Fish Report 3/5/10
Robbery
Great Video
Witch Trial

Hi All,
Fishermen are being robbed using complex illusions called catch-data.
Do not think I make that assertion lightly.

I despise getting ripped-off.

In Maryland we were already enjoying better fishing when management started in '97 because we acted 5 years before the Council to regulate our cbass fishery.
Tagging, release studies, habitat and fishing: Lots of fishing.
Paying attention.

Really paying attention.

Here's what I think:
The catch data isn't any good and the management plan won't work.

Unless we're lucky.
I ain't feeling too lucky.

I'll insert some data sets at the bottom. Don't know who wrote the catch estimate programs, Madoff's guys or those mortgage derivative fellows, but MRFSS - the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey - uses magik-math. There's some serious errors in it.
Magik-math Errors are Destroying Jobs, Destroying an Industry; Destroying a Way of Life.

All while not doing too great a job of restoring/maintaining sea bass populations.

I just wrote that the management plan for sea bass won't work. We've poured lots and lots of money into it. Some great people are burrowed deep inside the data. Battle going on right now.
Still, I think sea bass under our present plan will oscillate in population by region in slow 5 to 7 year up trends -- and sudden downs.
Habitat fidelity in sea bass is required for this statement to be true.
Is.

Habitat fidelity is found throughout the animal kingdom--even ourselves. In the case of sea bass north of Cape Hatteras they will migrate offshore in winter and return come spring. Returning--quite often--to precisely the same reef they'd left. I've done over 5,000 cbass tags, the fed did 16,000. There have been other tagging studies.
They all showed habitat fidelity.

Did I mention reef?
The law the fed is using as an arm-bar to force our economic submission; The Magnuson Act, the same law that's punching-elbowing-kneeing us like we were handcuffed inside the cage in an MMA fight mentions habitat too.
A lot.
Big Environment concerned? Not so much. Most are happy, tickled really, with just the fancy magik-math catch estimates and stock assessments. They know all about the ocean's environment, have done their environmental homework---In the ocean it's all about reducing catch: Estuaries sure need work though, would you send us some money?
Magnuson's Law sez if we know of habitat we ought to protect, enhance and restore it.
Clean slate; nothing out there. Finding reef's been pretty tough.
But if you really wanted to restore reef fish..
See the video on my website if the thought of coral reefs off the coast of Maryland catches you by surprise.

That's just the hard-bottom communities. Tube worms offer a whole new level, a far larger footprint; are a far more ephemeral habitat type.
I didn't even bother with it. Figured if managers aren't interested in coral...
Yawn. Reef fish living on reef..
No magik-math, just simple habitat theory; No -impossible to unwind arithmatic computations- just so many fish per cubic foot of reef minus fishing pressure. Doing this 30 years now-- the catching, I'm certain that's the bulk of it. I have to catch fish everyday - that's what makes this fishery tick.

OK. Assume habitat fidelity occurs because species are driven to successfully reproduce. The fish know where habitat is--even if NOAA doesn't--and return to that reef so that their progeny can do the same in successive generations.

Allow me a terrestrial model to show you fidelity's importance.
An easy illustration, it's super-important..

Say the east coast north of Hatteras had five big patches of forest without any other trees anywhere in-between, and each woodland had a similar number of squirrels: Since the little mammals aren't going to travel across a hundred fifty miles of unforested land, we now have five isolated groups of bushytails.

Tasked with management of these squirrels federal regulators first sell off the timber 'cause that's who's funding private studies.
..now Capt.
OK - OK.. sorry..

Tasked with squirrel hunting management, managers might first figure out how to preserve the trees--Essential Squirrel Habitat: Maybe.
They'd surely estimate the populations of squirrels in the five woodlands to determine how much hunting pressure there could be, how many squirrels hunters could safely cook-up in tasty pot-pies -- yet still have plenty for next year.

Five forests. Five great big, beautiful dense woodlands with lots of squirrel forage.

