Fish Report 5/1/16
Couple More Tog Trips
Sea Bass Season Opens May 15th
Fishery Engineering
From Below:
I was putting self-enforced boat regulations on a number of species before they were ever regulated. By 1993 we could plainly see management was an amazing tool in the restoration of fisheries.
Long before NOAA would note an increase in sea bass populations, we were seeing it plain as could be.
I am 100% positive fishery management can work.
Still, and I never, ever, dreamed I would write this: Recreational sea bass fishers were better off pre-Magnuson, before any marine fisheries regulations. We were safer economically & our clients happier when foreign trawlers prowled our nearshore waters than today. With MRIP's computer-driven statistical catch estimates deciding our regulatory fate; NOAA might declare our life's blood off limits at any time.
And probably will.
Opening June to Sea Bass Reservations. It is also possible flounder (fluke to you northerners) might come in early--arrive on our reefs and wrecks in force by late June.
So: You can now reserve spots from the May 15th Sea Bass Opener to the end of June.
For trips this coming weekend see tog trips below.
After May 15th we're sailing daily.
Going Toggin: Getting a lot more bites & throwbacks, tagging more. We catch more tog in a day now than in two weeks this past winter. (ouch)
Some anglers will do from OK to very well - but not everyone..
Going Thursday, May 5th - Friday May 6th, & Sunday, May 8th - 6:30 to 3:30 - $125.00 - 12 Sells Out
Reservations Required
Be a half hour early! We (almost) always leave early!
Going Toggin?
Skunks are always possible while tog fishing. Luck & Skill Count.
Crew Have White Crabs For Sale AT THE DOCK for the low, low price of just $5.00 per generous dozen. There Is No Guarantee We'll Have Whites For Any Trip. Sometimes they all die. That shrinkage is why I prefer greens. We may be bringing some whites with us in the ocean. Green Crabs (not Whites!) Remain Provided As Boat Bait And Are Included In All Fares.
Until May 15th: Tog Only, Sea Bass Are Closed Because NOAA Has Accepted Poor Statistical Catch Estimates As If They Represented 'Certain Knowledge' For Decades. NOAA Has No Idea How Best To Manage The Sea Bass Fishery. (yet)
No Live Tog Leave The Boat - Dead & Bled - Period. (I Believe The Live Tog Black Market Has Hurt This Fishery ..But Nowhere Near As Much As Bad Sea Bass Regulations)
Agreed With Or Not, All Regulations Observed – Maryland: 4 Tog @ 16 Inches
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!
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..
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.
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.
12,810 Reef Blocks Deployed at numerous sites: Doug Ake's Reef 2,431 - St. Ann's 1,459 - Al Giles Barge 725 - Eagle Scout Reef 768 - Sue's Drifting Easy Reef 147 - Nichols' Concrete 578 - Upside Down Tank 132
Please Support the Ocean City Reef Foundation!
Reef Dinner May 15th At The Marlin Club! 4:30 to 7:00 - Tickets $25.00 at the Door..
We're Nowhere Near Reef Building's True Potential.
Thank You!
A new use of science, marine fisheries management has yet to grasp one of its greatest strengths - the ability to increase spawning production from a population of fish. I've been trying to steer science in this direction since 2008 or so..
Illustrating some sort of seafloor habitat in this space of late, in this report I'll detail more about how to fill habitat with fish - and keep it full despite increased extraction.
It remains that how fish spawn & where fish spawn is of no consequence in Mid-Atlantic Marine Fisheries.
What a computer shows as recreational catch, however; now that's important..
I try, again, to explain size limit's affect on sea bass spawning below, while showing how bad MRIP estimates have so-mislead science, management may never get back on the trail.
Greetings All,
One tog trip in barely doable conditions..
At least the tog bit!
In seas teetering at the edge of stay/go home, we had almost half our clients limit. Could have limited everyone probably, but we were putting back as many keeper females as we might.
Given some decent weather, and it certainly looks better this week coming, I anticipate good tog action.
We're seeing sea bass way inshore already. Tagging them when possible. I haven't seen a female yet, at least not a clear example of one. Soon though.
I think male sea bass come in from offshore first to stake their ground - to lay claim to their spawning territory. It might be a 50 mile journey; probably not that far this year though, not as mild as this winter was.
