provided - Cabin heated - Leave at 7:00 for this trip (or a tad earlier) - Return no later than 3 - 3:30 (usually) - $100.00 buys a spot - Reservation a must, that phone number in signature - Email does not work for reservations - call - leave a good phone number, cell, in case of cancellation.

The Protest <> United We Fish: A Rally for the "Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act."

The Ocean City Fishing Center and Sunset Marina have donated a bus to go to the Fisherman's Rally Wednesday, February 24th - a few seats left on the first one - $20.00 deposit - part of which may get used if more buses are required - Contact OCFC at 410 213 1121.

Hi All,

Moved this Thursday's trip to Friday; now calling for a classic calm-before-the-storm. That's exactly what we had on Tuesday.. Saturday's forecast has gusts to 40 in it. Expect we'll let that pipe-down a while.

We count, encourage even, released tog in the fish-pool: Longest length, in or out of the boat, wins the money. Dennis's monster 26 inch tagged release wasn't going to cut it Tuesday.. Alex's 15 1/2 pounder didn't even come out of the box.. Delaware Frank's 19 pound 10 ounce tog--just a pound away from Sam's state record--took top honors.

New fellow, Ben, asks "Is this a really good day?"

"Yeah Ben, this is in the top 5."

"Wow! For the past year?"

"No, Ben, top 5 ever.."

That was some serious fishing. Tagged more than we kept.. very few were sub-legal. No one thinks you can sustain that kind of fishing without dedicated conservation efforts.

No modern fisher wants a return to what was; the declining stocks, the whole watershed collapses of businesses as they fished themselves into economic purgatory: We've had-done with that.

May soon embrace the simple arithmatic theory of habitat too: More Reef = More Fish. It don't take no letters behind your name to figure. Take reef away = less fish. Reef regrown + artificial created = more fish. No fishery management = no fish. Good fishery management = best fishing.

I am deeply troubled that this regulatory environment--too much fishery management--will prove to have the precise effect of an old-time fishery collapse.. A regulatory collapse, Plenty of Fish = No Fishing? Worse, its a theft of my life's work; a seizure only different from an African coup in that I may keep my appendages--that the banks only figuratively take an arm and a leg; Only different from Poland in 1939 in that, though my property is lost, my family will not be shot; Only different from an armed hold-up in that lawman and bandit are one and same.

Hard-won quota doubled; there are still 3 1/2 solid months of no cbass fishing when it would have traditionally been our mainstay; 5 more months too for boats that fish weekends in the canyons all winter -- all because of Marine Recreational Fishing Statistics Survey--MRFSS--data.

Battle only partially won, as this little bit of quota gets divided into seasons there will be a squaring off of the states as each positions for their users' best interests.. Regional management is needed biologically to make the system work, now it might be best in regulatory terms too.

Real, solid progress in restoration; a removal of the stock oscillations; a completing of what has been done these last 35 years - regional sub-quotas can get us there.

Tag studies prove the great danger in not having regional sub-stock management is in losing independent spawning populations: that goes for many species under management.

Salmon, sturgeon.. I offer too the otolith studies of sea trout; what of seals and whales--the humpback, gray, sperm; bottlenose dolphin and, far off-scale, the hummingbird that feeds in a coastal Maryland feeder, winters in Argentina, and returns to that same feeder; our sea bass, scup, flounder, tautog: Habitat fidelity and its relevance to spawning success, feeding success--survival in every form--runs throughout the animal world. Its application is inseparable from quality fisheries management.

This six month battle stems from the final data sets of a now-dead, but still haunting, catch estimation program. Unprevented; the collapse of the recreational sea bass industry will source directly from data generated by MRFSS's last flights of schizophrenic hallucination, its final delusions; a nearly lifeless program's paranoid accusations of over-fishing by wicked recreational fishers taking out an industry as old as fish hooks.

Really. These recreational overages--big numbers--do not come from partyboats fishing sea bass: Its the private boaters that the program claims waylaid the fishery.

Wicked slayers of untold tractor-trailer loads of fish; far more than they could eat, no doubt these evil overfishers donated their excess to Al Qaeda training camps to help bring down all imperialist states.

Scoundrels! No wonder we're closed!

