C&R regulations process:

[B-Faithful]

We can grasp at straws all we want but the bottom line is that this is estimated to be a very low impact fishery. It is irresponsible for the DNR to reduce access and opportunity by closing days without a clear indication that this fishery is causing a particular conservation problem. With the known science of other fisheries, the DNR has the obligation to look at other alternatives before reducing and restricting access or targeting one method of fishing given the unknowns. If DNR fears being in "crisis" management in the near future before this fishery can be looked at further, the DNR has the responsibility to act on known scientific solutions to resolve the problem before taking extreme action only on "concerns" by some without sound scientific backing! This should not be a hard issue for the DNR.

Any regulations that go beyond attempting to ensure low mortality rates is unjustified and sets a poor precedence for fisheries management! Their should be NO DAY RESTRICTIONS or the UNJUSTIFIED targeting of one specific method of fishing through unfounded gear restrictions. I do believe that status quo also to be irresponsible given the knowledge that the fishery exists. Therefore safe guards to ensure low mortality rates to be prudent. That is why I believe the MSSA proposal and compromise to be wise. It specificly targets ensuring low mortality rates associated with the practice.

Furthermore, by reducing access an opportunity without surveys or science first, there is no baseline or target to meet by reducing the effort. What is the DNR's goals by reducing effort and greatly restricting one method of fishing? What levels of effort are they trying to meet?

Again, We can grasp at straws all day long but if DNR fears being in "crisis" management in the future before this fishery can be looked at further, the DNR has the responsibility to act on known scientific solutions to resolve the potential problem before taking extreme actions on "concerns" by some without scientific backing, especially given the low estimated impact!

[mlag]

Brandon,
Every rec angler at the meeting last evening opposed the day limitations and most also opposed the rod restictions. The only persons in favor of the proposals were the half a dozen charter captains that spoke. ALL the rec anglers I have spoken to (many outside of this forum) object to the day proposals. Please don't kid yourself. You can write as many words regarding catch and release and do as any studies as one may want, however, "common sense" tells us ALL, you included, that if conservation methods are needed, we need to address regulations that will have an affect, not on less than 1% of the population. If the big rockfish are in trouble, as we all believe they are, as Tom O'Connell stated last evening that reports are being heard up and down the coast, then have some guts and propose some regulations that will make a difference on the other 99% of the spawning stock. PROPOSE THAT THE CATCH AND KILL SEASON BE MOVED BACK TO MAY 1ST OR LATER as I suggested at the joint fisheries meeting on October 20. As you have previously stated, (not an exact quote) that your proposals are in the best interests of the fish. In the best interest of the fish, make a proposal that will make a difference. MOVE THE CATCH AND KILL SEASON BACK..........................................Mark

[paxfish]

paxfish

The challenge with the premise of what you are saying is that you are saying everyone should be for C&R vs C&K, that premise while you and even I may believe that is the best thing to do for the fishery, has not been agreed upon by all the stakeholders or recreational anglers in MD. Now you just told the guy/woman who likes to take a rockfish home to eat that they should be just as happy of catch one and taking a picture and putting it back. What about his/her right to take a fish home? Some here have been quoting MSSA as saying they are not for restriction or limited on the fishery we are talking about. How are they going to respond to a C&R tournament in the spring? How about a C&R Fall tournament they now have? I believe that their membership enjoys taking fish home to eat and there is nothing wrong with that. If all the rec groups and majority of recreational anglers in MD were in agreement that we should C&R vs C&K that would be a different story, but I do not think we are there yet. If we were then the Trophy season would not have as much participation as it does, heck the recreational anglers that charter the charter captains would not go with them if they killed fish or would get them to change their business model to C&R. I bet if the recs that fish with charters told the charter captain they wanted to C&R and the majority of the rec customers did that you would have the charter captains switch, they would have to adapt to stay in business. But it seems that rec anglers still want to C&K fish. At the end of the day the rec anglers do hold the key to change, but you have to get the majority of them on board with your philosophy. I certainly have been promoting it in my travels, but I would suggest to you that we have a ton more work to do and until the majority of rec anglers say that C&R is the best thing, we will have to manage the fishery for what is in the interest of all Maryland anglers taking all their desires into account.

Just for the record, I did not say any of that. That all came out of Brandon's mouth (keyboard.)

Thank You.

What I did say is that your actions are leading us down a path that takes away the least damaging of all fishing methods as a viable fisheries management tool. Catch and Release. Further, that your actions are divisive to the rec angler cause.

Oh and by the way, no rec that I have heard opposing your motion made an argument about 1% of the SSB being impacted. Lynn Fegley said that. And her methods to get there were unclear. MRFSS and all that. However, I accepted that preposterous number for the sake of argument, applied Rudy's .15% mortality figure against it and arrive at a VERY conservative 90 fish killed during all or March/April Catch and Release.

Which includes the first two weeks of "Kill the Cow" season, when there is 1000 times higher effort out there.

The whole thing is ridiculous.

[Barefoot]

Bug Guy

Why wouldn't I be against the flats season you ask, well how about because the science that you and many have called for showed that the majority of the fish there were male, not female pre spawn fish. Let me remind you and others for about the 100th time that when we got the flats opened that we all (that means a large constituency of recreational anglers (mostly C&R light tackle fly guys), charter boat captains and commercial anglers) agreed we did not want to do any fishing, C&R or otherwise, on the pre spawn female striped bass on spawning grounds or areas. The issue here for me is that the main stem of the bay at this time of year does have a high concentration of pre spawn female fish.

