Posted on July 18th, 2024
Was an exciting finish to the OC Tuna Tournament…..Check it out!!
Boy, we had some rain today!! Made a couple of Deadly Tackle rig runs today and it was absolutely pouring in spots. I know we got a couple of inches at my house and there was a lot of ponding on roads in West Ocean City. Once it’s all gone we’re supposed to have some light winds and beautiful weather.
Luke Wrye, Brian and Josh all had keeper sized rockfish from fishing the route 50 bridge on the incoming tide. They took a combination of live spot and “the dredge.”
Captain Marc Spagnola of Dusk to Dawn Bowfishing saw some good shooting before the rain started, and he will see more now that it’s headed off.
Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star was in the ocean today dodging rain drops and his folks were reeling in sea bass.
Got a late start this morning. Little confusion in how much oil we should keep handy. The old saying goes, “If a detroit diesel isn’t leaking oil – it isn’t running” is mostly true save for the most fastidious owners.
So today my normal leaks were compounded by a leak at the bottom of the port oil pan. This our ‘new engine’ replaced in June, it must have been dropped just a bit to form a small buckle in the oil pan.
Add time and rust?
Such joy.
Lots of “JB Weld – Steel” from Walmart because no one else is open before 8 anymore, and my two pkgs onboard in the emergency kit were unlikely to cut it. Joey cleaned around the leak and stuck a big old smush of epoxy in it with a pressure wedge from below.
Underway at last, Emily & Briana added two pyramids to Lucas Alexander’s reef.
We pressed on.
And on…
I had angler extrodinair Holly (well, better than Hurricane!) do a test drop at my first stop. “How’s the drift, Holly?”
“I don’t know!”
She’d caught a sea bass straight away – soon as she hit bottom.
I didn’t realize ol’ man Murphy had set me up. Now with everyone’s lines in?
No more bites!
Drat.
Made a move and found the desired outcome – bent rods and smiling faces. Left Murphy to his silly games elsewhere.
Weatherman had been calling for RAIN in the morning.
Before dawn, however, the forecast changed to RAIN in early evening.
Like the cable repair guy; forecast should have been, “rain sometime between 8am & 5pm.”
Rained pretty good all afternoon really. Have acquired a bunch of loaner jackets over the years. Used em..
Among a few dandies aboard, Leslie had the day’s pool winner.
�I often write about how spawning influences populations. If production is good, habitat fills up. In the mid-late 1990s/early-mid 2000s the “Old Grounds” (a 200+ square mile collection of smoothed riverine cobble beds off DE that supports temperate coral communities) were loaded with sea bass. In 2003 I believed we were at Havitat Capacity – that we truly couldn’t keep a greater population healthy.
My old friend Capt. Ricky and any number of other skippers actually cussed sea bass at times because they’d hamper the fluke bite.
You might mark a bit of haze along the bottom (sea whip) and sea bass in number would erupt.
There are numerous places I’d like to video. Bottoms like these where we catch but without significant structure are especially interesting. It would better my understanding of the region’s “pre-contact” seafloor if I could see every bottom I fish.
Where pre-contact bayfloors (Chesapeake/DE Bay – Long Island Sound and areas smaller) had been impacted 200 years or more ago as oysters were dredged via sail; in the ocean off MD we didn’t have much in the way of trawling until after WWII.
Was there a bit after the Army Corps rockpiled the inlet in 1934? Sure was, but after WWII surplus engines and surplus men found their way to the trawl, scallop and surfclam fisheries in larger number.
With them – Our Seafloor Was Most Assuredly Contacted and Impacted.
I held up a ‘sea tree’ or sea whip at a meeting in the late 1990s to a man who’d fished trawl in the 1960s with his dad off here. He described some tows thusly: “Monty, we had to dig through mountains of that stuff to find our fish.”
Not the lying sort. I believe him.
Was it in any way bad?
They couldn’t have known.
Twenty years ago or so I was trying to get the Mid-Atlantic Council to pay attention to habitat issues. I testified about sea whip’s value as habitat (after I’d received a handwritten letter from a leading ecologist stating he doubted whip could be considered such). Trap fishers testified their wooden traps would have substantial growth (bryzoans etc) in a few months.
‘Obviously then’ there couldn’t be any real impact to the sea bed. (No matter entire square miles had become devoid of reef fish species after heavy impacts.)
In every commercial fishery there are lobbyists who tend their knitting extremely well.
Extremely.
Those arguments from long ago are as close as we’ve ever come to making a restoration plan — that is to say, there ain’t one and nothing is in consideration.
We know where every oyster reef and bar was 250 years ago before they were pummeled. For temperate hardbottom corals in the Mid-Atlantic?
Discovery Awaits.
In 2007 we even had a 50million dollar research boat here. Unfortunately that research boat only found ‘sand waves’ where I could plainly see sea whip and star corals with numerous sea bass and fluke using a borrowed $300 dollar u/w drop camera and a $100 walmart TV.
Seriously.
That pretty much exemplifies the level of commitment NOAA has for marine restoration..
Fortunately, we do have artificial reef permits. Though on a seriously low budget as a non profit in a state (the state!) with no marine artificial reef program, we are making headway. (ocreefs.org if you’d like to help!)
An ocean of potential and our most important partner in restoration, NOAA, is having its nails done while diligently studying recreational catch estimates they know dern well are wholly unsound.
Things do change. I always have high hopes with each new administration – 5 or 6 of them now.
But no luck yet. That’s why I try to build even a little reef every day..
Progress if in small measure..
Cheers
Monty
