Fish Report 1/11/12

Fish Report 1/11/12

New State Record

Hooked On OC

C'mon MRIP

 

Tog Trips - Maybe! - Weather Forecast Is Changing Hourly - January 14, 15, 16 & 17 - Saturday, Sunday, Monday & Tuesday - 7am to 3pm - Green Crabs Provided - $100.00 - Twelve Sells-Out.  Reservations Required at 410 520 2076.

 

 

Hi All,

Sunday & Monday were tough. We had a couple limits but it was grind-it-out toggin. Some clients, even very skilled clients, had dead-slow fishing.   

Tuesday was a dream day with a very light crowd: Warm, Calm and a Steady Bite. The pool winner was a tagged release of 26 inches.  

Wednesday we caught a boat limit and were in very early with a new state record..

 

Charlie Donahue broke Sam Beauchamp's Maryland state record with a 23 pound tog on Wednesday, January 11th, 2012.

Sakes, what a beast.

Light east wind, cloudy; fish feeding before the blow.. Ben had the first limit of nice tog at 9:02.

Charlie, fishing in Dennis' usual spot, was using a Penn Squall 15 reel loaded with 65 pound braid on a St. Croix stick. Mate Mike had rigged his 50 pound clear topshot with a snafu; whole green crab for bait.

I saw him bow into the fish; knew it was big ..rod straight up, tip straight down - thumping..

Several skilled anglers lost nice fish this week; Alex caught a dandy at 16 1/4 pounds.  

This fight was different.

Ritch flawless with the net; Charlie's 23.0 pound bull was weighed on Ake Marine's certified scale & witnessed by MD DNR biologist Steve Doctor. He took an operculum to age the fish & inspected it internally: We're sure it was a male and that it was, ah, 'unleaded.'

And, yes, the fish was caught at an artificial reef site.

 

Video should be up on Coastal Fisherman's website by Friday.

 

TV Show - Hooked on OC - Filmed on the Morning Star Saturday, 1/7/12 http://www.youtube.com/user/unscenepro?blend=1&ob=video-mustangbase#p/u/0/4F-HoAmKK7o or YouTube search "unscenepro" and click on "Togging on the Rip. Episode #117"

Cameraman Dave Messick also did the edits for my video essay, "Maryland Corals."

Lots of Ocean City fishing shows there...

 

Below the fold; Mate Mike boated the first Maryland cod of 2012 on Monday. Caught it on a hammered gold jig. Lonely fellow; we tagged it with an SMAST t-bar and sent it back.

Been averaging 35 ALS tags a day on tog, almost all of them legal fish that we could have kept.   

 

Fishing hard, I haven't hit any natural reef in months it seems, just accidental wrecks, U-Boat sinkings & artificial reef covered in growth..

Cod, sea bass, red hake, summer flounder, tautog, sheepshead, spadefish, triggerfish, lobster, pollock, scup.. All on man-made reef habitat.

 

The reason I'm not fishing natural reef habitat is because there ain't none left.

Just tiny patches where there were square miles..

 

Environmentalists roll their eyes, Managers laugh out loud, "Guess what guys! Fishermen think the recreational catch estimates are bad! Fishermen are complaining about the data! Ha! What Else Is New!"

LOL & roll their eyes.. certain the catch data's good enough, positive that catch regulations alone will restore our nation's fisheries.

 

I'll include a few of those 'certain' data sets below.

Putting faith in our present recreational catch data is like believing Marshall Applewhite, the guy who was so sure, so certain, a spaceship was following Comet Hale-Bopp that he returned a telescope as faulty because he couldn't see his UFO.

Positive the telescope was defective and not his own beliefs & visions, He and all his followers at Heaven's Gate committed suicide so their souls could catch a ride..

 

Used to be square miles of natural live bottom. Now there are square yards.

Quite nearly the only marine reef communities that survived the post WWII rise of unregulated industrial dredging & trawling were shipwrecks; Almost all of our natural reefs were scraped away by 1980.

In fact, I believe a substantial portion were lost by the early 60s.  

 

We have pictures taken in the 70s of gigantic soft corals from Mid-Atlantic canyons. Now the same gear that can find life 6 miles down off Antarctica can't find corals here in 100 fathoms..

 

My video work of corals in 100 feet of water is just ignored.

Where the vast majority of reef fish were caught on natural reef prior to 1970, now the vast majority are caught on man-made reef.

 

I think that's important. Management won't even consider it.

 

EFH, The Essential Fish Habitat section of The Magnuson Act is written "To The Extent Practicable."

That's legislative speak for, "Ha! Don't worry about it!"

Where fish Feed, Grow to Maturity & Spawn in the ocean is a legislative joke. In almost 15 years I've found no goverment agency willing to take our region's corals seriously. (search YouTube "Maryland Corals" for my most recent video essay)

I've written NOAA, NMFS, Congress & the White House. As early as 2001 I sent video of live-bottom corals to Congress. I made several more videos and have written many, many more essays.