Too bad though.. Busy-Busy-Busy!!! No time for managing each woodland individually.
Bears, Armadillos and Opossums more important anyway.
So much to do: Managers use magik-math to estimate how many squirrels there are in total and how many can be hunted -- All together, in All the forests.
If no one hunts the two southern forests, a few hunt the center, but lots of guys bag 'em up in the northern two woodlands; If these imaginary hunters take the entire coast's squirrel quota in just two regions, this whole Coastwide Quota from a much smaller area..
Trouble for the squirrels in those northern forests.
Real trouble.

Managers only become alarmed though when the magik-math sez the boyz shot way more up north than was supposed to be had along the whole coast - exceeded the whole coast's quota.

.. The Fed then begins emergency squirrel rebuilding: Guide services are shut down; hunting goods stores might as well be.. Season closed in all five woodlands. Managers are Busy! Nevermind any community's economic consideration in the great recession, there's meetings to be had, papers to read.

Because of sea bass's habitat fidelity--like these hypothetical bushytails--We can not expect a good outcome from a fishery restoration plan that manages in coastwide fashion--from MA to NC--when, in fact, the fish behave as isolated spawning populations: That despite the fishes ability to swim to new spawning grounds, most never will. Management must be turned over to the states in similar fashion to s. flounder's conservation equivalency or, perhaps better still, broken into regions that ignore state lines but focus on the specie's behavior.

Because of habitat fidelity, the northern region's overharvest--if it occurred--would have no biological impact on more southern stocks whatsoever.

Because of habitat fidelity the brutalizing of industry by routine clerical duty & perfect adherence to administrative protocols has led to very poor governance.

Because of habitat fidelity, allowing a whole coast's quota to be caught in one small, highly over-pressured region--if it actually occurred as measured by magik-math--is inexcusable.

Because habitat fidelity is real, someone ought to go check on the habitat. I promise this; Artificial reef here is responsible for more sea bass production than what's left of the natural reef. Germans made some reef here too. Some recreational fishers worked hard on that artificial reef: The fed is stealing the fruits of our labor -- our fish.

Because of habitat fidelity and magik-math this whole sad enterprise has been based on science no sounder that the professings & spectral evidence offered by the possessed in Salem's famous witch trials.

Witch trials.. I don't think that's an overstatement at all.
No one could see the possession, these demons that were summoned by the most wicked witches ever to settle in America. Proof was in the testimony and some of the craziest "Science" ever cooked up. (Wiki has plenty)
No one saw the demons; No one saw Massachusetts's small boats knock the sea bass population back to the Pliocene either. Rocketing to 167,595 cbass caught just in July/Aug when they are said to generally catch 13,000..
Witchcraft is the only explanation.

Bearing testimony at our witch trial is nearly every single environmental group. Magik-math sez close the fishery? Really? Oh No! It must be true! Environmentalists know when fishers are trying to return to their other-world of demonic fish-exterminating possession: We scoundrels will be looking for the last Right Whales any moment!

No, I'm sorry, that's not right.
Not at all.
The Nature Conservancy--way bigger than Pew--is developing a rock-solid marine program.
About three years ago I heard they were going to accept the "There are no reefs in the mid-Atlantic" theory.
Big difference, Huge: A room slam full of Ph.Ds listened to a fisherman.
They believe--They now know--There are corals here inside 20 fathoms.
The Nature Conservancy did not sign Pew's letter against the 'Flexibility Act.'
I can't say why TNC didn't: Dern sure looks like the rest of 'em did.
Maybe an environmental group that looks around and sees a lot of missing pieces, environmental pieces, is willing to give the accused a chance to testify?
Here's where you can see the one's that didn't bother to see if fishers had a case..
http://www.endoverfishing.org/resour...ing_HR1584.pdf

A great video of us, the other team, of the RFA's Commercial/Recreational United We Fish DC Rally - http://www.wfn.tv/news/video.php?video=402773
This video has the crowd & their thoughts - not the political speakers. Common theme--Data's Bad.
You can plainly we're witches: Slaughtered the whales, chased them across across the globe, hunted them to extinction; Slaughtered everything else too as it came next in line..