Looked at closely this is what MRFSS asserts.. Grady Whites and custom yachts beat-up the sea bass. And that's our Best Science.. We "Have to use it." By law..

At least Jessie James used a gun.

Senseless economic losses for a fishery that is 103% rebuilt: And that accomplished--from zero to 103%--with just a small week or two closure, some years a month.

I promise the taxes sea bass fishers won't pay on trips they didn't take would have funded a lot of better data.

..perhaps even discovered if there's some kind of special habitat the fish favor over mud & sand.

Mercy.

I'm going to DC on February 24th, my sign to read: United We Fish - Sea Bass - OC MD. ---other side-- United We Fish - Fix Magnuson - OC MD..

No coral, no habitat, no commercial fisher bad guys, no Republican this and Democrat that -- We need this fixed - Evenly supported now by both parties; we need more help! One goal - One message. Fix Magnuson - Restore Flexibility.

Will that fit on a sign? Hmm....

I hear that Senator Mikulski has only received 5 letters supporting the Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act... Can that possibly be?

I don't think it can.. Perhaps there is a problem with her mail delivery.. Fishing typically flies well below radar - it should.

Not now though.

Send a short note--another--a post it note, anything, supporting SB 1255 to Teri Curtis, Environment Staff, who has been doing a wonderful job representing our pleadings to Senator Mikulski:

Senator Barbara Mikulski

C/O Teri Curtis RSG

503 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20510

An email/comment on the Senator's website might be as effective.. I doubt it, but put Teri Curtis RSG in the title if you do.

Fishing can be made far better than it ever was. First we have to survive..

I appreciate your efforts.

Regards,

Monty

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

Fish Report 1/30/10

A Dandy

A Wander Among The Explorers

Stop Thief!

Fishing Schedule: Toggin Again - Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday - Light Winds Forecasted - Tog Trips - February 2cnd, 3rd & 4th, 2010 - boat sells out at 12 - green crabs provided - cabin heated - leave at 7:00 for these trips (or a tad earlier) - Return no later than 3 - 3:30 (usually) - $100.00 buys a spot - Reservation a must, that phone number in signature - Email does not work for reservations - call - leave a good phone number, cell, in case of cancellation.

The Protest <> United We Fish: A Rally for the "Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act."

Local Readers: The Ocean City Fishing Center and Sunset Marina have donated a bus to go to the Fisherman's Rally Wednesday, February 24th - some seats left - $20.00 deposit - part of which may get used if more buses are required - Contact OCFC at 410 213 1121.

Hi All,

Entered two more days in the logbook. Wednesday was a great day on the water--for January. Nicked away at 'em but never saw anything pushing even 8 pounds.. an OK day though.

Weather forecast for Thursday had a front passing through late. Marine forecasts are significantly, tremendously, better than what we had decades ago. That's a great thing when scheduling short notice trips: perhaps though another hidden guvmint subsidy for the fisheries.

All along they were calling for westerly gusts to 40 in the late afternoon just north of our region..

Weather Service then changed 'late' to '1 PM' causing a twisting, lifting of an eyebrow..

1 PM, 11:00 AM - what's the difference.

Eh, snuck in a good bit of the day. Ran for home with no limits that I know of but a couple good fish; Greg's dandy nudging, but not quite 16 pounds; dinners, plenty of tags, and 1/2 off another trip for the clients.

We'll try again soon.........

Meanwhile, snow's piling up. Take a few minutes to read through this unique perspective of our marine fisheries management. Allow me to wander through a bit of history and use that to illuminate our errors of today..

I hold fisheries restoration as a young science. It wasn't long ago that 'working in marine fisheries' meant looking for ways to extract more wealth, more catch, from the sea. As such, that this is its beginning and nowhere near the middle, that the science involved is not well-seasoned; we can then compare marine restoration of today to the early discoverers.

Alvero Mendana (Men don Ya) discovered the Solomon Islands in 1568. He certainly took as careful note of its location as was possible. However, due to the great difficulties of finding longitude then, Philip Carteret was the next explorer to see those Islands in 1767.

..199 years later.

Neither explorer nor discoverer, Anson's circumnavigation was solely for killing & capturing--disrupting the Spanish fleet in anyway. Departing England in 1740 with 1,854 men he made good on his task, returning victoriously with treasure--and 188 men; scurvy having caused a great many deaths.

