Fish Report 5/18/06

Fish Report 5/18/06

Some pretty fishin'

Gloves off

 

Hi All,

Shuffling anchors, changing bait - working through a day to make it productive for each day's passengers; that's what the fishing has been. Then, Tuesday, it seemed to loosen up. The bite lasted longer, there was a nicer grade of fish and even a few tog slid into the net. Tuesday might have been as good a day as I could have. Lots of 3 to 5 lb bass and tog to 15 1/4lbs. Wednesday and Thursday it was back to work, but around noon on Thursday they busted loose! My, that was pretty fishin! Bowed-up on cbass non-stop for an hour and a half without so much as an anchor shift...

Of late we're catching about 80% limits - mostly because some folks just don't want a limit.

I have no idea if it will stay that way. I do know we'll give it 100%...

Oh, we did catch the first flounder of the year today too  - 7 1/4 pounds. A very lonely fish. Maybe.

Little problem with the big recreational fishing groups below.

Regards,

Monty

 

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

 

Proposal to Lift Marine Protected Area. 5/18/06

Members of recreational fishing groups have often received pleas from the big organizations to dig deep in their pocket and pony up extra cash to fight that most dreaded of fishery management controls ~ The Marine Protected Area. Secretly being brought into being by extreme radical environmentalists who are surely in cahoots with regulators that would love to see the demise of we whose catch is difficult to estimate  - these MPA closed areas are the surely the end of all sport fishing. The end will soon be upon us! There will be nowhere to fish! Give us your money - "Help Us Fight!!!"

At least one group has stated that they would support MPAs if fisheries scientists had determined that relieving all recreational fishing pressure in a given area was absolutely necessary in order to rebuild a population of fish - provided there were very strict time limits on the closure.

Most groups won't even go that far. MPAs are bad management - period.

Their definition of Marine Protected Area (MPA) is an area where recreational angling can not take place. Bad.

Striped bass, the most fully recovered fishery in the history of management, often migrate through the world's largest MPA.

It is illegal to take - fish for - or possess stripers outside of 3 NM in any of the waters of the United States. It's a really, really big MPA. It's called the Exclusive Economic Zone - the EEZ - and stretches 200 NM offshore.

Huge. Bad. Isn't it just dreadful that sportfishers up and down the coast, fishers that don't live near a large bay, may not take part in a fishery so deeply ingrained in coastal tradition.

I'm waiting for the defenders of MPA doom to step up and help remove this antiquated legislation.

It's going to be a long wait.

They are the only thing preventing coastal fishers who do not live by a large bay the right to catch a striped bass or two. Big recreational advocacy groups that claim to despise MPAs are fighting tooth and nail to keep this one. 

Maybe these vocal opponents of MPAs have a different name for the striped bass Marine Protected Area. BEEER? You know, Bays and Estuaries Exclusive Economic Right. 'Yeah boys, big difference between a BEEER and an MPA - we love one and hate the other!'

How about deceitful, deceiving, phony, false ~ hypocrite.

Fishery scientists and managers say that there is no longer any justification for the MPA for striped bass. They want to lift the closure. The fish have been declared "fully recovered". Management has come a long way; commercial landings are very tightly controlled. The recreational fishers that catch and keep stripers outside of 3 NM are not law abiding citizens - they're criminals - and for keeping a fully recovered fish...

It's as plain as rat scat in the sugar bowl, fishers who have shouldered the longest closure for stripers now deserve a few too - this MPA has lasted long enough.

Capt. Monty Hawkins

 

Fish Report 5/18/06