Up until 2009 a winter like this would have made for a great May for party boats in the sea bass business.
Now, in today's hurricane of regulations stemming from MRIP's catch estimates, we're very lucky along DelMarVa to have half our May fishery. ("Lucky" isn't really correct - people worked hard to save what could be saved..) New Jersey has about a week of May sea bass season left. New York's sea bass regs are in such turmoil they still haven't announced, but any days in May are unlikely. Above NY, southern New England anglers are allowed from 1 to 8 fish in periods when the season's open.
The sea bass population graph above, "Figure 14," only goes to 2011. I've asked for updates along the way but there are innumerable tasks for NOAA Fisheries to tend to - updating this graph hasn't made the list.
As you follow that rocket-like rise in population as management began to take effect 1998 -- please know we never had a size limit over 11 inches, and "closed seasons" were just irritating 2 week affairs of absolutely no consequence save economically. We didn't even have a bag limit until 2002. That's when the size limit first hit 12 inches also.
Throwing back about 1 in 4 fish during early management, the population went Up-Up-Up.
Then, as the coast-wide size limit regs hit 12 & 12.5 inches - collapse began.
Throwing back even sometimes 19 out of 20, the population went Down-Down-Down.
Now closed half the year or more & with crazy low creel limits - our region's sea bass production remains far below what it was even before management began.
Production is key.
How many we take is only part of management.
How many juveniles survive to spawn themselves is much more important where 'restoration' is concerned.
I was putting self-enforced boat regulations on a number of species before they were ever regulated. By 1993 we could plainly see management was an amazing tool in the restoration of fisheries.
Long before NOAA would note an increase in sea bass populations, we were seeing it plain as could be.
I am 100% positive fishery management can work.
Still, and I never, ever, dreamed I would write this: Recreational sea bass fishers were better off pre-Magnuson, before any marine fisheries regulations. We were safer economically & our clients happier when foreign trawlers prowled our nearshore waters than today. With MRIP's computer-driven statistical catch estimates deciding our regulatory fate; NOAA might declare our life's blood off limits at any time.
And probably will.
Today NOAA is convinced the decline in sea bass biomass across much of the Mid-Atlantic is because our sea bass, suddenly somehow so newly different from black sea bass along both of Florida's coasts: Yes, only our sea bass have fled the lower Mid-Atlantic for southern New England because it's too warm.
Very-very suddenly, the ocean's too warm for our sea bass.
Florida's cbass: "We're good. Say, can you turn the heat up a little? Thanks!"
Nothing management can do about that, right?
I mean, who could see that coming?
Funny.
Lots & lots of work's been done showing seals have repopulated the full extent of their historical southern range. Today you can kayak with great white sharks along Cape Cod. A real-life JAWS awaits; maybe this summer..
But warming's not part of seal restoration's public conversation - only management.
With steady population growth at 12% or so, regulators are now wondering what the heck they're going to do with too many seals. Believe me - this is a real-life challenge in perhaps our youngest science; "ecosystems based fishery management."
I've seen pictures of people standing on docks where I worked in my youth posing with bottlenose dolphin. There must be pics of Massachusetts seal hunters after a great day too..
Sure glad I don't have to be the guy who suggests seal hunts. Oh dear..
But I am the guy who says, "Wait a minute! How could we possibly have the highest sea bass population in memory just 13 years ago & now it's too warm"
While seals reclaim their southernmost range?
What??
I was among those who marveled at pelicans when they first appeared along Maryland's coast in 1987. Ain't no confusing that pterodactyl with a black-back gull.. Now we have breeding colonies. That's warmer.
I missed the decades of scup/porgy fishing we had here. It was over by 1969.
Long before Coast Guard regs existed, a guy could sell so many spots on his wooden Chris-Craft motor yacht, men would have to fish out the windows. (true..) While our reef habitat remains an important part of scup production along DelMarVa -- we see innumerable small scup on our reefs by late summer every year -- we sure haven't had a fishery for them in decades. That might be warming.
To those two species, one gone north & one come north, we might also consider spadefish. This species once swam in schools best measured by the acre over our shallow-water wrecks. When a recreational fishery & commercial fishery developed simultaneously in the mid 1990s - spadefish numbers declined instantly & precipitously. Seeing more than a dozen spadefish in one spot now is news.
