Fish Report 8/17/24
Mahi Are Here Again/Gone Again/Here Again - Should Come Back In Number Given Coming Easterly Breezes.
Catching Sea Bass Otherwise
..and some red hake? Man, been a long time.
See Facebook for daily catch reports. No need of registration - they're public posts.
I'm going to run sea bass & (maybe!) mahi trips with a light rail so everyone can fish going away from the boat. Opening through September First. Fare is $225 and sells out at 12. (and maybe one more but I'd never advertise That number)
Anna is a one person operation. She might be slammed when I hit send. (or maybe not!) If she cannot pick up, Leave her a message. She has a method to her madness..
Reservations at 443-235-5577 - She has other jobs too. The line closes at 8pm and reopens at 8am. She won't take reservations for trips that are not announced.
If you want a spot call the reservation line at 443-235-5577.. Emailing me is no good - her service handles reservations. I'll have no idea what spots have been sold. I do check email for questions; check FaceBook messenger too..
***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. Seriously, with a limited number of reserved spots, I do not refund because you overslept or had a flat.. If you're reserved and are the last person we're waiting on - you'll need to answer your phone. I will not make on-time clients wait past scheduled departure because of a misfortune on your part.
Sea Bass Size limit 13 inches - 15 per person. Also Seeing A Few Flounder. Their Size Limit Just Changed To 17.5 Inches..
Mahi are limited to 10 per-person and have no size limit save what your conscience allows.
Try to always leave a half hour early (and never an hour early!) I rarely get in on time either. If you have a worrier at home, please advise them I often come home late. It's what I do.
Trips Also Sometimes Announced on Facebook at Morning Star Fishing
https://www.facebook.com/ocfishing/
I post after action reports (or lack thereof) (and sometimes detailed thoughts on fisheries issues) for every trip on my personal FB page and Morning Star page. Posts including OC Reef Foundation work will be included on that page as well.
Bait is provided on all trips.
No Galley. Bring Your Own Food & Beverage.
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!
It's Simple To Prevent Motion Sickness, Difficult To Cure. Bonine seems our best over the counter because it's (supposed to be!) non-drowsy. It's truly cheap & effective insurance. If it makes you a bit sleepy - but not chumming? That's a great trade!
"The Patch" of Scopolamine, however, is a prescription only that beats all comers.
If the ocean still wants to get the better of you? Zofran (anti nausea) can be a day saver if you have it left over from a prescription.
Honestly - If you get to go on the ocean once a month, once a year or even less; why risk chumming all day? And then there's the ebullience of youth! Of course you can party hard and go on a moderately rough ocean!
No you can't!
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 have a few loaners - you'll still need ice. Should you catch some monstrous fish, we'll be able to ice it.
No Galley! Bring Food & Beverages To Suit. A few beers in cans is fine for the ride home.
Block Update - As of 8/17/24 we have 42,079 Reef Blocks & 2,320 Reef Pyramids (170lb ea) deployed at numerous ACE permitted ocean reef sites - there are also 1,336 pyramids deployed by MD CCA at Chesapeake Bay oyster sites working to restore blue ocean water - Counting those awaiting deployment we're nearing 5,000 pyramids made since my crew and I fashioned a prototype mold in late August 2019.
Currently being targeted oceanside: Ryan & Shari's Bay Breeze Reef 208 Pyramids - Uncle Murphy's Reef 284 Reef Blocks; Rambler Reef 400 Reef Blocks & 13 Pyramids - Pete Maugan's Memorial Reef 116 Blocks & 14 Pyramids - Calder's Reef Improvement 88 Blocks & 12 Reef Pyramids - Virginia Lee Hawkins Memorial Reef 550 Reef Blocks (+98 Reef Pyramids) - Capt. Jack Kaeufer's/Lucas Alexander's Reefs 2132 Blocks (+53 Reef Pyramids) - Doug Ake's Reef 4,194 blocks (+16 Reef Pyramids) - St. Ann's 3,035 (+14 Reef Pyramids) Unnamed Spot at Jackspot Reef 164 Blocks & 8 Pyramids - Sue's Block Drop 1,762 (+30 Reef Pyramids) - Kathy's Cable 276 blocks (11 pyramids) - Rudys/Big Dad's Barges 140 Reef Blocks (+9 Pyramids) - Benelli Reef 1,552 (+18 Pyramids) - Capt. Bob's Bass Grounds Reef 4,670 (+ 110 reef pyramids) - Al Berger's Reef 1,946 Reef Blocks (48 Reef Pyramids) - Great Eastern South Block Drop 248 Reef Blocks (+ 8 Pyramids) - Cristina's Blast 140 Reef Blocks & 2 Pyramids - Capt Greg Hall's Memorial Reef 362 Blocks (+2 Pyramids) - Kinsley's Reef 964 Pyramids - Bear Concrete Reef 512 Pyramids, 44 Blocks plus 16 pipes..