You might have thought political spin was a modern invention.. Anson killed 1,200 some people, left a bunch more behind, and was treated as a hero.

Incredibly too, we know that scurvy was recognized, even prevented, as early as 1614 by the British through ascorbic acid; the dissemination of information just wasn't there. It would be a few years after Anson's voyage that Lind conducted one of the very first clinical trials isolating vitamin C as a cure for scurvy. It would be many years more before that work was widely adopted.

A chain of islands, treatment of a horrid malady: both 2 centuries in cementing upon the world's knowledge.

Copernicus anyone?

Information in our era travels faster and faster, is more easily tested for accuracy.. Then tales of new-found lands, the northwest passage, sea-airs causing a man's gums to rot, even sea-monsters had to be considered no matter how factual or fabricated they were: nearly anything was thought possible.

..speaking of the fabled NW passage, Amundsen first transited it from 1903 to 1906 through arduous exploration: As of 2009 it is now open to navigation for a portion of the year. Much of that cold melt-water flows to the Labrador current..

..eh, I'll leave that segue alone.

Just remember, Mendana's island discovery was shelved for 2 centuries while new scientific tools were developed to find more precise location: That scurvy's cure was nailed down centuries before treatment was widely accepted...

In the late 1990s I was trying to figure out how our black sea bass population had grown so huge in such a short period; why areas that I had fished for long years were getting larger, that the actual fishable reef footprint was increasing--Why I had gone from anchoring with exacting precision over a couple rocks to, in that specific locale, drifting long distances while catching a fish I have yet to catch over sand.

What was going on?

We had our nine inch size limit, that was obviously working. Hook scars & tag returns were conclusive, but live releases didn't explain anywhere near these far-far greater numbers of fish.

Nor the expansion of reef-like habitat..

Inconceivably, according to Kurlansky as early as the year 1376 complaints were made to Parliament about habitat loss from towed fishing gear.. Another author even claims two fishers were executed in 1583 for using chains on their beamtrawls -- too destructive of the seabed.

..The several century information lag stretches to six when the subject of the science is covered with water? Or, is that unfair since fisheries restoration is so new.. Is it new after all?

I think that our region's expansion of sea bass--where in the 1980's we had months when we knew we may only catch 7 or 8 fish a day, to, in those same months, having trips with 7,000 & 8,000 fish caught, but mostly released, by the late 1990s. I think this population explosion was primarily fueled not by our self-imposed catch restrictions, but by seafloor habitat expansion due to meager summer flounder quota regulations that kept trawl effort inshore allowing cobble-sized rocky bottoms further out to recolonize with reef growth.

I promise this, there was a lot of newly grown reef in less than 120 feet of water by 1999.

That good fortune lost, much of it is was again impacted.

Yet other areas are presently regrowing.

It seems to take the better part of a decade of no stern-towed gear impacts for growths to have colonized where the ecological function of reef is fully restored.

I couldn't begin to grasp that until I lowered an underwater camera.. Some videos on my website.. There's a large and growing body of marine science focused on just this issue.

True Statement - Currently our science has no hard-bottom reef habitat in the nearshore waters of the Mid-Atlantic.

Virtually every recreational & commercial fisher will vigilantly man their respective ramparts at the least whisper of 'protecting' areas of the ocean - those wicked Marine Protected Areas - MPAs.

As Anson was held aloft as a hero yet allowed his surgeons to kill so many crew by their ignorance of vitamin C -- So too do we glorify succesful fishery rebuilding by the harshest of catch regulation stemming from poor understanding.

Those who would most benefit from utilizing vitamin C's preventive effects and now habitat protections fight for their right to remain reef-free, No Lemons! No MPAs! We'll never prevent a gear impact via habitat protection through gear protected areas, we'll forever allow the Russian roulette of reef loss and re-growth dictated by the whim of fishing effort in a destructive class: Dogma carved in stone, we shall allow no MPA to pass--except striped bass in the EEZ of course..

Our data-poor science hidden by water, it would never withstand shoreside scrutiny: the parade and applause of rebuilding's victory hides the tragedy of conquest's cost, its celebrants remain ignorant of what heights could be achieved, its users fated to cycle with ill-found regulation.

