Fish Report 12/2/15
Iron Lady - Opportunity
Going Fishing & Catching
..But Catching Means Measuring
Great Time To Donate To OCRF
Fishing For Cbass Sunday & Monday in what looks to be a true calm. December 6th & 7th - 6:30am to 3:30pm - $125.00..
Been seeing some limits ..and, an unwanted "end is nigh" signal too, starting to catch a few spiny dog sharks.
Reservations Required at 410 520 2076 - On My Rig You Can Reserve What Spot You're In. Please See http://morningstarfishing.com For How The Rail's Laid Out..
LEAVE YOUR BEST POSSIBLE CONTACT NUMBER - Weather Cancelations Happen - I Make Every Attempt To Let Clients Sleep In If The Weather's Not Going Our Way..
We have the Iron Lady wharfed in West OC for another 6 weeks. We'll run out of money after three more days of deployments (5 or six runs of about 4 truckloads of pre-cast concrete structures each).
When this boat goes back to the Chesapeake it may be years before we see it again - or never.
If you can pitch-in, please do! http://www.ocreefs.org
Even $50 or $100 helps. We burn $7,000.00-plus to load & go two trips in a day..
No t-shirts, no charts, no mugs - just seize the opportunity to build reef that will last many generations.
Back aboard the Morning Star:
Be a half hour early! We always leave early!
..except when someone shows up right on time.
Clients arriving late will see the west end of an east bound boat. With a limited number of reserved spots, I do not refund because you over-slept or had a flat..
Dramamine Is Cheap Insurance! (Meclizine's Better!) Crystalized Ginger Works Great Too. It's Simple To Prevent Motion Sickness, Difficult To Cure. If You Suffer Mal-de-Mer In A Car You Should Experiment On Shorter Half-Day Trips First! (Wockenfuss Candies sells crystalized ginger locally - Better is Nuts.Com.. Chewable Meclizine is a good pharmaceutical with Scopolamine Patches the gold standard.) For Anglers With Known Issues Dramamine & Meclizine Work Best If Treatment Begins The Night Before..
Honestly - If you get to go on the ocean once month, once a year, or even less; why risk chumming all day? Similarly, if you howl at the moon all night, chances are good you'll howl into a bucket all day.
Bring A Cooler With Ice For Your Fish – A 48 Quart Cooler Is Fine For A Few People. Do Not Bring A Very Large Cooler. We DO have a few loaners - you'll still need ice.
No Galley! Bring Food & Beverages To Suit. A few beers in cans is fine for the ride home.
Limits are a fact of life.
If you won't count & measure your fish, Maryland will cheerfully send a man with a gun to do it for you.
I fight bad regulation nearly every single day - but abide the law as it stands until we can see it changed.
Anglers wishing to keep undersized fish or go over the limit will not enjoy fishing with me. At all.
We count & measure - ALWAYS. There is no "close enough," only keepers & throwbacks. We'll show you how to measure the same way DNR Police do.
When 5 fish cops suddenly appear behind the transom as we're pulling in the slip, no one aboard my boat should be worried in the least..
Now 12,466 Reef Blocks Deployed at numerous sites. Active presently are Doug Ake's Reef with 2,370 - St. Ann's 1,447 - Al Giles Barge 586 - Eagle Scout Reef 744 - Sue's Drifting Easy Reef 147 - Nichols' Concrete 528 - Upside Down Tank 132
Trucks are rolling in - money's flowing out..
With the Iron Lady here & ready to deploy we can almost instantly convert donations into concrete reef.
Please Support the Ocean City Reef Foundation!
We're Nowhere Near Reef Building's True Potential.
Thank You!
Every Splash Makes Fishing Better..
Greetings All,
Snuck a couple pretty days in. Had decent sea bass fishing for the most part. I am surprised at the number of smalls we're seeing. Seems as though there must have been good production this year - a successful spawn..
Too many smalls can be a pain in the neck though. Sometimes I even have to leave a truly hot bite because the keeper/throwback average just isn't there ..but I also know those little guys are this fishery's future.
No Acorns, No Oaks.
Catching some limits everyday, even a lot of limits - but there's a lot of acorns too..
We made a reef set last week with about 4 truckloads of precast concrete. Pipe, manholes & junction boxes; these miscastings make awesome reef. Many of the pipes were bound together with cable so they remain high off the bottom.
I guarantee this new reef set, Nanna & Barry Daub's Memorial Reef, will be well-colonized by a spawning population of tautog by 2018.
It will already have been home to many other fish, especially juvenile sea bass. It's that 'no acorns, no oaks' habitat thing NOAA hasn't time or money for in our part of the ocean.
Have a letter here from NOAA's VTR office stating "Information on the (non)compliance status of your vessel is being provided to the Office of Law Enforcement." (VTR stands for 'vessel trip report' - a mandatory daily paperwork reporting requirement Party/Charter fishers have to do.)
I forgot to send in 'did not fish' reports last spring while I was up to my eyeballs in reef building. Yes, I should have sent the required reports - that's fair enough. I never forget to send them when I am fishing though..
It's ironic an agency who will not ALLOW management to use VTRs to estimate recreational catch is peeved about this slight error on my part. NOAA's essentially threatening to seize my business's permits for not reporting that I did not go fishing. This when the MRIP data they FORCE management to use sometimes tells managers we absolutely did NOT go fishing - at all ..although we actually were fishing as hard as the weather would allow and telling NOAA all the while via VTRs that we were not only fishing, but catching.
May/June 2015 MRIP data - All Maryland Party/Charter - At least 4 busy party boats and several charters were reporting catch by VTR & doing lots of trips. But this is "preliminary data" (nevermind regulations will be set based on this exact 'preliminary' info..
| Estimate Status | Year | Wave | Common Name | Total Harvest (A+B1) | PSE | Harvest (A+B1) Total Weight (lb) | PSE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PRELIMINARY | 2015 | MAY/JUNE | BLACK SEA BASS | 0 | . | 0 | . |
May/June 2010 MRIP data - All Maryland Party/Charter -Not Preliminary- At least 4 busy party boats and several charters were reporting by VTR & doing lots of trips..
| Estimate Status | Year | Wave | Common Name | Total Harvest (A+B1) | PSE | Harvest (A+B1) Total Weight (lb) | PSE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FINAL | 2010 | MAY/JUNE | BLACK SEA BASS | 0 | . | 0 | . |
I'll hurry up and get myself squared-away with the VTR office. If NOAA doesn't renew my permits I'll be up the creek. Besides, I honestly want NOAA to know what we're catching - or not catching..
Meanwhile:
Hey NOAA! You have a huge problem with recreational data and have completely screwed up your repair of the old MRFFS recreational data system.
Using MRIP as required by law, management can't even tell if we caught ANY fish, any fish at all - let alone how many..
Who writes NOAA's permits to manage fish? That's what I want to know. I think they're "Out Of Compliance" with required levels of rational thought.
Real & long-lasting methods of fisheries restoration await MRIP's fall through the gallows floor.
Management's required adherence to bad catch data holds the sciences of biology & ecology at bay.
That's what will move restorations forward, Ecology & Biology; not MRIP's wholly undependable illusions of catch/no catch NOAA foists upon the regulatory community.
Needs Fixing.
Regards,
Monty
Capt. Monty Hawkins
