Scott Lennox
Posted on July 2, 2024
I was happy that there was no wind today, thankfully the temperature was good, the sky was clear and the wind was light, so the bay was very pleasant, and at least today the sea was very pleasant too.
It was also nice to see several boats landing boxes of tuna on the pier in the afternoon, and Captain Chris Watkowski of the Spring Mix II had a great day catching four yellowfin tuna up to 95 pounds.
Captain Mike Burt of the Pumpin’ Herd had a great day with his anglers catching three yellowfin tuna and eating them on the grill.
Capt. Jason Mumford of Lucky Break Charters had several good fishing trips today keeping anglers busy with catches of flounder, tautog, rockfish, bluefish, croaker, spot and kingfish.
Anglers aboard Capt. Dave Caffrey’s On the Run were busy today in OC Inlet catching rockfish, bluefish, tautog and flounder.
Big Bird Cropper welcomed Rob Calcara and Dan Crockery aboard today, who were the high bidders at the OC Reef Foundation dinner a few months ago, and Bird treated them to a fun time casting Roy Rigs and catching some bluefish, rockfish and even a nice red drum.
Peter Hudson caught this 20-inch keeper flounder using a Sand Free in Indian River Inlet.
Shooters on the Dusk to Dawn bowfishing trip with Captain Mark Spagnola had great success catching several spotted and southern stingrays.
Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star was happy to be back on the water today and also gave his family some great fishing.
July 2nd, 2024 started out as beautiful as you could hope for: the wind was calm, the sea was calm, it was perfect.
As usual, we stopped midway through our departure to have Cathy from McConnell AFB send four pyramids up from the stern railing at the top of Al Burger’s Reef before continuing on.
I decided to drift first thing this morning because the forecast for Sunday was rain, rain, rain (real rain, nothing like Eric Clapton’s early work “Let It Rain,” a song I recently stumbled across that expresses a rather questionable true and mature love in the age of free love. Incredibly, the computer music was also playing a cover of Clapton’s “The Cure,” which I think is better than the maestro Shannon Curfman’s work. But I digress). Rain, rain, rain. However, as predicted, there was no rain at all on Sunday until almost midnight. The same forecast site predicted wind speeds of under 5 knots throughout the day.
Well.
At least we had an hour of complete silence.
The current was strong and the north wind was blowing just hard enough to create whitecaps (about 10 knots on the Beaufort scale, as I recall), and we were adrift.
fast.
The sea bass wasn’t too fazed by the speed.
I caught a fair amount of fish.
And the forecast came true. The wind blew.
..and the stings stopped.
Yeah.
fishing.
Moving to a greener area, I found a new spot. It’s small, but it’s new. It’s amazing what can happen in such a small patch of undersea habitat. I want to truly understand the habitat fidelity of the Japanese sea bass.
When I was tagging in the 1990s, I repeatedly observed sea bass tagged in mid-summer migrating offshore for the winter only to return to the exact same reefs or wrecks the following summer – even two years later.
It’s habitat fidelity of adults. Federal studies in 2002/2003 and archive tagging in ’05 confirmed it. (The federal studies started with my constant complaint that knowledge of habitat fidelity should be used in management, Rep. TYVM Gilchrest. Regionalization was never used until MRFSS/MRIP forced management. Habitat fidelity never really mattered at all. Regionalization of sea bass regulations was done to protect states from the worst catch estimates – a way to average out huge excesses and not reverse closures.)
Yet, why, with the explosion of spawning we enjoyed from 2017 to 2022/23 (and still with occasional jumbo-sized ones now – big fish are just whatever species they are, but they have outgrown natural mortality and fishing) did the newly spawned little guys not colonize our more coastal bass grounds and queen reefs? They must have just kept swimming across those reefs, preferring more remote habitats. Why? Why? Why were the big increases in sea bass populations only seen at “ground zero” NxNNE and SxSSW? That is, as the MD Wind Energy Area recolonized, the little sea bass again joined the spawning biomass, and all the 1 and 2 year old sea bass were “allowed” to spawn and experienced an exponential population growth, just as they had done before and during the early restrictions, but the additional spawning brought nothing to the west/coastal areas.
no.
In the case of salmon, smolts are already well developed by the time they leave the rivers where they were born, the same rivers to which they return to spawn.
Sea bass eggs are fertilized in a random fashion and drift inshore to develop. There may be lots of little guys in the inner bays, but no adults at all. Could the newly fertilized eggs develop habitat fidelity? Return to the ocean to the reef where they were born? Seems like a long way to go, and I think so too. NOAA could figure it out in a year or two…but they need to be “motivated.”
That is not the case when it comes to temperate coral reefs and temperate reef fishes.
While states are concerned about state waters (within 3 nm), federal management (out to 200 nm) is focused solely on recreational catch estimates.
there is nothing.
Hmm… what could the problem be?
Ah, sorry. I’ve digressed again.
We fished. We caught fish. We were doing pretty well this year. Ken pocketed everyone’s prize with a nice Kawabasa that he caught just before the bell rang.
cheers,
Monty
This video of a gigantic Nantucket flounder is a big hit!! Check it out to find out why!!