But spadefish are southern fish; warm-water fish, & should be rising in number - especially if sea bass are bailing because it's too warm.
Gosh, I can't wait for red snapper..
"But we have trigger fish now," some say. Had 'em back when too - promise.
"And grouper!" Yeah, but longliners from Ocean City targeted grouper 50 years ago.
"And juvenile production of grouper is on the rise in Maryland's coastal bays." Might be something solid there. One young man was considering taking tagged juvenile grouper from our back-bays (very unlikely to survive winter) and running them offshore to 50+ fathom reefs. Be some interesting tag returns if they survived..
Warming's real. No doubt. A bunch of sailors would have retired very comfortably in the 1500s if the NW Passage above the Americas had been navigable.
It wasn't.
Now it is.
That's because ice is melting.
How about the increase in sheepshead? As more big-reef oyster restoration takes place, (not veneers of shell suitable for dredging) we see more sheepshead. Is it only warming? No one, and I mean nobody, fondly recalls a sheepshead fishery from their youth in Maryland's Chesapeake. Yet archeological digs have many sheepshead remains..
After we built big reefs with Woodrow Wilson Bridge rubble - sheepshead in Maryland again..
Are marlin so much further offshore because of warm water? Did the squid & baitfish marlin fed on scarcely 5 miles out in 1935 all move 60+ miles offshore? I think marlin's absence inshore only a decline in water quality..
Bluefish? Tunas? Blue ocean waters turned green water affects them also.
Corals?
NOAA: "What coral?"
Habitat & management are brutally powerful forces in fisheries. We do not always understand what we have done. Actually, it seems we rarely understand habitat & management's affect on fisheries.
But, if there's a shred of plausibility connecting warming to a fisheries decline or increase, NOAA declares - CASE CLOSED.
There's a recent paper showing our sea bass are "genetically different" (yet identical?) to the sea bass you could charter a boat to go catch in Georgia.
That's why sea bass are on the rise up by Cape Cod & have declined here. Our sea bass like cooler water than Georgia's.
It's genetics..
Case Closed.
Nothing with our sea bass has anything to do with fisheries management.
NOTHING.
NOAA: The rise of Mid-Atlantic sea bass populations in early management was only luck.
Their decline? Only warming.
Can't fix that.
NEXT CASE PLEASE.
And the rise of sea bass up north? (Where seals have fully regained their southern habitat along Cape Cod)
NOAA: That's only because sea bass are LEAVING the lower (& now way too warm) Mid-Atlantic. It has nothing to do with draconian recreational regulation. In fact, because small plastic boats are so deadly, it's a wonder there's a sea bass anywhere along the East Coast.
Sakes.
Page 18 of this presentation:
Why does Dr. Sarah Gaichas' presentation show the broad-average of Mid-Atlantic temps down?
She's a very sharp lady. One of the sharpest scientists I've ever met. I expect this 'down' temperature model included a lot of bottom samples across many years. I doubt seriously it's wrong.
Warmer surface? Yes, if slightly.
Colder bottom temps? Yes, and again, if slightly.
Enough to topple an "average" temp down?
Probably..
Seafloor temps in the Mid are almost certainly down. Ask any scuba diver you know.
Ice melt comes slow & south with the Labrador Current -- gets damed by the Gulf Stream & Hatteras.
That's why the ocean here is turning green -- we have less flushing.
And also why NOAA's excuse for failed sea bass population maintenance in the Mid-Atlantic is horsefeathers..
It Is Not Too Warm For 'Our' Sea Bass In The Mid.
I ain't buying it.
I do not believe it.
The problem is management's too attached to catch-restriction regulation based on NOAA's recreational catch estimates to trouble themselves with biology or ecology.
There is absolutely no temperature-driven reason for sea bass production to have failed for 13 years straight in the Mid-Atlantic. The failure is biological: it's driven by the fishes spawning delay response to size limit.
For one month this summer anglers above Cape Cod will be allowed 1 cod.
For one month this summer anglers from Rhode Island will be allowed 1 sea bass at 14 inches.
For one month this summer New Jersey anglers will be allowed 2 sea bass.
For a few days this year anglers will be allowed a couple red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico.
