Rough One in The Ocean, But Some Decent Fishing in The Bay

By Scott Lenox

Rough One in The Ocean, But Some Decent Fishing in The Bay

The wind blew up pretty good out of the northwest today causing it to be a little rough in the ocean, but there was some fishing back in the bay and some fillets ended up in the cooler.

Captain Dave Caffrey of On the Run had two trips today where he and his crews fished the OC Inlet with great success.  Black drum, sheepshead and tautog kept his folks busy and they had some keepers for the fish box.

Ryan Ellerman fished the north jetty wall last night where he used a 1 oz bucktail to land this 30″ keeper rockfish.

Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star did an about face in the ocean after a little while, but still put a few fish in the box.

Another lost day and thoughts on fisheries 10/26/24..
A couple of fellow OC partyboat skippers had cancelled their trips for today by yesterday afternoon.
Me? I studied several forecasts hard and thought I could sneak a day in.
Thought incorrectly – but thought nonetheless!
Forecast upgraded in the AM; before we got underway I told clients we didn’t have much of a shot at it but I’d give it a go.
Caught a magnificent sunrise while easing up to Sue’s Reef for a block drop.
An old high school buddy, John, & his hard-fishing nephew Patrick, did the deed on today’s block unit deployment..
Writing was on the wall time I’d arrived though – winds were already higher than forecast yesterday. Anchored over three spots at Sue’s Reef (just 4 miles off the beach but loaded with the soft coral ‘sea whip’) to give it a shot and found a few, (very few!) keeper cbass.
I pulled the plug on today’s trip when I had nearly 19 knots steady on my wind gauge. Sea conditions were still fine – but sure weren’t going to remain so much longer.
Patrick, as has so often been the case, exercised his reef builder’s karma to take the pool..
There was no charge for the short trip.
Better weather will come!
In fact, looks like an awesome calm coming. I have 8 spots open on Monday now – will send a report opening more calm days soon.
(And now some deeper thoughts on fisheries!)
If you follow along on my thesis – “the presence of a few larger male sea bass (age 3+) leaves all age one & age two cbass out of the spawning population” – keepers like we caught today are all it takes. Just a handful.. Think of anywhere else in higher order animals – birds, mammals (eg bighorn sheep, bison, elephants) and you’ll quickly see where young males are excluded from breeding until older and able to successfully ‘challenge’ the old guys..
Regardless whether this owes to pheromonal response or risk of physical injury from older bulls; young female sea bass will not switch to male until age three (at least) with a 12/13 inch size limit.
The size limit of today (ill found via MRIP catch estimates as it is) eliminates some 70/80% of sea bass from the spawning stock.
It doesn’t halt spawning – just slows it to the point where spawning production cannot quite replace natural mortality & fishing’s extractions.
Now that the burst of spawning effort from 2016 to 2019 is past; we’re going to witness a slow but steady decline of sea bass off DelMarVa until management repairs it.
Of sea bass I wrote “we are at habitat capacity” in 2002. All those cbass, filling every reef and offering unimaginably better angling than today, were spawned with no bag limit and an 11 inch or smaller size limit..
It’s not a guess. I’ve seen nothing but affirmation since 2006 when I first solved for “How come our sea bass population is contracting despite much tougher regulation?”
Make them spawn young and we experience exponential population growth.
Recuse the larger part of the population (always many more young cbass than old) – and their number shall decline..
Just Watch.
Cheers,
Monty

We had a great trip on the Angler last month with some awesome fishing!!  Check it out!!

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