Posted on February 1st, 2017
It’s been a while since a fishing report has come my way. Cold, windy conditions have had even the most die hard tautog fishermen not even thinking about breaking the inlet. That changed today when Captain Monty Hawkins chugged the Morning Star out to the rip this morning to give it a try. Captain Monty reported a “brutal bite” on a slick calm ocean, but he was able to catch the biggest release of the day. Captain Monty tagged and released this 20″ female to spawn again.
Today also brought some fantastic news from my partners at The Dispatch’s Facebook page. The Dispatch reports that the Baltimore Aquarium has dropped it’s effort to designate the Baltimore Canyon a marine sanctuary. For those of you that don’t know the story, the gist is that the Aquarium was looking to designate the entire Baltimore Canyon a marine sanctuary for preservation of the bottom corals and to use it as a research area. If the Baltimore was designated a sanctuary it would have been put under government control and potentially closed to all marine activities (including fishing) at the government’s discretion. The Baltimore is such an important component of offshore fishing out of Ocean City that there was a major public outcry to drop the sanctuary effort. I am happy to report that is exactly what has happened. National Aquarium CEO John C. Racanelli delivered the below letter to NOAA this week withdrawing the effort to designate the Baltimore Canyon the nations first urban national marine sanctuary. Win one for the fishermen!!