NOAA's catch estimating system, MRIP, will likely show, (even at these grossly too-low creel limits,) recreational fishers having caught nearly as many cod, or sea bass, or red snapper as commercial fishers.
Happens all the time.
Even from shore sometimes.
Seriously.
MRIP's estimates are that bad.
I want readers to know I do not begrudge commercial fishers their quota. What I see destroying recreational fisheries is NOAA's never-ending accusations of recreational anglers going far over quota. When we're "Over Quota" we have to pay it back. That means: less season, longer size limits, fewer fish, and sometimes complete closure.
Before "Ban All Trawlers" talk begins - what I'm trying to illustrate here is how far astray MRIP has lead regulators.
I do think, I absolutely believe, trawling has a place in US commercial fisheries. In fact, timing their catch, & identifying what spawning habitat that catch sources from, is vital to getting sea bass management right.
I believe it would be almost impossible for a trawler (one boat) in winter, targeting sea bass, to NOT catch --in one trip-- what Rhode Island anglers will have caught this summer.
In fact, there was a Facebook post this winter where a trawler estimated 50,000 pounds of sea bass in one tow. I'm positive Maryland rec fishers haven't hit that sort of number in years - all of us, all together, haven't caught that in a year - for years.
That trawler caught theirs in 50 minutes. It's incredibly likely they could not legally land all those fish. Getting more dollars per-pound for jumbos; they'd have boxed the best & shoveled the rest.
It's silly beyond belief to think it only happened once..
Those fish are real - and really dead.
Whether landed or not.
Only some of MRIP's fish are real.
Here's sea bass landings as seen by NOAA & other regulators:
All Atlantic Coast Party/Charter by Year. (Florida to Cape Cod)
| Estimate Status | Year | Common Name | Total Harvest (A+B1) | PSE | Harvest (A+B1) Total Weight (lb) | PSE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FINAL | 2009 | BLACK SEA BASS | 486,489 | 10.3 | 631,153 | 10.9 | |
| FINAL | 2010 | BLACK SEA BASS | 566,448 | 11.8 | 733,367 | 12.0 | |
| FINAL | 2011 | BLACK SEA BASS | 368,269 | 14.3 | 471,136 | 13.9 | |
| FINAL | 2012 | BLACK SEA BASS | 714,524 | 11.2 | 1,073,680 | 11.0 | |
| FINAL | 2013 | BLACK SEA BASS | 286,616 | 9.8 | 462,064 | 9.9 | |
| FINAL | 2014 | BLACK SEA BASS | 835,291 | 10.3 | 1,166,417 | 10.3 | |
| PRELIMINARY | 2015 | BLACK SEA BASS | 826,221 | 16.9 | 1,327,025 | 16.7 |
Private Boats Only From 3 States: Rhode Island, Connecticut, & Massachusetts - Annual By Year
| Estimate Status | Year | Common Name | Total Harvest (A+B1) | PSE | Harvest (A+B1) Total Weight (lb) | Difference in pounds from All Atlantic For-Hire | Difference in pounds caught Commercially from VA to MA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FINAL | 2009 | BLACK SEA BASS | 393,589 | 26.6 | 574,669 | -57,000 | -49,000 |
| FINAL | 2010 | BLACK SEA BASS | 780,994 | 40.7 | 1,180,652 | +447,000 | +146,000 |
| FINAL | 2011 | BLACK SEA BASS | 185,672 | 26.7 | 305,201 | -166,000 | -696,000 |
| FINAL | 2012 | BLACK SEA BASS | 543,414 | 22.0 | 1,172,749 | +99,000 | +195,000 |
| FINAL | 2013 | BLACK SEA BASS | 362,650 | 13.5 | 865,426 | +403,000 | -358,000 |
| FINAL | 2014 | BLACK SEA BASS | 877,541 | 16.4 | 1,750,360 | +584,000 | +432,000 |
| PRELIMINARY | 2015 | BLACK SEA BASS | 713,655 | 12.0 | 1,385,733 | +59,000 | No Com Data for 2015 yet |
In NOAA's eyes, these three states' Private Boats outfished All Atlantic Coast Party/Charter 5 of the last 7 years. In 2014 this three-state fleet caught nearly 600,000 pounds more sea bass than all Atlantic For-Hire Party/Charter..
