Posted on March 11th, 2022
After some pretty thick fog this morning it turned into an absolutely gorgeous day and was a great day to be on the water. Tomorrow? Not so much. The forecast for tomorrow is for temperatures to quickly drop from the mid 50s into the low 30s with precipitation most of the day. This drop in temp will be ushered in by a stiff W to NW wind that is really going to mess up the weekend. The OC St. Patrick’s Day Parade has been canceled and I don’t think there is going to be much fishing going on. Thankfully there was today.
I had the opportunity to head out on the river with Captain Marc Spagnola and his lovely daughter Alivia for a new episode of Hooked on OC where we were doing some cat fishing and we had a great time. We lost a couple of very big bites today, but we did put some nice fish from 3 to almost 7 pounds in the boat. It was a fun day on the water and should be a great new episode of the show.
Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star was able to get out on the ocean today and though it didn’t go exactly as planned, he was able to put his clients on a couple of tautog and some sea bass (released out of season).
Was forced by wind & seas to do an about-face a week ago. Invited those guys back for another try. Sunrise and sea conditions made to order — pretty one. Saddleback dolphin thought so too. They showed off several times in beautiful clear water.
Cheeseman dropped twenty blocks donated by York Building Products on Capt Bob Gowar’s Memorial Reef and we kept going.
Despite seemingly everything in our favor – No Joy.
By one o’clock we’d only nicked a tiny handful of throwbacks that were tagged and a single keeper (barely) that was (sadly) boxed.
Current and wind shifted more southerly. Stayed two hours into overtime and quadrupled our catch. Aside Denn’s pool winning Jay Leno lookalike, it still wasn’t better by a lot; other than a lot better.
Ahhh – Bane of jumbo tog hunting’s future: the dinner fish.
One tog sure won’t make a difference. Nor three or four really. Limits with crew limits given to clients too? Clients who can afford the fare because they’re selling illegally to a live market trade?
That’ll pinch.
Already did.
The reason we’ve had this fabulous almost two decade run of fine jumbo fishing is because we had outstanding sea bassing nearly all of the 1990s and into the 2000s.
It’s real easy for most guys to throw back a tog when they’re allowed a mess of sea bass.
It’s even easier for a skipper to sell more spots on a sea bass trip and ignore the toggin. (I’m positive.) Nothing like an economic driver to help a fish population.
Conversely, there’s nothing like a closure on one species to drive pressure sky high on another.
That’s precisely what happened in 2008 with MD’s “Emergency Flounder Closure.” The regulation came because managers used 2007 catch data to forecast fall flounder landings. Wouldn’t you know it, that previous Sept/Oct NOAA’s catch estimates had MD surfcasters landing about 50,000lbs of flounder.
Yes, really.
From the beach.
((Wayaminit! How wonderful! I was writing from memory. When I looked it up for a ‘fact check’ I see MRIP’s ‘recalibration’ shoved MD’s flounder Shore catch to 140,000 lbs of flounder in those Sept/Oct 2007! Dang right! Let them statisticians run the show! That’s the gauge we should use to see what businesses are allowed or not..))
What was most likely under a hundred pounds of summer flounder from the coast became landings even a fleet of commercial boats could be proud of over two months of fishing.
They weren’t real fish, just our typical ghost catch which only exists on NOAA’s computers. Not real — but ‘catch’ which surely has real affect on regulation.
NOAA: “Overfishing must be dealt with.”
YeahYup. Whether it’s real or not don’t matter.
When all the back bay guys who’d have normally been drifting for summer flounder found themselves suddenly shut, they swiftly found another species that they had to anchor for instead. Our back bay tog fishery never did recover from that sudden surge in pressure. Today our back bay tog are more plentiful than ever owing an increase in both spawning production & habitat. The 16 inch size limit and increases in habitat from newly rip-rapped areas plus innumerable near-coastal artificial reef projects have helped lift the population. Fishing pressure, however, remains high enough to keep most back-bay tog spots capped at size limit—once a fish grows through to legal size it becomes a dinner fish.
The following year we had an “Emergency Sea Bass Closure.” Was there an ‘emergency’? Yes: That managers were willing to throw us all under the bow of an oncoming super-tanker over data they surely doubted – that was an emergency.
Still is.
For the sea bass?
Naw. More catch estimate shenanigans.
Beginning in late September (as I recall) this ‘emergency’ closure affected us gravely in the ocean. It almost bankrupt me – would have too save some truly generous souls. But NOAA will get the data they want. Several groups, especially the RFA, pushed NOAA to do an economic impact study in 2010. Hired guns found MD For-Hire boats had less than $1,000.00 apiece in lost revenue.