Except the "fish everything to extinction" finale was a generation ago. Rebuilding is working. Some fish, like summer flounder, must be--have to be--denser than ever before in history--Nevermind that the magik-math sez we need to rebuild them more; really-really soon we'll have to ponder what all these fish are going to eat.

..so, even without discovering the trees, our squirrels are at least better off than before management.

There's no way that we could ever return to where we were long ago; The no-limits of any kind era that I grew up with is history; Never again will we have the crazy-mad giveaways of whole fisheries--like the factory ship mackerel giveaway in 1991/92....

We want our sea bass back. Cutting 4 months off our regular season for that miserable magik-math mess called MRFSS is unconscionable. The cut is worse--runs to 9 months for boats that fish the deep in winter.
We did not overfish.
Especially not off our coast.

Losing our sea bass fishery because we are alleged to have gone over quota is theft by bureaucracy.

In the mid 90s I took a 7 inch scup to a local fish advisory meeting. Eric Schwaab chaired it. Tiny little fish, it was legal. Our new director of the National Marine Fisheries Service--NMFS--might even remember: Not everyday a shareholder brings a fish to a meeting.. I begged for more management of scup--on the southern stock.
Still waiting.
The northern stock is over 200 percent rebuilt.

In the early 90s I was fishing just under a hundred people a day for black sea bass. Unregulated, we could take all we wanted.
Did.
MRFSS sez we took 1,355 sea bass this year in MD. That's All the boats in All of Maryland.
I say magik-math's on crack - Bad-Bad.
We caught that many--far more--in one day lots and lots and lots of times before the creel limit came along.

Magik-math sez private boats spanked the party boats in Jersey last year--In March and April when sea bass are still in or near the canyons.
Nothing really new though, MRFSS has small boats out-fishing the partyboats every year in very early spring.
Funny: That's when I carry my largest percentage of boat owners; its when they want to go fishing but often don't have their boat in the water yet. I guess they do everything different in Jersey.....

Did I mention sea bass actually change sex in response to population pressures? That's some real, natural magic.

Environmental groups that think we have this figured out; that think the science is sound enough to justify debtors prison for fishers ought to dig a little deeper.

I know our Representatives in DC are getting heat to stay the course; Keep Magnuson as it is.
Lots and lots of big environmentals are polishing their best accusations, are ready to testify on our demonic possession; they'll Defend Magnuson's actions based on impeccable fisheries science--Fight Flexibility.
Bake some witch-cake, that's the best way to get to the truth.

Once accused of witchcraft back then - You died.
It was all formal - Trial, Defense --Judges.
And not a drop of truth anywhere..
None.
Except in the cries of the accused.

Give us our fisheries back!

Beautiful warm, calm days coming.. All our boats' economic potential tied up save for three and a piece months.
It represents theft of tax revenues, jobs--a way of life.
There's no truth in this loss.

I pushed as hard as I could to get the pendulum of management started.
Sea bass seemed so obvious - throw 'em back till they're bigger, let 'em spawn.
All my years of trying to get the nearshore corals off Maryland found and protected have come to nothing - yet - soon though perhaps. But then I've always said that.. Did find an environmental group willing to look at environment - not just numbers and graphs on paper.
All these squirrel biologists.. Paychecks. No one's looked to see if there's any trees left..
There's so much more that could be done.
The data has always been a joke. Really, we just laughed at the estimates unless they pinched up the season.
It's no longer funny.
The pendulum has gone too far.

Stop this witch hunt..
Return our stolen fisheries.

Data tables & some discussion below.

Regards,
Monty


Capt. Monty Hawkins
mhawkins@siteone.net
Party Boat "Morning Star"
Reservation Line 410 520 2076
http://www.morningstarfishing.com/

In Ocean City, Maryland, our partyboat clients outnumber shore fishers targeting flounder most days--I mean really outnumber the shore fishers.

