Fish Report 4/4/08
Couple Trips
NYCTA Rail cars
Hi All,
The weatherman has changed his mind about Sunday. If he's right, the forecasted NE 10 - 15 could make a fine day. Monday might play too.
We'll try it - April 6th and 7th.
Boat sells out at 15 people for tog ~ green crabs provided ~ leave at 7AM, return 3(ish) ~ State limit 4 tog at 14 inches ~ boat strongly encourages 16 inches and release of most females. Leave a phone number that works in case of cancellation.....
Were everything to stay on schedule, we'll have the first barge load of the stainless steel NYC rail cars in May.
This first run is destined for the Jackspot thanks to a single, very generous donation for a 42 unit barge load by Jack and Susan Power. It's a brand new reef site. About 18 miles out; there's only one artificial reef set and a natural (catastrophic) shipwreck on it at this time.
Just now the Ocean City Reef Foundation has received enough in $600.00 per car donations that the Foundation's regular account can cover the remainder and pay for a second barge. The second barge will go to the newly permitted expanded Bass Grounds reef site which lies some 7 1/2 miles offshore.
I applied for a grant back in early February for a barge load to go 4.5 miles out to Russell's Reef at Great Gull Shoal. The folks at the Fish America Foundation announce their grants in May. High hopes...
There's so much that can be done with this project. Priced at $600.00 for an 80 x 12 foot rail car, this is far and away the least expensive footprint of artificial reef I've heard of. The Reef Foundation often spends more than $4,000.00 to create a single similar sized reef. The rail car project offers 7 times the footprint per dollar spent.
I know artificial reef works. Ain't no 'maybe' about it! In fact, since we're in the heart of tog season, I'd venture to say that artificial reef can make tog fishing far better than we've ever seen. I think it already has.
Effects on the sea bass population are a slam-dunk as well.
Squid, lobster, scup, maybe one day a return of red hake (ling) and the irrefutable ripples into the greater predator's food web make this a project well worth doing.
We're eligible for 474 more rail cars.
The cost effectiveness of these units makes this the project that can create 'principal' so that generations of fishers might enjoy the interest...(see below)
http://www.ocreeffoundation.com/
Regards,
Monty
Capt. Monty Hawkins
mhawkins@siteone.net
Party Boat "Morning Star"
Reservation Line 410 520 2076
http://www.morningstarfishing.com/
From: Fish Report: Easter '08
Lots of news about interest lately. Fed ratcheting down rates; a huge financial corporation imploding because of foreclosures on unscrupulously written variable-rate mortgages.
Even someone as allergic to higher math as myself can understand that if you're earning interest; the higher the better - so long as it's paid.
Read an article in the height of the DotCom bubble where a fellow had invested -wagered- most of his wealth on a stock and won. He'd then reinvested that in bonds and was meeting living expenses on the interest of the interest.
Nice gig.
All fishers need to pay attention to the interest percentage we're getting on our stocks. Fish stocks that is - populations; the interest being the annually accrued percentage of juveniles that survive from spawning.
Anything raising that percentage increases the number of fish we might be able to catch in the future.
In Lindholm, Auster & Kaufman's 'Habitat-mediated Survivorship of Juvenile Cod', the authors found that mortality rates due to predation fluctuated widely. It's a fish eat fish world.
In this controlled aquarium experiment designed to mimic trawl impacts to natural seafloor, habitats were varied from just sand to bare cobble-rock to dense sponge colonies. Young of the year (YOY) cod lived in the tanks and 2 year old cod were introduced as predators.
Without factoring in natural mortality, bycatch, or any of a host of factors, the scientists found just 6.6% of the YOY survived over sand, 33.2% over cobble, 53.4% over minimum sponge growth habitat and 68% over dense sponge. A place to hide makes a big difference.
Would the rule of 72 works here, the population of fish would double in a year and a bit at 68% or 11 years at 6.6%. Rule of 115 ~ it triples in 1.7 years at 68% or 17.5 years at 6.6%.
While no fish stock is ever going to be this predictable; dern sure be better fishing if we could bump up the percentage of YOY survivors in any similar fashion.
It's the ones that survive that we get to catch; that get to spawn themselves.
This study came out in May 1999, numerous studies since have come to similar conclusions about the importance of habitat.
We just need to apply what we've learned ~ maximize our interest. Many species; sea bass, red hake, squid, flounder, just to name a few, would benefit.
A far higher year's 'interest' -percentage of survivors- would offer significant improvement to fishing as they grow into legal size ~ a measure of recruitment. It's when you compound that interest over time ~several years classes of increased recruitment entering the spawning class~ that things start looking far better.
Fishery management without habitat management is like wealth management without regard to protection of the principle, let alone annual interest.
Still undiscovered and certainly unmanaged, constant attrition of our region's natural reefs leave we users exposed to asset disaster.
By building new artificial reefs and protecting the natural ones we'll add to our region's 'principal'. Done well, we could be fishing the interest of the interest.
Be a nice gig.
Regards,
Monty