So let me get this right- You are saying that without any science either way, you are saying that it is bad to bother the females pre-spawn, but OK to bother the males pre-spawn???

[Brandon]

Greg

You are one of the people that keep quoting Tom O'Connell as saying that the pre season C&R only effects less then 1% of the spawning biomass. The spawning biomass total is estimated to be 40,639 metric tons. That's around 89 million pounds. 1% is 890,000 pounds.Or at 15lbs per fish around 59,000 fish Take just half of that and it's still a lot of dead rockfish, pre spawn females at that.

Mark

First, if most of the recs were against C&K and wanted C&R the charter boat guys would be fighting for that. They are in the for profit business, they are driven by their customers who are recreational anglers.

Second, about the trophy season,great point as I have already mentioned. And like I said, no one including myself said that the C&K season was perfect or that it did not need to be looked at, but that is not what we have been talking about. I think it should be looked at as hard as we have looked at the season being discussed. I will work as hard looking at it when that issue is raised as I have this season or any other one for striped bass or beyond striped bass that comes up.

Brandon

[Brandon]

Well Paxfish, just what are you saying? You want to point out that is not what you said, but what really are you saying then, please clarify for all of us.

Brandon

[Brandon]

Paxfish

Sorry for the last post, I did not see the rest of your reply. I did not mean for you to repeat yourself. I was guilty of reading too fast and making a post, sorry about that.

I did hear you give your opinions last night, the issue is that you used the Susquehanna Flats study number and ported it over into C&R Trolling which is under discussion. There is only one study done on C&R trolling and it was in 1989 on smaller fish and has other issues. We need to do a study on C&R Trolling so we can better understand mortality associated with that. But using the flats mortality number is probably not best. Also, I believe that mortality level in the flats study varied on the different size of the fish. Do you know the break out of that?

Brandon

[B-Faithful]

Brandon, What is the figured scientific mortality rate by the state of Maryland or even by the ASMFC for discards? How many prespawn fished are caught during the trophy seasonn and kept? Use science and not emotion..

Areas of scientific knowledge that the DNR has the responsibility to consider first:

• Trophy season - where up to 63% of the females killed are prespawn and a "trophy" is defined as a mere 28" fish (citation is 40" in Maryland)
• Summer Season- 18" 2 fish per person regulations that doesnt allow enough fish to enter the spawning stock, especially given problems with myco. Anglers are compounding the problem by releasing myco infected fish and keeping the ones that look the healthiest.
• Fall Season- used to end in Nov but continuously adds keep seasons into Dec. We are killing the same roe laden fish

BTW, I spoke with the RFA's Fisheries Policy & Science Researcher at length yesterday and he is concerned that by releasing myco infected fish and keeping healthy fish that we are positioning ourselves to potentially have a population that may be more geneticly prone to myco infection. Even over our trophy season, I believe it is quite a bit more important to look at the summer fishery where we have a good deal of science for preventing potential sustainability issues down the road.

Instead we have, what our own DNR claims to be, a low impact fishery being so harshly managed that we are reducing access and opportunity and deeming one method of fishing problem without any scientific backing

[paxfish]

Paxfish

Sorry for the last post, I did not see the rest of your reply. I did not mean for you to repeat yourself. I was guilty of reading too fast and making a post, sorry about that.

I did hear you give your opinions last night, the issue is that you used the Susquehanna Flats study number and ported it over into C&R Trolling which is under discussion. There is only one study done on C&R trolling and it was in 1989 on smaller fish and has other issues. We need to do a study on C&R Trolling so we can better understand mortality associated with that. But using the flats mortality number is probably not best. Also, I believe that mortality level in the flats study varied on the different size of the fish. Do you know the break out of that?

Brandon

Yeah - that number is mixed and not dependent on size.

As info - Rudy's own research shows that physiological stress is inversely proportional with salinity. 2ppt salinity has a dramatically helpful impact on stress, to the point where his own .8% mortality below 60 degrees drops to .15% mortality. Salinity at Solomon's is 10 to 15ppt depending on time of year. Hence the 90 fish killed.

That said, Keep it at .8% You're still only talking 500 fish for the all of March and April. That's why I got pissed off when charter captain A was saying "give 'em a break." They want us out of their way so they can start the slaughter of 60,000 cows on April 22, most of which are pre spawn.

THAT is where we need to expend our regulatory energy.

[Brandon]

B-Faithful

Now you jumped in your most recent post to talking about the trophy season, summer season and fall season and introduced Myco of which I am the one that brought it up in response to you saying that just because the rockfish population numbers might be there, it does not mean it is healthy. I know all about Myco, not everything per say, but I have been talking with scientists at University of Maryland about it even before it became a big thing in the press, and I've done podcasts on it with Steve Early from Oxford Lab and worked and talked with other scientists studying it etc. It is the dirty little thing no one talks about, or has not been.

Having said that, those things are NOT what we are talking about. We can talk about it when that (those) subjects come up or we can have a separate discussion now in another thread, however what we are talking about here is C&R Trolling in the pre Trophy season.

You have referenced more then once Tom O'Connell saying that the pre season C&R only effects less then 1% of the spawning biomass.
The spawning biomass total is estimated to be 40,639 metric tons.
That's around 89 million pounds.
1% is 890,000 pounds.
At 15lbs per fish around 59,000 fish
Take just half of that and it's still a lot of dead rockfish, pre spawn females at that.

That is my point.

All the discussion on the other seasons and myco I am happy to have when that comes up and you can bet it will given all the talk about pre season trolling.

Brandon