Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Fish Report 11/19/13

Fish Report 11/19/13 
Nice Cbass Fishing 
A Weather Window 
Reef Restoration's Importance 

This Thursday & Friday Coming Look To Be Very Calm & Fishable.. (11/21 & 22) Some Spots Available.. 

Going Long — Sea Bass — 5:30 AM to 4 PM — Wed, November 27th — 21 Anglers Sells Out (and unlikely) — $150.00 — High Probability Of Bites On The Jig. 

Will Open December Sea Bass Trips Via Email Only Pending Weather Forecasts. 

Sailing Daily – Including Sundays (When Weather Allows!) (..but not Thanksgiving Day!) 

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!

Still Too Cheap! 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..  
 
7,884 "Oyster Castle" reef blocks by the rail – 2,366 at Jimmy's Reef – 1,420 at Ake's – Now 216 at Lindsey Power's and counting! 
Need a new batch of blocks soon. See ocreefs.org if you'd care to help fund the next truckload, or snailmail a check – any check! 

Trying to keep a large selection of OCRF long-sleeve & ss t-shirts aboard.. Best Stocking Stuffer Ever! (aside from Morning Star Gift Certificates) 

Greetings All, 
Some limits of sea bass. Lots of action. Nice Weather & Pretty Fishing. 
Cbass ate the jig Saturday & Sunday. I liked it. 
So did many clients. 
This coming Thursday & Friday are looking good weather-wise.. 

Our tautog trip last week wasn't nearly as productive as I'd have liked. Still, 6 clients caught about 60 fish ..but none offered the bent-rod thumping of a very large tog. 
Revitalizing nearshore sea bass stocks is the very best management plan for tautog. 
Take the heat off. Turn down the pressure. 
A resurgent sea trout stock wouldn't hurt either.. 

I think its no coincidence that now, when concern is being expressed over striped bass populations (I think probably lost to mycobacteriosis) sea trout are making their best showing in decades. 
This disease, and not overfishing, is wasting some of our striped bass. Stripers long artificially buoyed in single focus catch-restriction-only management yet declining in number; sea trout are making their first real sign of recovery in 2 decades. 
Ecosystem restoration or, more simply, ecosystem-strengthening, is the real key to supporting fantastic increases in fish populations. Because we're positively certain there's a greater than 99% decline in hardbottom in the Chesapeake, we can safely deduce estuarine hardbottom restoration is a vital link in fisheries restoration. 
Then too there's the tremendous effort to better feed striped bass in our estuaries by tightening regulations on the menhaden reduction fishery – to strengthen the ecosystem. 

Oyster loss incredibly well-studied, yet little progress made in restoration; Were marine reef to follow a similar timeline my assertions of lost nearshore corals, of a temperate, zooanthellae-based reef ecology that has been neither 'found' nor studied by science & therefore cannot possibly have a fish habitat restoration plan would, on a fast-track, start being rebuilt in the year 2100..  

A century's passing not soon enough; Our only path of discovering restoration's need lies in fishing's history. 

When the day comes where managers can see on a chart where men caught reef-fish many decades ago and did so with no navigation electronics, Yet No One Catches There Now, we'll discover restoration of those specific reef-fish populations impossible without first restoring their reef habitat — it's gone. 

When the day comes where we can see where men caught bluewater billfish on our nearshore shoals in wonderful number just 5 to 20 miles out & only 120 NM from Washington, D.C., we'll know billfish could never feed in pea-green waters found on those shoals today: As the old-time skippers claim, "The blue water's gone!" 

Undertaking serious marine & estuarine reef restoration will turn the ocean blue & make fisheries restoration simple. 

Reef Restoration Makes Fishery Restoration Simple. 

Regards,
Monty 

Capt. Monty Hawkins 
Partyboat Morning Star
Ocean City, MD

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