Sailing Everyday Weather Will Allow
Reservations For Sea Bass/Flounder Trips at 410 - 520 - 2076.
See much more info at http://morningstarfishing.com
Saturdays Often Have Room In High Summer While Weekdays Book-Up..
Bring A Fish Cooler With ICE For Your Party.. We try to avoid keeping the chips & hoagies cold while fresh fish cook in a hot bucket..
From Coastal Fisherman: See Our Latest "Show You Around The Boat" Video For New Clients (many regulars have pics in it). http://www.coastalfisherman.net/charter-info.cfm?c=9861A6B2-3048-71C2-1762E62F1DFB4D0B
Regular 8 Hr trips $110.00 - 7AM to 3PM – Saturdays 6AM to 3:30PM - $125.00
LEAVE YOUR BEST POSSIBLE CONTACT NUMBER - Weather Cancelations Are (far too!) Common - I Make Every Attempt To Let Clients Sleep In If The Weather's Not Going Our Way..
Another Long Cbass/Blueline Tile For Sunday, July 21st. Take a couple guys –- not as deep, no goldens — Jig for sea bass and bluelines (bait's OK too) — 2:30AM till 7 PM(ish) — $300.00 — 8 Sells Out (so crew can fish some too!) Boat Goes Slow & Not In A Straight Line As I'm Also Looking For New Spots — Manual Reels Only With No More Than 2 Hooks (No Electrics On Any Trip) — Weather Sensitive — Leave A Good Contact Number — As Always, Mates Work For Gratuities.
Be A Half Hour Early - We Like To Leave Early.
Clients Arriving Late Will See The West End Of An East Bound Boat..
5,736 'Oyster Castle' Reef Blocks By The Rail. Now 1,704 at Jimmy's — 818 at Ake's.. Just got a new truckload sponsored by An Anonymous George, Allied Concrete, Morning Star 50/50 Raffle & the Ocean City Reef Foundation..
Greetings All,
Just in from a research/tuna trip. Did not find any new rock bottoms, nor did we catch a tuna.. Saw plenty in gloriously calm seas—even a marlin, but they were in no mood for my humble offshore talents. Couldn't focus our attention on the catching if we were to do any finding. Did send my passengers home with sea bass & ling, a pollock too. Of several dozen scientists & managers I invited for the camera work, all wisely begged off to await shoreside video.
Sure missed a pretty day on the rip though..
Here's the rundown from last week's fishing:
If I'd written a report Saturday the 6th it would have been about a tough pick of good fish and high man getting to 15 keeper cbass.
Sunday's 18 hour blueline tile/cbass trip was very kind despite a continuation of saucy SW winds. Jigging was no good. Using at least 24 ounces, we often had 1,500 feet of line out to hold in not-quite 400 feet. Fish bit though – nonstop.
Monday went well enough – good sea bass around & even a few ling to fry.
Had I written Tuesday it would have been about an awesome flounder bite. Nice Fish. Frank W had the boat's first 4 fish limit for 2013. Another fellow had to give fish away because he was over his limit.
Wednesday? Rough seas with little action.
Thursday cancelled. Oil Change..
Friday was calm with a sloooow bite. Caught a handful of sea bass & a few keeper fluke. Some did much better than others. At least we stayed relatively dry while Ocean City drowned under many inches of rain..
Saturday 7/13 saw great fishing, among the best days this year — even a few limits of cbass, but no flounder whatever.
Its A Summer Bite.
Experts abound who can elaborate on what we're going to catch — Me? I'm going fishing for sea bass & flounder. Every day one species will bite better than the other.
I hope.
I do not know which..
Back when I had an IRA, before the MRFSS-induced "emergency" sea bass closures; every mutual fund prospectus came with the boiler-plate warning: "Past Performance Offers No Guarantee Of Future Result."
It was serious business indeed for ancient Romans to watch how a rooster pecked grain—divination of their gods' intent made plain in the pattern of a bird's feeding.. (Yes, really. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alectryomancy )
Read tea leaves or watch the fish-cleaning barrel..
I'm telling you — I Do Not KNOW what will bite until they bit.
