Article by Dale Timmons
Recreational anglers, charter and headboat operators, and local business owners all screamed in protest, but last week the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC) voted to close almost 5,000 square miles of fishing grounds to all forms of bottom fishing. Ostensibly, the action was taken to protect red snapper being caught by recreational anglers as “bycatch” while they target other species. The closed area stretches from northern Florida to the Carolinas, in depths from 98 to 240 feet, from 3.5 miles out to nearly 230 miles in some areas.
SAFMC members say they are merely following the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, but representatives of the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) and others who opposed the action say the vote was based on bad science and a regulation that is being replaced this fall.
Sound familiar? “Bad science” includes such things as the already disproved MRFSS survey and things like trawl samples to determine population taken from areas where the particular fish being sampled don’t even normally live. The fact that recreational and even commercial anglers are finding good numbers of red snapper of all age groups is dismissed as “anecdotal” and ignored.
The scariest thing about this action is that it sets a dangerous precedent, and the waters off Delmarva could be next if the same thinking is applied to black sea bass or some other species. It will all end up in court, of course, but it seems that regional council members and other government or quasi-government bodies that regulate fishing would rather be sued by fishermen’s groups than by radical environmental groups. Perhaps that says something about our lack of unity and lack of funding as much as anything else. Stay tuned…
Speaking of radical environmental folks, it seems to me more and more they are guilty of “revisionist history, “ and practicing the theory that if you say something often enough, people will believe it even if it’s not true. A couple of recent local examples illustrate this point. On a local TV station, a new outdoor reporter did a story on the red knots feeding on horseshoe crab eggs along Delaware Bay shores. A biologist in the piece said the red knot was “on the verge of extinction”. While I admit that these beautiful birds have declined over the years, there are still thousands of them, which doesn’t seem to me like they are about to become extinct in the near future. In the same story, the statement was made that the birds “subsisted entirely” on horseshoe crab eggs. While it is true that they stuff themselves with the eggs in order to finish the last leg of their migration north, they also eat bean clams and other small creatures along the surf line as they travel all the way from South America. Another story in one of the local papers dealt with the birds nesting on the sandbar north of the Rt. 50 bridge and the “sand islands” in the south bay below the Assateague bridge. The story intimated that “Skimmer Island” (I’ve lived here my whole life, and that place never had a name until someone in the press tagged it a few years back) was a spoil island where dredge materials were dumped, but as far as I know it is just a natural sandbar which comes and goes from time to time, depending on drift and currents. If there was ever any spoil dumped there, it was probably at least 40-50 years ago. Recently, it has been eroding away. I remember when I was young the whole area had about six to eight feet of water, and it was a favorite flounder fishing location. I understand some of the “environmentalists” want to use the area as a dredge spoil site now in order to give the birds more room to nest. This is a bad idea on many levels, including potential effects on navigation in the lower bay, which is tough enough already, plus the possible effects on juvenile fish and clams and other species that use these shallows. A similar new bar has now appeared on the south side of the bridge, and it is rapidly growing. The same story seemed to suggest that nesting birds other than “hook and bullet critters” were somehow more important than the latter. Maybe it was just the tone that irritated me, as if the rest of us weren’t capable of enjoying nature, especially if you were a fisherman or hunter. While I don’t consider myself a “birder” per se, my “life list” of birds I have seen and appreciated, mostly while fishing or hunting, is pretty extensive. I have seen everything from an American avocet to a yellow-billed cuckoo to a European widgeon in my travels, although I have to admit the widgeon ended up on a plate next to a pile of slippery dumplings…but I did enjoy it…
Talk about seeing things—this one didn’t fly, but it was still impressive. Suzanne and I were sitting on the sand at Assateague Island one day last week trying to catch kingfish when I happened to look down the beach just as a large whale brought its tail completely out of the water and smacked it hard on the surface. It did this three times and then blew a large cloud of spray out of its blow hole. I don’t know what kind of whale it was, but it was big, and it was just behind the back of the outer bar, maybe about three hundred yards from shore…
Want to pass on my congratulations to Capt. Dan Clayland and angler Eric Van Orden on the “Bimini” for catching and releasing the season’s first white marlin on June 8. Kudos also to angler Scott Brooks and Capt. Brandon Speilman on the charter boat “Stress Reel-ief” for releasing the first blue marlin of the year, again on June 8. Amazingly, the first white and blue were also caught on the same day last year, and the odds against it must be astronomical…just goes to show once again that if the water is there, the bait and the fish will follow…outside the 461 Bump—isn’t that area called “Capt. Gary’s Hole”…?
Also want to wish “good luck” and fair seas to the anglers and crews fishing in this weekend’s 30th Annual Ocean City Shark Tournament. I remember when the tournament began, and it’s hard to believe that it has been 30 years. Looking back to that first tournament in 1980, Capt. Mark Sampson, who is still one of the tournament directors, set a new state record for tiger shark with a 627 pounder caught on his “Fish Finder,” which, if I remember correctly, was an 19-foot Mako center console in those days. No fighting chair and no flying gaff, either. After a six-hour battle, Mark, his brother Matthew and fellow angler Steve Jones had to tow the fish to shore, which took almost another eight hours. I remember, since they called me at four in the morning to come take a picture. As they say, “there’s been a lot of water over the dam” since then, and there are a lot of folks who aren’t with us anymore, so enjoy the festivities, the fishing and the camaraderie while you can…this weekend also marks Father’s Day, and I hope all you dads and granddads out there have a good one…
Contact Dale Timmons at [email protected] or call 410-629-1191.