We, the party and charter boats of Maryland, very likely fish harder and better -with more knowledge & with more maneuverability: We certainly cover far more bottom than shore fishers.
I think these MRFSS numbers--the magik-math, these statistically generated catch estimates, are still too high for party/charter in Maryland. But here, in this example, they are probably within a couple hundred fish of being perfectly correct.
Keep in mind that this first data set/group represents the clients of For-Hire boat captains and, very importantly, is for the year---the whole year.
And - For MRFSS - these are nearly perfect estimates.

Species: SUMMER FLOUNDER - All For Hire - All Waves - Annual Year HARVEST (TYPE A + B1) PSE
2006 2,314 21.8
2007 2,639 16.5
2008 2,337 18.6
2009 2,774 38.7


The following data set represents two months of Maryland's recreational shore effort. Granted, there are shore fishers that are very good at catching fish; I'd wager they complain about party boats catching way too many though.
We want visitors to catch fish!
But, despite some local sharpies, no one would say every shore angler is a trained ninja..
These next MRFSS catch estimates are for Shore Fishers in a single Wave, a Two Month Period---Not All Year as in the For-Hire example above--Two Months, Wave 5, September & October.

Species: SUMMER FLOUNDER - Wave 5 -

MD - Shore Effort - September/October

Year
HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)
PSE

2006
0
0

2007
36,017
48.4

2008
14,962
51.8



Thar's some potent Magik!
One two month shore-effort wave vs. party & charter boat's annual catch.. 36,017 caught in two months ashore vs. 2,639 by professionals in a year. That's the data that affects us--makes us appear to have greedily gone far over-quota; Just this one data set has had severely damaging economic repercussions; it's the data that makes size limits go up & creel limits go down.. all with shorter seasons.

Its every bit as bad in these same years for the 'private/rental boat' MRFSS category.
We fought these data sets hard. In the end it was a "Can't prove a negative" a "Can't push with a rope" argument that kept fishers from having some truth brought in: That all there had to be was more fishers, hundreds of thousands of them I suppose, and they would have indeed caught those kinds of fish - NMFS won..
Always does.
What a bunch of horse-feathers.

And now, outflanking sea bass fishers---red snapper too I hear-told---is another battalion of these crazy catch estimates, the MRFSS catch-estimates that could only be loved by a crazed statistician--because the ones I know, sane, don't like this type of data at all..

We can not push with a rope, We can not argue a negative until true; No one can assert enough proof.. From Wiki: "The argumentum ad ignorantiam [fallacy] is committed whenever it is argued that a proposition is true simply on the basis that it has not been proven false.."
But, look, when you're the government this argument works fine..
All there ever had to be to achieve any catch estimate was more fishers, lots and lots of imaginary fishers...

More.
In each of the following two-month data sets MRFSS asserts 2009 to have been fantastically-incredibly better than any cbass fishing previously known to anglers in these northern regions.
Here too MRFSS asserts that our fisheries bureaucracy allowed the entirety of the coast's black sea bass quota to be captured in one region, despite the proof that habitat fidelity would make that a tragically ruinous event for a single region's fish stock---population..
A quick glance; call it as you see it.

Species: BLACK SEA BASS - Wave 4 - Private Boat - MA Year HARVEST (TYPE A + B1) PSE
2007 13,062 71.3
2008 13,548 69.4
2009 165,595 25.6


Species: BLACK SEA BASS - Wave 3 - Party Boat - MA Year HARVEST (TYPE A + B1) PSE
2007 3,015 31.1
2008 526 19
2009 77,136 32




Wave 2 NJ Party Boats
Species: BLACK SEA BASS Year HARVEST (TYPE A + B1) PSE
2005 61 71.1
2006 30 99.6
2008 134 100.1
2009 20,543 37.7


Wave 2, 1998 - 2009 New Jersey, Private
Species: BLACK SEA BASS Year HARVEST (TYPE A + B1) PSE
2002 9,921 92.9
2007 3,302 74.1
2009 34,418 56.4


Those are the data sets that might destroy many in the recreational bottom fishing world..
An act of congress to fight this lunacy.
What a waste of energy, a fantastic waste that might have been directed toward real restoration - moving beyond restored..

Needs Fixing.