****
Now available as 'name a (small) reef' are 'Tog Cabins' made of parking lot car stops & 'Coral Castles' made of concrete pipe.
See ocreefs.org's 'donate' page for this opportunity.
Greetings All!
Below is my 42,000 Reef Block announcement & and explanation of sorts as to why we're seeing a few red hake/ling these days.
*****
Had a double header of red hake the other day. Been a long, long time since I saw a double. Wrote this a while back - info on scallops/red hake life cycle.
Perhaps we were closed here owing 'graying disease' - or perhaps fishers simply left the area alone because of poor meats.
Net effect? More red hake!
It's an amazing bit of habitat ecology - tied to our most valuable commercial marine fishery.
Missing since the mid 1990s, we've seen more Red hake/urophysis chuss/ling - whatever you want to call them (it won't be 'that's a pretty fish') than in 30 years.
Nope, Not Pretty ..not until their fillets emerge from a fry daddy. Then?
Some good living.
Before self-enforced sea bass management took hold they used to be a huge part of our summer. We'd catch the heck out of em until the first hurricane swells in August.
Then, in 1993, NOAA closed Georges Bank to scalloping and all that commercial stern towed gear moved south. Our red hake catch plummeted thereafter.
Whuuuut?
Whyzat?
Ahhh.. Nothing happens in a vacuum off here. According to Able & Fahey's "First Year in the Life of Estuarine Fishes" (w/Urophysis chuss, a decidedly marine species, it was included only because they thought its early life interesting.) When red hake are spawned they soon -at just half an inch- hide in a live scallop all day & only feed at night. They'll do that until they're about 5 inches long.
When NOAA closed Georges Bank to scalloping, that industrial effort moved south hard. In very short order our ling fishery had a giant hole in its life cycle and the fishery went toes-up.
Having ling inshore is a good sign. All kinds of critters eat those sorta-catfish looking red hake/ling -- bluefin tuna being chief among them.
It all ties together somewhere; from oysters' collapse in the 1970s turning the Mid-Atlantic ocean green to this day; or the astounding yet wholly unstudied loss of our nearshore 10 to 25 - even 50 fathom temperate coral hardbottoms; to an extreme pulse of overfishing causing an important prey species (and fry daddy king!) to become scarce in barely two years time..
The common thread ?
(Today's 'too big to fail') .."economically important fisheries" making the study of even long ago ecosystem impacts an unpleasant task politically.
The ocean offers an incredible potential in fisheries restorations & improvements.
I think we're at less than 20% of her offerings.
Would that we might focus on putting lost habitat back (even if live scallops, but especially her sea whip meadows of the 1950s, and fifty fathom bottoms lost in the 1970s..)
While habitat production isn't all of it, there's a giant void in spawning production where missing or quality is diminished.
*********
42,000 Reef Blocks Deployed..
Adding up Reef Blocks and Pyramid deployments for my Fish Report, I had not realized when Abbey, Lorie & Gail deployed an 18 block reef unit atop Rambler Reef on 7/17/24 - that block number 42,000 went among them..
(Been dropping mostly pyramids since!) It's a slow reef building project, but it's sure built some productive structure!
I believe it was 2007 when The Nature Conservancy heard my plea for a 'boat deployable' reef unit and donated two pallets of their Oyster Castle blocks.
Stackable & interlocking to resist estuarine wave pressures, I soon ordered a truckload. In those days I had no idea where OC Reef Foundation would find $3,000; but I was positive we could renew reefs lost to scour--those sanded in, lost to scour, and especially atop flat steel barges where we could increase productivity on an existing piece by increasing rugosity/intersticial spacing (this reef builders' vernacular for nooks and crannies)
that drive reef life and its spawning production..
We worked up to 10,000 Oyster Castle blocks (no oysters out here. Maybe Coral Castle Blocks when we use em?) Just as Deepwater Horizon oil recovery grants took off, the price of a truckload tripled and I was looking for another source.