NOAA also holds private boats caught 432,000 pounds more sea bass in 2015, with their scrimpy seasons and over-large size limits, than all the commercial boats from Virginia to Massachusetts.
Managers have to believe it
..at least they have to regulate as though they believed it.
And party boats? This fishery must be a joke to NOAA. According to MRIP, party boats haven't caught sea bass in so long, it's not even worth a concern. In fact, my congressman (couple terms ago) was told sea bass were not an important fishery in MD at all.
All Mid-Atlantic Party Boats - VA to NY - (Partyboats only ~ not charter boats)
| Estimate Status | Year | Common Name | Total Harvest (A+B1) | PSE | Harvest (A+B1) Total Weight (lb) | PSE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FINAL | 2009 | BLACK SEA BASS | 145,696 | 14.3 | 179,412 | 14.5 | |
| FINAL | 2010 | BLACK SEA BASS | 269,954 | 19.7 | 329,435 | 19.5 | |
| FINAL | 2011 | BLACK SEA BASS | 101,592 | 14.5 | 118,326 | 16.0 | |
| FINAL | 2012 | BLACK SEA BASS | 156,724 | 20.2 | 211,546 | 20.1 | |
| FINAL | 2013 | BLACK SEA BASS | 99,252 | 15.8 | 131,201 | 15.7 | |
| FINAL | 2014 | BLACK SEA BASS | 308,418 | 12.8 | 399,674 | 12.5 | |
| PRELIMINARY | 2015 | BLACK SEA BASS | 72,349 | 22.1 | 129,862 | 25.8 |
I promise any who will read - My clients alone often caught greater numbers of sea bass (left column) in a year than these estimates assert across a broad 5 state area.
And, while they were catching like that, the sea bass population was increasing annually.
Why is Partyboat catch factually in such decline while Private Boat is shown to rise many-fold since 2003?
It's because regulations have real effect--deep effect--numerically, biologically, & economically; while MRIP's catch estimates for Private Boats are a fantasy NOAA is attempting to live.
We need to know the truth of recreational catch.
I watched ex-NMFS secretary, Bill Hogarth, speak at "Managing Our Nation's Fish 3" - a huge conference in DC a few years ago. Time he was done you'd have sworn the real extractive force in fisheries was a guy standing on shore with a piece of shrimp for bait -- you'd have sworn rec fishers fed more fish to birds than commercial fishers take every year..
Strangely, it was during his time in office that Party/Charter catch began to decline (we were SCREAMING that our estimates were too high - and they were. My Congressman at the time, Rep Wayne Gilchrest, assured me NOAA would have to include data we surrender for each trip in rec estimates. Inclusion of VTRs (vessel trip reports) stopped before it began..) But when For-Hire catch began to decline in the estimates, Private Boat catch began to escalate.
That escalation has never stopped.
Nor has Party/Charter's decline, really.
Closures in cod, red snapper, flounder, sea bass, tautog; soon cobia, (and - give 'em just a couple years here, promise - tilefish & bluefish,) these closure have arised from Private Boat catch estimates ..but not real biological need owing to real overfishing by Private Boats.
Commonsense is asked to leave the room while recreational regulations are being devised.
Recreational anglers in Rhode Island may legally kill more tuna than sea bass this summer..
If it happens that you see more cobia than EVER in July; don't you dare catch one.
And, oh yeah, sea bass are sooooo different below Hatteras. Black sea bass in the South Atlantic enjoy a steam bath, Gulf of Mexico too. But up here, with maybe/maybe not overall temperature increase over the last 15 years, the lower Mid-Atlantic's cbass population has nosed-over into a tail-spin because of warming.
MRIP & its predecessor, MRFSS, have mislead science & management into formulating grossly unneeded & economically crippling regulations.
We were better off betting on sea bass's biological spawning response to over-fishing stress than with today's, "We Know What You Caught" robot-like response in regulation.
Well... What the heck does betting on sea bass's biological spawning response to over-fishing stress mean?
If you measured a sea bass population beginning at the number of eggs available at spawning--the total number of eggs that will be cast into the sea--you'd have the highest number possible for that year's sea bass population.
