Sunday, November 03, 2013

Fish Report 11/3/13

Fish Report 11/3/13 
Sea Bass, Blues, Bonita ..and 1 Flounder 
Mid-Week Long Sea Bass Trips 
Oyster Reef Restoration – Texas Style 

All Of November Is Open For Sea Bass Reservations. Will Open December Trips Via Email Only.. 
Reservations Required at 410-520-2076 
May —might— take a light rail tog fishing by special announcement during November if I have to cancel again for west winds.. 

Sailing Daily – Including Sundays (When Weather Allows!) 

Going Long — Sea Bass — 5:30 AM to 4 PM — Wednesday, November 13th & Monday, November 18th — 21 Anglers Sells Out (and unlikely) — $150.00 — High Probability Of Bites On The Jig. 

Reservations For Sea Bass Trips at 410 - 520 - 2076. 
New-To-The-Boat Clients can see much more info at http://morningstarfishing.com    
And, From Coastal Fisherman, See Our "Show You Around The Boat" Video (many regulars have pics in it).  http://www.coastalfisherman.net/charter-info.cfm?c=9861A6B2-3048-71C2-1762E62F1DFB4D0B  

Bring A (not terribly big) Fish Cooler With ICE For Your Party.. A 48 or 54 QT Cooler Is Good For 2 Guys. Even Now You Should ICE Fresh Fish.. 

Eight Hour trips $110.00 - 7AM to 3PM – Saturdays 6AM to 3:30PM - $125.00 
LEAVE YOUR BEST POSSIBLE CONTACT NUMBER - Weather Cancelations Are Common - I Make Every Attempt To Let Clients Sleep In If The Weather's Not Going Our Way.. 

Be A Half Hour Early - We Like To Leave Early.
Clients Arriving Late Will See The West End Of An East Bound Boat..  

If You Won't Measure & Count Your Fish The State Will Provide A Man With A Gun To Do It For You. We Measure & Count — ALWAYS — No Exceptions!

A Gift From Tom Jackson, There Are Three Jimmy Jackson Prints – Numbered 1 of 1, 2013 –  on display & set up as silent auctions at Ake Marine, Ocean City Fishing Center & Sunset Marina. Stunning. Proceeds To Ocean City Reef Foundation, a tax deductible 501c3.. Auction Ends December 15th @ 5PM..  
 
7,585 "Oyster Castle" reef blocks by the rail – 2,318 at Jimmy's Reef – 1,324 Ake's – Now 120 at Lindsey Power's and counting! 
See ocreefs.org if you'd care to help fund the next truckload. Snailmail a check – any check! 

Trying to keep a large selection of OCRF long-sleeve & ss t-shirts aboard..  

Greetings All, 
All caught on the jig, I had to put my rod up. With 45 minutes of fishing left I couldn't reel any more, that's how good the bite was Saturday past. 
Nice to see an old-time cbass bite – Drop & Reel. 
Common in fall, there were eatin' size blues mixed in, about a pound & a half. 
For a while a couple of us were having a blast with atlantic bonita, the white meat bonita. Drop a jig or any spoon 15 feet down and the bonita would nail it. Some were even caught on clam.. 
One fluke, but that could change. 
Had quite a few cbass limits on Saturday's long trip. I'd like to do as well every trip. 
Won't though. 
Am going to catch fish. 
Might even do better..
Spent the past 4 months focused on fluke/summer flounder, now there's cbass to catch. 

Hardliners discourage any discourse with environmental groups. Its very often the case, however, that we share fundamental goals. 
Delaware just proudly announced it is safe to eat Delaware River fish once a year ..unless you're pregnant or young. 
Know any fishermen working on that? 
Here from the PR - The fish consumption advisory for the tidal Delaware River from the Delaware/Pennsylvania/New Jersey border to the C&D Canal has been updated to a less restrictive advisory due to falling levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins and furans, chlorinated pesticides, and mercury. For the general adult population, the current advice has been changed from ?eat no finfish caught in the tidal Delaware River north of the C&D Canal? to ?eat no more than one eight ounce meal of finfish per year,? while retaining the ?do not eat? advice for women of childbearing age and young children. This advisory is being issued today in collaboration with the New Jersey Toxics in Biota Committee and the Delaware River Basin Commission.

?This updated advisory in the tidal Delaware River is a very positive sign that water quality is improving and that our efforts, especially during the past few years, are working,? said DNREC Secretary Collin O?Mara. ?Initiatives, such as those that clean up harmful wastes and reduce pollutants from entering our waterways, along with cooperative efforts of the Delaware River Basin Commission and our state, federal, and local partners to address PCBs, are making a difference. Our goals are to clean up the remaining sources of contaminants, accelerate improvement in fish and ultimately lift advisories when they are no longer necessary.?


I see clients worried about fish-handlers disease wearing heavy gloves from time to time and see awful looking striped bass in the paper occasionally.. 
We haven't those particular worries, nor did we have pfiesteria 
..but I guarantee ticket sales dropped like a rock during the pfiesteria crisis. 

I suppose all "Enviros" aren't out to get us, some are frequently our ally. 

Here The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is doing oyster restoration in Texas as I would like to see in the Chesapeake & DE Bays.. 
Thirty-six bargeloads of limestone boulder.. What a reef they're building!  
I see new efforts in the Chesapeake as wonderful progress, especially in Harris Creek with its many bargeloads of rock, yet I believe we're misguided in "paving" the bottom with small stone. At this Texas reef the vertical surfaces of boulder will provide better areas for oyster spat to catch.. 
By way of comparison, if you built a Maryland-style oyster reef up on land a jeep or even trail bike could easily traverse the stone pile – doable. Yet this Texas reef would undoubtably give a monster-truck second thoughts.. 
I believe small stone mimics dead reef; shells lying flat. 
Boulders have vastly more vertical surface, mimic a live reef; offer a better place to trip the 'stick here' response in larval oysters off the bottom instead of down in the silt zone.. 
Indeed, a quote from the article: "The idea behind this project, Dumesnil explained, and the reason boulders of varying sizes are being used, is to try to replicate as closely as possible a real reef, and to get the eventual growth of it to be vertical - as it would be if it were naturally occurring." 
I've often offered an idea of laying clusters of concrete pipe underneath a boulder field. Because it would allow water flow through the reef, instead of just over the veneer, it would contribute more, much more, to restoring lost ecological function of oysters & do so with a smaller reef footprint.. (pic below loosely sketches the idea — see it with boulder overtop and pipes cabled together in 3s & 5s as would be practical in deployment..) 
A Marylander from the Chesapeake Bay State's tiny seacoast, I have never fished over oyster reefs. For me its about fish production, about getting the factory running — and turning the Mid-Atlantic blue again. 
Restoring corals to our unstudied nearshore seafloor remains a vital task, but if we allow the sea to turn greener & greener I fear sunlight-dependent coral restorations will become impossible. 
Need Oysters. Need that water filter turned back on. 
Oysters filter more than the algae that causes dead zones & green water to canyons' edge; their heavy shell locks away carbon and chemical pollutants too. 

We'll do our catching over corals & mussels at sea, but the water filter is back inshore & needs fixin.  
Last Saturday's bite is precisely the goal — Everyday, Every Trip. 
That's What Fishery Restoration Should Look Like. 

Cheers All, 
Monty 

Capt. Monty Hawkins 
Ocean City, MD 

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