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busted across the line

11K views 180 replies 78 participants last post by  Sea Gristle 
#1 ·
Have heard from a law enforcement buddy of mine that one of those Maryland charter capts. met some of Virginias finest about 2 miles across the line yesterday.Captain still had 20 fish aboard and got one of those citations that you DONT want.Could cost him up to 10 g's for those fish.Can't possibly be worth it just to catch a few fish.
 
#178 ·
My main take away from these discussions is that basing limits on harvest data is completely stupid. All that tells us is what's dead & gone, (if if can even be believed) not what's left to spawn or catch. One guy says let them go until they've spawned once. But another points out that the biggest cows lay the most eggs. Either way you're targeting spawners and that seems counter intuitive. How many first -time spawners does it take to equal one cow's worth of eggs? Somewhere there's a point where it's a wash and that's your target size fish slot. But then there's that whole issue of higher length limits completely assuring that very few upriver fishermen will ever catch a keeper. Somebody's gonna get screwed, so make up a list and put your name at the top.

On the EEZ I say keep it closed, as it really only favors a small user group ( charters, big boats and commercials) but impacts a larger group. And keel haul the law breakers [grin]
 
#180 ·
Jim, you are completely right about keeping immature fish. I couldnt agree with you more about that. Any harvest of anything should allow to keep a new breeding stock to replentish itself.

That isn't the point I'm trying to make. All I'm saying is that if you take the forage out of the picture, as I feel is being done significantly, the whole environment for the fish is changed. Netting has essentially removed one link out of the food chain. For example, look at the quality of the bay fish. Many are skinny as rails, covered with sores, and just look weak. I honestly believe that there are a good many rockfish that are dieing and malnurished in the bay due to not having the vast amounts of bait that are normally there. I remember in years past there being so much menhaden in the water that sometimes you would find menhaden working so hard that the stripers would be hard to catch because the bait was so thick. I remember being able to run down the beach from school of menhaden to school of menhaden. When was the last time you saw those acres and acres of menhaden off the beach? Now it seems as though if you find one pod of bait being dispersed by fish you are doing well. For each striper that is out there now, many more pounds of baitfish are needed to sustain that fish throughout the winter, else the fish will either starve or move elsewhere. If you can try to imagine how many times and how many menhaden just one striper will eat during a season, try and multiply that by hundreds and hundreds of millions of stripers. Remove the amounts of menhaden, as has been done, and there will be something else in the equation, ie spots, grey trout, croakers, juvenile flounder, crabs, pretty much anything stripers can get their mouth around. They are eating machines and as long as there is something to eat they are going to eat it up. I just dont believe there are enough of the menhaden that are usually here to hold the fish here. I think the menhaden population in this region has crossed its breaking point and now the stripers and other predatory fish are beginning to destroy populations of other species as a direct result of a decline in menhaden populations. I think that this whole bait situation plays a very serious role in the health of the populations of the fish and in turn plays a vital role in the health of the fishery.
 
#181 ·
My personal index are gannets and what's in the stomachs of fish I clean. For me it's been years since I have been in the middle of gannetts 'dive-bombing' bunkers inside the bay. Mostly it's just terns & gulls picking off bay anchovies and glass minnows. And I only remember cleaning one fish this year that had a stomach full of peanuts.
 
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