One of the greatest discoverers, a man who actually did what he was credited with; Cook's famous voyages were, I believe, the first circumnavigations to be completed without serious incidence of scurvy. This the late 1760s, he didn't quite have the reasons down-pat but his efforts of innovation returned rewards that many would try to duplicate. One can assume his charges were glad to have lived.

Anson's voyages seeking conquest and submission, despite the celebration of his trophies on return, resulted in death.

Fishing businesses are going to fold - are folding - despite some fish stocks being considered rebuilt, despite that 'dwindling' is the very poorest choice of adjective for these fish populations. It is now, in 2010, that history will have to decide if fishery managers were, like Cook, innovators utilizing flexibility when tasked with discovering solutions; or as Anson who adhered rigidly to the letter of ill-cast orders, causing subordinates' deaths in pursuit of the King's wants..

Both were well regarded in their time: History has not been as kind.

The great untruth of our present day restoration effort remains as Mendana's islands, discovered but still below our collective knowledge threshold. Lindholm, Auster & Kaufman's "Habitat-mediated survivorship of juvenile cod" should have been enough to pound it into management's thought process.

Fish production--the success of their spawn, that young fish are growing-in to replace what has been taken--can not be separated from habitat.

In the United States, in the 21st century, fishery management has yet to put that simple notion into use in the Mid-Atlantic.

No, we only use catch restriction.

I hold that Alabama's red snapper fishery--their huge percentage of quota--is solely the product of fishery-manufacture through artificial reef: That, given habitat fidelity, there can not be 'restoration' where previously no fishery existed: That their economic power-house, red snapper, must be thought of as created and not re-created.

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council claims black sea bass are 103% restored, that the fish have exceeded rebuilding measures: Yet the Council has never recognized the existence of natural reef, let alone taken action to protect, enhance and conserve these habitats as is called for in federal statute.

I hold that artificial reef is, in very great part, responsible for the Council's claim of this fishery's restoration here; that without key habitat for spawning success, restoration would remain greatly delayed: That based on my knowledge of this region's sea bass fishery: Were all artificial reef removed, taken away, the fishery would instantly collapse solely from our current catch effort; that the shipwrecks and remnants of natural reef alone could never support even a fraction of our current landings.

I also hold that if all the players in fishery restoration ever seize upon this idea we'll exceed our present concept of what the cbass population could be; that habitat theory transfers directly to many fisheries: Indeed, must benefit nearly all.

On public property, the fruits of our artificial reef building must be shared with those that never help lift, that only lean; that never donate nor work, that only extract. Now these fruits are being taken, denied to us, by those who need claim them for their paperwork too, who need meet a restoration target but fail to understand the underlying mechanics of habitat for their success.

I have cried "Stop Thief!" for some 6 months now trying to recover the fishery which I have worked so hard to restore. In coming weeks we may see the quota doubled; this, thankfully, some extension of our meager two month sea bass season.

But we will not get all of our sea bass season back..

The fishery is now restored from scratch to beyond expectations and was never closed but a week or two -- all while never-ever considering that reef-fish might need reef as squirrels need trees.

Its a disgrace that fishing businesses must now face, even with a doubled quota, a great loss of season.

Despite any plea of ignorance, there is no worse theft than that granted through authority of the Federal Government.

Stop Thief!

There will be many reasons why fishers and their friends will go to the Capitol steps on February 24th. I am going because we must restore flexibility to the Magnuson Act: We must allow science to discover a better method of restoration before all the teeth have fallen from the rotting, scurvied gums of America's fisheries.

Its not about habitat. Its not about recreational/commercial conflict. Its not about MPAs. Its about restoring stability to regulation. Its about calming the waters so that innovation can find its way back into the process: We must have the Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act.

Having read this far, you likely have some interest in the outcome of this fight. Write a letter, another letter, to your favorite DC representative. CC your State fisheries staff. I promise this: The all-time king of astroturf -not real grass roots- environmental organizations, Pew, will be steadfast in their opposition. That will cause other--even fully habitat oriented--organizations to meekly toe the line no matter the truth, no matter our ignorance, no matter that the solution to fisheries' scurvy lies well in hand but unused.

I say "Screw you Pew." So long as I have rocks on which to write the truth I shall load my sling

..and press send.

Regards,

Monty

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

posted by Monty # Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Morning Star Fish Report

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