Many concrete block companies and individuals have donated block since. By far most have come from York Building Products in York PA. When they take material 'off inventory' we get a crack at it - are growing a lot of coral on their concrete. Our primary delivery man is David Bauer. He keeps numerous truckloads on hand at his farm. When we start running low? It's like magic - More Appear!
I might also mention Mo & Joe who graciously allow us use of an empty lot in West Ocean City. This project could not continue without convenient storage.
Thank You All!!
How do we know concrete will last? Is it free of pollutants? Concrete from Roman times still stands. Concrete is always cleaner than the water we drop it in and is approved the world around for reef substrate. Even MD claims it's approved as an oyster substrate. After all, according to their head shellfish guy they tried it once twenty years ago.
MD's Chesapeake artificial reefs are nearly all robust pieces of precast concrete - every AR in the lower Bay is fairly well loaded with oysters. The Nature Conservancy VA Preserve (behind VA's barrier islands) has an abundance of concrete thriving with year after year afrer year of oyster spat settlement. Maybe the idea will catch on with MD oyster restorationists too (like literally everywhere else in the world.)
Reef made of concrete will last a very long time and create zero pollution.
Concrete is hard to run an oyster dredge through. I think that's the sticking point in MD. It's just not easy to commercially harvest from.
Personally? If I were an oysterman and the feds/state told me they wanted to make giant spawning populations?
Hmmm..
In the ocean where I do my reef work we have wonderful collections of sessile growths including star coral and sea whip - but no oysters.
Consider the oyster; though hundreds of miles away as a fish swims, they are 100% tied to marine water quality. It's called a Benthic.. (fancy word for bottom) .. a Benthic/Pelagic Coupling.
Reef building in the ocean's marine benefit is far more straight forward, biologically speaking. Anywhere there's a hard substrate - even only if slightly harder than just sand - you'll have a collection of growths that absolutely fit the definition of "Reef."
If only I could get NOAA to take note and study them; especially learn their long lost historical footprint to facilitate a master plan of restoration..
Alas, there are numerous stern towed gears in the ocean too. They're supremely well represented in federal fisheries and, as I was told point blank at a habitat meeting years ago: "We like the seafloor just the way it is."
It's a small thing, these reef blocks my crew loads & clients deploy. Some of the very best fishing I've ever seen is on reef we've restored though. It's certainly worth doing.
I believe Maryland is the only coastal state from Massachusetts to Texas without a marine reef program. Our little nonprofit, the Ocean City Reef Foundation, does what it can with donated funds/reef materials/& labor. see ocreefs.org
Currently we have the ongoing reef pyramid project. Kinsley Construction has over a thousand pyramids on standby. They make 20 every other day! Bear Materials has also made a substantial amount of pyramids. Both companies also donate pyramids to CCA MD for their habitat work. (This fall we'll have a look. Some should be naturally colonized by now.)
Now too Harkins Concrete has begun using leftover concrete to fill molds for us. Atlantic Concrete used too but we've somehow lost touch. Gillis Gilkerson Construction has made a fair many on different sites with truck overages.
We have
Captain Stormy on the Tiki XIV has taken out the lion's share of our marine seployed pyramids. He's had 200+ pyramids for months ready to deploy. Got jammed up with aquarium shark collecting and military work I suppose. His next load goes to Ryan and Shari's Bay Breeze Reef at the Bass Grounds.
We also have a 50 ft barge donated by McGinty Marine Construction. My plan is to tow it to WOC Harbor bathhouse and have volunteers cable down reef pyramids before taking it off to Ringmaster's Reef Group at the Bass Grounds and sinking it.
OCRF bought a fifty ft Navy dive boat a few months back.
I'd originally thought to sink it - but it's absolutely perfect to make a small, self-propelled barge with -- and we shall.
Too dang busy to get it together. One engine is with Chuck at Diesel Drs. While he is indeed a grand master of old Detroit engines, I have a volunteer to rebuild it with parts on the shelf!
The other engine is in Monkton and ran fine when removed.
Get em both checked over and reinstalled, then my young welder friend Jonah Robertson with a portable system can begin decking it over to make the entire topsides area useful.
Should be able to take 350 pyramids I'd think...
Sure build some reef at that pace..
Though taking blocks or a few pyramids will continue apace from the stern of my boat, larger reef builds will always be through the OC Reef Foundation.
We'd welcome your help!
see ocreefs.org
Cheers,
Monty
