Fish Report 2/3/10
Delaware Frank's Jumbo
Regional Management
Letters Lost


Toggin Again Friday - 5 to 10 knot winds forecasted - February 5th, 2010 - Boat sells out at 12 - Green crabs provided - Cabin heated - Leave at 7:00 for this trip (or a tad earlier) - Return no later than 3 - 3:30 (usually) - $100.00 buys a spot - Reservation a must, that phone number in signature - Email does not work for reservations - call - leave a good phone number, cell, in case of cancellation.

The Protest <> United We Fish: A Rally for the "Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act."

The Ocean City Fishing Center and Sunset Marina have donated a bus to go to the Fisherman's Rally Wednesday, February 24th - a few seats left on the first one - $20.00 deposit - part of which may get used if more buses are required - Contact OCFC at 410 213 1121.


Hi All,
Moved this Thursday's trip to Friday; now calling for a classic calm-before-the-storm. That's exactly what we had on Tuesday.. Saturday's forecast has gusts to 40 in it. Expect we'll let that pipe-down a while.

We count, encourage even, released tog in the fish-pool: Longest length, in or out of the boat, wins the money. Dennis's monster 26 inch tagged release wasn't going to cut it Tuesday.. Alex's 15 1/2 pounder didn't even come out of the box.. Delaware Frank's 19 pound 10 ounce tog--just a pound away from Sam's state record--took top honors.

New fellow, Ben, asks "Is this a really good day?"
"Yeah Ben, this is in the top 5."
"Wow! For the past year?"
"No, Ben, top 5 ever.."

That was some serious fishing. Tagged more than we kept.. very few were sub-legal. No one thinks you can sustain that kind of fishing without dedicated conservation efforts.
No modern fisher wants a return to what was; the declining stocks, the whole watershed collapses of businesses as they fished themselves into economic purgatory: We've had-done with that.

May soon embrace the simple arithmatic theory of habitat too: More Reef = More Fish. It don't take no letters behind your name to figure. Take reef away = less fish. Reef regrown + artificial created = more fish. No fishery management = no fish. Good fishery management = best fishing.

I am deeply troubled that this regulatory environment--too much fishery management--will prove to have the precise effect of an old-time fishery collapse.. A regulatory collapse, Plenty of Fish = No Fishing? Worse, its a theft of my life's work; a seizure only different from an African coup in that I may keep my appendages--that the banks only figuratively take an arm and a leg; Only different from Poland in 1939 in that, though my property is lost, my family will not be shot; Only different from an armed hold-up in that lawman and bandit are one and same.
Hard-won quota doubled; there are still 3 1/2 solid months of no cbass fishing when it would have traditionally been our mainstay; 5 more months too for boats that fish weekends in the canyons all winter -- all because of Marine Recreational Fishing Statistics Survey--MRFSS--data.

Battle only partially won, as this little bit of quota gets divided into seasons there will be a squaring off of the states as each positions for their users' best interests.. Regional management is needed biologically to make the system work, now it might be best in regulatory terms too.
Real, solid progress in restoration; a removal of the stock oscillations; a completing of what has been done these last 35 years - regional sub-quotas can get us there.
Tag studies prove the great danger in not having regional sub-stock management is in losing independent spawning populations: that goes for many species under management.
Salmon, sturgeon.. I offer too the otolith studies of sea trout; what of seals and whales--the humpback, gray, sperm; bottlenose dolphin and, far off-scale, the hummingbird that feeds in a coastal Maryland feeder, winters in Argentina, and returns to that same feeder; our sea bass, scup, flounder, tautog: Habitat fidelity and its relevance to spawning success, feeding success--survival in every form--runs throughout the animal world. Its application is inseparable from quality fisheries management.

This six month battle stems from the final data sets of a now-dead, but still haunting, catch estimation program. Unprevented; the collapse of the recreational sea bass industry will source directly from data generated by MRFSS's last flights of schizophrenic hallucination, its final delusions; a nearly lifeless program's paranoid accusations of over-fishing by wicked recreational fishers taking out an industry as old as fish hooks.
Really. These recreational overages--big numbers--do not come from partyboats fishing sea bass: Its the private boaters that the program claims waylaid the fishery.
Wicked slayers of untold tractor-trailer loads of fish; far more than they could eat, no doubt these evil overfishers donated their excess to Al Qaeda training camps to help bring down all imperialist states.
Scoundrels! No wonder we're closed!

Looked at closely this is what MRFSS asserts.. Grady Whites and custom yachts beat-up the sea bass. And that's our Best Science.. We "Have to use it." By law..

At least Jessie James used a gun.

Senseless economic losses for a fishery that is 103% rebuilt: And that accomplished--from zero to 103%--with just a small week or two closure, some years a month.
I promise the taxes sea bass fishers won't pay on trips they didn't take would have funded a lot of better data.
..perhaps even discovered if there's some kind of special habitat the fish favor over mud & sand.
Mercy.

I'm going to DC on February 24th, my sign to read: United We Fish - Sea Bass - OC MD. ---other side-- United We Fish - Fix Magnuson - OC MD..
No coral, no habitat, no commercial fisher bad guys, no Republican this and Democrat that -- We need this fixed - Evenly supported now by both parties; we need more help! One goal - One message. Fix Magnuson - Restore Flexibility.
Will that fit on a sign? Hmm....

I hear that Senator Mikulski has only received 5 letters supporting the Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act... Can that possibly be?
I don't think it can.. Perhaps there is a problem with her mail delivery.. Fishing typically flies well below radar - it should.
Not now though.
Send a short note--another--a post it note, anything, supporting SB 1255 to Teri Curtis, Environment Staff, who has been doing a wonderful job representing our pleadings to Senator Mikulski:

Senator Barbara Mikulski
C/O Teri Curtis RSG
503 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

An email/comment on the Senator's website might be as effective.. I doubt it, but put Teri Curtis RSG in the title if you do.

Fishing can be made far better than it ever was. First we have to survive..
I appreciate your efforts.
Regards,
Monty

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