Scoundrels.
What did they do? Count rockfish/striped bass charters and canoe rentals?
When I tell people it almost bankrupt me, it’s no stretch.
While it didn’t help sea bass spawning production a bit, it shot nearshore fishing pressure on tautog to highs never seen before. As in the back bays our nearshore tog fishery never recovered. Although abundance is also off the chart on our near coastal artificial reefs, they’re capped off at size limit. Once they grow a bit past 16 inches?
Dinner fish.
Interestingly, MD DNR biologists doing back bay seine surveys for young of year fish have had a sustained —year after year after year— spike in both juvenile tautog & sheepshead in their samples.
Increasing habitat and spawning production is working ..but would sure work better if we had reliable sea bass production. They’re the easiest fish to make abundant. Only takes about 3 years to really amp up production.
For now, ghost catch that no one believes is running the show. Whether 140,000 lbs of MD Shore fluke or 2.5 million lbs of Massachusetts Private Boat sea bass – whatever pops up on the screen? That’s what’s real.
We may have another, thankfully smaller, cbass closure to contend with this year coming.
Regular readers will have seen many “MRIP catch estimates” that would boggle even a chemically diminished mind on skid row. Statisticians with PhDs love ‘em though. I recently found some new unbelievable dandies as I continue to try and simplify an argument against NOAA’s MRIP recreational catch estimates to take to you all and staffers in DC.
((It’s said “If you can’t easily explain it, you don’t understand the problem.” Be dadgummed if this ain’t complex though!))
Anyway, in 2020 Virginia Private Boats ‘landed’ 363,000lbs of sea bass in Nov/Dec (wave 6 for you players out there.)
Gosh.
Boy that’s a lot of fish.
It’s interesting that VA Private Boat Nov/Dec from 1999 to 2019 – All Added Up – isn’t as high as just VA’s Private Boat wave 6, 2020 alone.
And NO ONE was counting fish!
It is, in the most literal sense, a WAG (Wild Anatomy Guess.)
In 2020 no one was on the docks counting fish.
The estimate is guessed at using data from the year before.
Which was the highest ever before at 180,000lbs.
Perfect.
I’ve been working on this since 1998.
Everytime we get a single spearpoint through MRFSS/MRIP’s shield wall, they snap it off and raise estimates still higher.
Way higher.
Incredibly higher.
We’ve landed numerous punches.
They’ve had no effect other than to worsen our situation.
None.
Fisheries scientists and managers need a true approximation of recreational catch. We need an EXTENDED PEER REVIEW that includes more experts than Statistics PhDs.
Because “fishery” includes the human-use side of a fish population, it is indeed fair to say MRIP is killing some recreational for-hire fisheries.
No you say? Well, what’s it worth to catch one sea bass at 16 inches? That’s what some states are looking at..
Pretty sure my customer base would bail out.
Many in the environmental community are presently enamored; they must think, “Better to err with caution. Fish will do better with tighter regs even if it isn’t fair.”
Yeah Naw Mate.
That’s not working either.
Recreational estimates have become so bad they’re inflating stock estimates (fish population estimates) so high as to skew safe regulation on the commercial side. Stock analysts are made to put data they do not believe through thusly “If recreational is catching that many, then there must be far more fish out there than we thought.”
It’s been going on for decades but when MRIP “Recalibrated” in 2018 it was plain for all to see. Commercial fluke (summer flounder) quota shot up 49%(!) and their sea bass went up 59%!
Ours quotas went up too — but we’re “already catching too many even with the increase and must pay in “accountability measures.”
Unless we make a heck of a fuss that’s what’ll happen too.
Right now – it’s happening right now – If scientists and managers had an accurate assessment of recreational catch, commercial quotas would never be so high.
No one’s going to take action against commercial quota as summer flounder stocks continue to decline. It will have to be ‘punch em in the nose’ obvious before they take issue with commercial quotas. In fact, it’s fabulously likely that MRIP estimates will put the blame squarely on NY & NJ Private Boats for fluke’s decline. When flounder/fluke become obviously tanking for all to see, MRIP will show such enormous recreational Private Boat catches that it has to be recreational anglers fault. Even shore anglers!
I hope my business and I survive coming years of commercial overfishing caused by inflated recreational catch estimates.
Someday NOAA will squirm.
Publicly.
Until then? Recreational businesses first, environmental second, then commercial as the real problem is unearthed and dealt with.
And I have to simplify that?
Oyyyyy….
Regards,
Monty
Used the perfection loop several times while cat fishing today….check out my tie method below!