 

The need for regulation is real. We understand we can't keep all our fish like in the bad old days.

But coral is real too.

Temperate Mid-Atlantic Reefs are real.

Oyster & Estuarine hardbottoms are real.

Submerged grasses. 

Tube worms..

EFH is real. Fish do Feed, Grow to Maturity & Spawn in these habitats.

 

Management has not acted on habitat: Not in the ocean.

 

These real catch estimates below are wrong -- crazy way wrong.  

New Jersey's shore fishermen did not catch 72,000 tog in April, 2010. Massachusetts private boat fishers did not kill 1,500,000 cod in April, 2010. Maryland shore fishers did not catch 36,000 flounder in Sept/Oct, 2007. These and so very many other assertions of "overfishing" are what trip recreational catch-limit quotas. Falsely accused of being over-quota, fishers experience ever greater catch restriction.

 

Maryland party/charter did not catch "Zero" sea bass in May/June 2010 either. But we ALL did send in daily catch reports telling management how many we actually caught.

It was a lot more than zero, but zero is the official estimate.  

Catch estimates used to set quota, we for-hire fishers get caught by under-estimates too.  

 

Irritating.

Fishery Management is about many more things than catch restriction.

Building & protecting reef is every bit as important.

Management's willing to ignore that.

Fewer people fishing, fewer businesses that survive: In Your Bunks and Drink Your Tea, Here Comes The Spaceship!

 

Fishery Restoration Demands Habitat Restoration.

 

The new recreational catch data that was supposed to be done by Jan 1, 2009 --three years ago & before Annual Catch Limits were fully employed-- is due out Friday, January 13, 2012.

 

Perhaps this new MRIP program, these new recreational catch estimates, will force management to ponder other methods of fishery restoration.

Habitat & habitat fidelity are key.

 

Engineered habitat and savvy management utilizing regional fish population quotas & spawning site fidelity can build incredible fish populations, numbers of fish far beyond 'restored.'

Catch regulation will be part of that too.

 

Just a few recreational catch data sets below. There are many more.. 

Ignore the PSE column, no one can use it.

 

I think management's in place that can change it, I know Dr. Moore & Rick Robbins at the MAFMC are willing to consider habitat assertions - go to MAFMC Visioning and sound off.. http://www.mafmc.org/vision/ 

 

My plan:

Build Big Rock Reefs.

Fish Thrive There.

 

Data sets below.

 

Regards,

Monty

 

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

 

Species: ATLANTIC COD - Massachusetts - Private Boats Only - Mar/April  (March was closed by regulation in 2010) Here I'm Showing  All Fish Caught Including Throwbacks Because in 2011 NMFS scientists decided to use Recreational Discards as 100% Dead Discards, To Count Them ALL Against The Gulf of Maine Region's Quota..

This April 2010 Estimate Is the Most Miraculous MRFSS Assertion I've Yet Seen

..and possibly the most damaging.

Year	TOTAL CATCH (TYPE A + B1 + B2)	PSE
2004	2,663	69.5
2005	429,200	44.8
2006	55,916	32.9
2007	167,862	35.9
2008	180,518	37.5
2009	87,294	48
2010	1,467,493	39.3

 

Species: SUMMER FLOUNDER - Maryland Shore Fishers Only/No Boat Catch - Sept/Oct Only

Year	HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)	PSE
2002	874	100
2003	978	100
2004	0	0
2005	12,773	58.8
2006	0	0
2007	36,017	48.4
2008	14,962	51.8
2009	0	0
2010	0	0
2011	1,806	100

 

Species: TAUTOG - Maryland Private Boats Only - March/April from 2002 to 2011 -- Years Absent Are Zero

Year	HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)	PSE
2002	613	100.1
2007	12,482	76.8
2008	1,350	0
2009	3,319	100
2010	18,572	23.8

 

Species: TAUTOG - NJ - Mar/Apr - Shore Fishers Only - All Years From 2001 to 2011 - Absent Years are Zero

Year	HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)	PSE
2005	0	0
2009	6,835	100
2010	71,756	70.2

 

Species: BLACK SEA BASS - NY - Private Boat Only - Sept/Oct

Year	HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)	PSE
2005	7,749	50.3
2006	58,398	32.7
2007	42,352	25.7
2008	54,352	34.7
2009	105,256	45.1
2010	325,074	24.4
2011	52,918	48.2

 

Species: BLACK SEA BASS - Rhode Island - Private Boat Only - May & June

Year	HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)	PSE
2005	6,160	57.2
2006	1,975	70.4
2007	3,601	43
2008	0	0
2009	989	90.4
2010	36,182	50.7
2011	0	0

 

 

Species: BLACK SEA BASS - Massachusetts - May/June - Private Boats Only

Year	HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)	PSE
2005	53,349	32.3
2007	28,281	85.3
2008	65,376	29.1
2009	26,827	38.9
2010	221,028	31.3
2011	70,305	31.6