Article by Dale Timmons
Talked with Capt. Willie Zimmerman of the “Playmate” one day last week. A few days earlier, anglers on the “Playmate” scored a “Grand Slam” by catching and releasing a blue marlin, a white marlin and a spearfish. The last fish is not the same roundscale spearfish that is most often confused with white marlin. No, this is a small billfish called the longbill spearfish.
Anglers are prohibited from keeping the longbill spearfish nowadays, but years ago I photographed several of them that were brought in, usually for taxidermy because they were so unusual. Some anglers confuse the longbill spearfish with the shortbill spearfish and/or the Mediterranean spearfish, but according to my McClane’s New Standard Fishing Encyclopedia, the Mediterranean only occurs in areas in or around the Mediterranean Sea and the eastern Atlantic, while the shortbill is a Pacific species, so the only one we have in this area of the Western Atlantic is the longbill. As the name suggests, the upper jaw (bill) is visibly longer than the lower jaw, though not as much in adults as in young fish. The longbill spearfish is the smallest of spearfishes, rarely getting more than 40 or 50 pounds, according to McClane’s, while the shortbill and the Mediterranean can reach 90 to 100 pounds. Most of the ones I have seen weighed something like 15 to 25 pounds, and I remember a couple of double headers, including one boat that had two during the White Marlin Open one year. Longbill spearfish are very slender and appear almost silver after they are dead, but Capt. Zimmerman and others who have caught them say they “light up” with brilliant color even more than marlin when pursuing a bait, to the point where their bill even changes color. They have a long dorsal fin, which stretches from just behind the head almost to the tail. This time of year, when the water is at its warmest, is when most of them will be caught in this area, and when they show up, it is not unusual for several boats to see or catch one. Congratulations on the Slam, Willie…
Several weeks ago I published an e-mail from Joe O’Hara of Ocean Pines to officials at the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistical Survey (MRFSS). Mr. O’Hara brought up several concerns about the MRFSS, especially when it came to summer flounder catch statistics. Dr. Steven Murawski of the MRFSS program has now replied to Joe’s e-mail, and I received a copy of that reply. Without going into all of the details, Dr. Murawski’s reply was very polite, but it seems to me that this is another case of two statisticians using the same numbers to reach very different conclusions. The basic premise, however, upon which everything else is based, is the “catch effort”, which is the number of “angler trips”, and in the case of Maryland, that includes all of the trips on Chesapeake Bay, most of which have nothing to do with summer flounder. In 2008, for instance, the MRFSS estimate was 3,393,181 angler trips, with 967,866 of those attributed to private/rental boats, and we were charged with harvesting 89,728 summer flounder. The point Joe and I, among others, have tried to make is that since most summer flounder in Maryland are caught in the coastal bays around Ocean City, these numbers are almost physically impossible, let alone highly improbable, but because Chesapeake Bay numbers are thrown into the mix, we are getting charged with inflated catches. The only hope we have, I guess, is that the MRFSS program is being replaced by the new Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) sometime soon, and Dr. Murawski’s answer says that “Since 2006, we have been working collaboratively with our state agency partners, recreational anglers, representatives of various stakeholder groups, and a number of expert consultants through the MRIP to evaluate our current sampling and estimation methods, identify and test possible methodological improvements, and implement an improved survey program that will better meet current requirements for accurate stock assessments and effective fisheries management.” That sounds hopeful. My main question, however, is that if the same folks who have been running the MRFSS program are going to be in charge of the MRIP, will anything really change? Perhaps fishermen, and even the fishery, would be better served if we just threw out the whole numbers and statistics quagmire and let the marine biologists tell us what catch and creel limits would allow us to fish and still maintain a healthy flounder population. A science based size and creel limit would definitely be cheaper, eliminate a whole bureaucracy, and allow the average Joe to go fishing and maybe bring home dinner once in a while. Of course that won’t happen. Towards the end of his response, Dr. Murawski stated, “We recognize that the estimates we produce are used in management decisions that can have real impacts on individuals and communities, and we are striving through MRIP to provide statistics through the most scientifically sound, efficient, transparent and engaged means possible.” As one of those individuals living in one of those communities, I just hope he means what he says…
Fishermen have to be opportunists. In other words, we have to take what Mother Nature offers. I took two of the grandkids out in the bay one morning last week, and they caught small sea bass, croakers and some nice Norfolk spot. While everything else was released, the spot went into the cooler and later the freezer for “Pop Pop’s bait”. Can you believe it’s almost September and time to chase red drum? Anyway, most of the spot this year have been “hand sized”—good for cut bait for reds but a little too big for good flounder baits, so some of the more successful flounder anglers have switched to live finger mullet or peanut bunker. I even tied some special rigs with lighter wire/smaller hooks for a captain friend of mine who has been using the small bunker successfully. Another example of how things can change from one year to the next has been the kingfish, or lack of them. Last year we had quite a few kings (sea mullet) in the surf, but this year for some reason they seemed to stay down south or didn’t move inshore. There have been a few showing up lately, and we could still get a late run, but many kingfish anglers I know have been disappointed this summer. Others have simply switched to slightly smaller hooks and actually targeted the bigger spot, which have also been in the suds. Granted, they don’t eat quite as good as a kingfish, but scaled, head and tailed and fried nice and crisp, they ain’t bad…
Contact Dale Timmons at [email protected] or call 410-629-1191.