If you only want sea bass or only want flounder you can watch the gut-bucket to see which day would have been better.
I'm Going Fishing.
Anglers can choose, however, to bait in such fashion as to favor their odds for a species of their choosing.
I've seen enough flounder on clam & sea bass on a stripbait to know that's no sure-shot either.
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Sea temperatures took a big tumble last week. Bruising boaters' ribs all along the Mid-Atlantic, those steady SW winds week-after-week were the culprit. Caused/contributed to our slow fishing pains mid-week too.
Move sand in a sandbox to one side and you'll have a tall pile of sand. Can't do that in a pool.. Wind pushing warm waters east & offshore created a vacuum filled by chillier bottom waters — an upwelling they call it. (might be Josh Kohut or Jon Hare's example..)
A 12 to 15 degree drop — Chilled bathers made the evening news in 3 states.
The cold's working its way offshore now; blending in — stabilizing. Surface waters are now warmer offshore than they have been all year..
Its still cold on the bottom off there. Colder than usual I think. Messed-up our May cbass fishing fishing for sure. A research boat reported 44 degrees in late May & 47 degrees in late June. A diver reported 48 degrees in 130 feet of water at the Radford Saturday, July 13th..
*
In science its perfectly ok to make discoveries by accident. Alexander Fleming discovered the anti-bacterial lysozyme & wonder-drug penicillin by accident. Need at its greatest, in just a few years time penicillin was in mass production for the D-Day invasion.
Unfortunately, Semmelweis's discoveries a century earlier are much more in line with our sea bass regulation & restoration history.
Women about to give birth would beg not to be taken into a hospital that also did autopsies — birth-mother death rates were sky-high.
Dr. Semmelweis recommended hand washing before delivery, you see; Especially coming from autopsy and found that this lowered the incidence of puerperal fever, the principal cause of death.
Spurned by his contemporaries; he was committed to an asylum where he soon died, beaten to death by guards..
Hey Management: Our need is great.
Sanding off the sharp edges here: Its not OK to keep grinding down our fisheries with over regulation in response to terrible catch estimates. Overfishing is NOT destroying the lower Mid-Atlantic's sea bass fishery — Overregulation is.
The skyrocketing sea bass population of the late 1990s/early 2000s was no accident — it was management working.
Sadly, looking only at recreational catch estimates in coastwide swath, they didn't see it.
It's still there though, still in the data—the data they don't trust, the forms party/charter send in everyday..
We already know how to make LOTS of sea bass.
Did it already.
Now we're learning how to SHRINK the cbass population.
Getting good at it too.
I doubt the New England sea bass fishery goes much beyond a hundred feet. Their cbass are spawning in warming SURFACE waters.
Our sea bass populations extend nearly to the slope, the canyons. There is no reason whatever for our population decline except decreased production.
That decreased production stems almost entirely from delaying age at maturity by two years: Sea bass are taking two years longer to mature..
In Semmelweis's time, women who gave birth in the street had higher, much higher, survival rates than those who went to a teaching hospital..
Instead of finding out why our sea bass population climbed so wonderfully and pressing it to best advantage, instead of increasing penicillin production, Cbass fishers now cry as those poor women in Vienna — Please management, please don't "Help" us with more regulation..
We were doing much better, had incredibly more fish, with just a 9 inch size limit and no closed season at all.
Not until management has studied past regional response to regulation, not until they've examined whether this crazy hand-washing idea has merit; only then will they see the best production occurred at about 11.5 inches.
Give sea bass a place to hide & feed, Force them into the spawning stock young, And; owing to habitat fidelity, protect them from overfishing in discreet regions..
It happened here back in the early 2000s, an accident in a petri dish, an explosion of sea bass.
That was good fishing — everyday.
Every single day.
No closed season.
A lower size limit.
Spawning Stock & Total Population Were Synonymous Then — Every Sea Bass Was A Spawner.
Now only the ones we're allowed to keep are.
I bet you don't need a degree in fisheries management to see something wrong with that…
Such an easy fix..
Take some big shoulders to admit they'd overdone regulation though..
Regards,
Monty