But we can't do that, everyone knows they need to be fertilized. We need males in very close proximity. Lots of them, it seems.
The second highest number we can put on a sea bass population, therefore, is those eggs that become fertilized. But that number still isn't fair. Everyone realizes only a small percentage of fertilized eggs make it through the first few months of life.
With NOAA convinced Mid-Atlantic black sea bass have become the world's first member of a new genus, the cold water groupers, {even though they, amazingly, look 100% exactly like their warm-water black sea bass cousins below Hatteras} NOAA can safely ignore all my work showing 'age at maturity' shift's affects on population. (I believe our sea bass now spawn 2 years later than they once did).
Ecology & biology matter in fisheries.
When I started a 9 inch limit in 1992 it was because science then-thought all sea bass had spawned by 9 inches - some twice. We would see hundreds & hundreds of small males in spawning color every day (that bright blue hump on a male's forehead) until 2001 or 2002.
Last year I saw a single under 9 inch male. One.
All year.
Since 2002 we've seen sea bass starting to show male color at 11.5 inches & larger. Our size limit is 12.5 inches. Because they grow about 3 inches annually at this stage of life, we catch them before they've spawned much at all - if at all...
Variation in spawning age is everywhere in biology -- everywhere.
Some think "over-crowding" is the trigger for fish as it is for many mammals, but (for sea bass at least,) I believe it is the size of other spawners around them that determine when sexual maturity occurs. If there are big fish about, little ones do not participate. This is probably broadly true across fisheries, especially among reef species.
'BOFF' theorists think Big Old Fecund Females drive production, (big females with lots of eggs,) yet we have female sea bass in greater percentage & larger physical size than ever in history. Sorry NOAA, BOFF ain't workin.
Here's very widely accepted spawning production theory on mahi-mahi:
Fisheries for mahi-mahi are a prime example. These circumtropical and subtropical pelagic fishes (Coryphaena hippurus, and a few other less abundant Coryphaena species of restricted distribution) should be able to sustain very high fishing mortality rates because of their exceptionally fast growth rates and early maturation (usu- ally in the first year of life;
Mahi populations are believed to be stable and healthy due to their fast growth rate, high reproductive capacity, and reproductive maturity beginning at six months. During spawning, female mahi can produce a quarter-million eggs or more.
When our region's sea bass actually were spawning by age 1 (as predicted by science of that era) we witnessed exponential population growth. Sea bass population growth seen in that graph above "Figure 14" occurred with far higher quotas.
We must use the natural inclination of sea bass to spawn as soon a biologically possible as a tool in fisheries restoration.
If we nail oyster restoration & turn the ocean blue; if we were to restore the original hardbottom reef footprint from pre-industrial fishing, or even exceeded that 'perfect restoration' of habitat; without management's use of maximized spawning production, the sea bass fishery would still languish.
In fact, the management community must understand this response in all fishes..
When sea bass perceive they're under pressure at reefs closest to inlets where fishing pressure is heaviest and therefore begin spawning at the youngest age possible; more distant reefs become overpopulated owing to nearshore overproduction.
Hence "surplus production" which is at the very heart of fisheries management.
Surplus production is what allows us to take any fish at all. A true understanding of spawning production, and not grasping convenient popular theory, is what will make or break today's early attempts at marine fisheries management.
The evidence for elevated production is made plain in sea bass management's earliest years.
Scientists who manage dozens--dozens--of other fisheries scoff and blame it on a 'lucky year' in production.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0-oinyjsk0 Clint Eastwood's "You've got to ask yourself, 'Do I feel Lucky?' Well, do you punk?"
Yeah, no.
No luck with spawning production at all down here since we went to a 12 inch size limit.
We taught sea bass not to spawn until age 3 & the population plummeted.
Up north, in those nearshore warming waters below Cape Cod, they've not been allowed to catch many sea bass since 2010 -- but are allowed as many as 50 scup. That region's sea bass population has climbed.
Spawning site habitat fidelity shows no mixing whatever between regions.
Where science should clearly see a spawning production issue, managers see only need of a plausible excuse.
Warming's handy.
What an incredible waste.
We should have gone from our first attempts at management to engineering truly robust stocks by now.
One could say we've suffered a data delay..
Regards,
Monty
Capt. Monty Hawkins
