Fish Report 1/27/2012
Toggin Along
MRIP Unveiled: New & Improved??
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Going Fishing:
Sunday, 1/29/12 - Tog - 7 to 3 - $100.00 - 12 Sells Out..
Thursday, 2/2/12 - Long Tog - 6 to 4 - $125.00 - 14 Sells Out
Reservations required at 410 520 2076 -- If You Go Be a Little Early
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Hi All,
What a nice stretch of weather. Really wasn't bad for late October ..which made it incredible for January.
I even had guys walking around in flip-flops.
The fishing, unfortunately, wasn't all that. Sure saw some dandies though with fish up to 15 pounds, its just that we were short a boat limit a few days.
Ehh, had we kept what we tagged we'd have crossed that line everyday.
Bob even put a 12 1/2 pound bull back among several good tags.
Going again Sunday, looks like Thursday too.
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MRIP's OUT!!!
..hooray?
MuRFSS Rest In Peace?
A few comments about the new MRIP recreational catch data I've looked at thus far..
Overall I think the goverment should Scrap It & Start Over -- Again. I do not think the data I'm looking at is what the Magnuson Act's 2006 rewrite authors had in mind.
The magnitude of errors that have slipped through has increased; Among the worst MuRFSS estimates, errors that can withstand no simple test; In MRIP some have grown even larger.
Recreational catch has increased 6% overall despite numerous cuts in estimates -- there must be a lot of increases.
I'll show you a few.
The new MRIP does lower the MA Recreational cod kill in 2010 from 5,794.9 Metric Tons to 2029.9 (here every throwback is counted as dead--what horse hockey! The actual fish brought home for dinner is much lower still.) This "newly found" 3,765 MTs of restored biomass ought to change the cod population assessment on Gulf of Maine cod -- Its a HUGE change in catch -- So far NOAA won't budge.
Below I've included a few data sets regular readers will be familiar with, data from different fisheries in different states except now I've included the new MRIP (Murfs' Really Insane Phase) estimates alongside, to the left.
PSE has real meaning to statisticians--an expression of Percentage Standard Error; But not fish managers--They can't move a catch estimate and must use the centerpoint, the number that's displayed in the tables. Therefore everyone should ignore PSE, it is meaningless in the manner catch data is presently used.
Below each estimate table below I have a comment except I leave the 3 sea bass comments together.
I think the money expended to determine if flounder should be 17.279 inches and closed 184.5 days with a creel limit of 3.34 fish per angler is baseless & wasteful--a wild guess derived of crazy catch data. It only seems to work because any amount of "catching less fish" has benefit compared to "over the rail & into the pail."
Kitchen Table Catch Restrictions would be just as good. Use the money saved to discover & restore habitat..
Commercial fishermen sold more sea bass in the 1950s than in all decades since combined: They Must Have Been Caught On Reef..
Whip meadows and tube worm colonies I'd wager - habitat that's been lost to stern towed gears.
Recently a senior habitat builder/ecologist blasted my decades of work -- "The whole Del-Mar-Va peninsula is just a big sand bar left behind by the repeated melting of various ice age glaciers."
So our first sea bass & tautog populations lived on a sand bar?
The oysters back then grew where?
These corals I have on video have the same requirements as mussels??
Wigley & Theroux's 1981 paper asserts the entirety of the Mid-Atlantic is 'all sand and mud' ..but we know cbass, lobster & tog live only on reef.
I think the tog fishing we have now is a perfect example: Along Maryland's seacoast its the habitat we have built in the last 30 years that drives today's fishery -- any casual observer can see the remnant natural corals & oysters support much less than 1% of the tautog catch.
Yet management will factor no ecology into fishery restoration: If we had a completely closed tog season--but none of our modern artificial reefs & man-made jetties--we'd still have almost no tautog because the holding capacity of our remaining natural habitat is so small: Catch restriction is not a stand-alone process to fishery restoration, It's but a handy wrench; The tools for real restoration remain unused.
Below you'll see our official catch data that "Proves" NJ's shore fisherman can really catch tog; Proves MA & RI private boats can't decide if they like cbass fishing or not..
Then there's a Massachusetts, April only, private boat cod estimate that's been lowered by one million three hundred eight thousand fish. That's an incredible number to appear in any recreational estimate, and that's how far it was lowered..
All these fish live on "a big sandbar.."
And, hooray, here's our new catch estimating system's output.
Best Scientific Information Available.
How Sad.
Lesson for modern fishery management: "Over 40 percent of the red snapper caught by recreational anglers in the Gulf of Mexico are caught in Alabama, while the state only has 35 miles of coastline."
Alabama has no natural reef, Its all artificial. http://www.floridasportsman.com/2011/05/16/features_0709_red_snapper_fishing/
We'd better keep privately funding our reef building.
With the catch data a minefield of errors; It may be a while yet before a firm foundation of science has been brought to federal fisheries.
Regards,
Monty
*
Capt. Monty Hawkins
mhawkins@siteone.net
Party Boat "Morning Star"
Reservation Line 410 520 2076
http://www.morningstarfishing.com/
*
Species: TAUTOG - NJ - Shore Fishing Only - March & April Only - All Years From 2004 to 2011 (omitted years are zero) Ignore PSE, No One Can Use It
Year
HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)
PSE
2005
MRIP - 0 -- -- 0
0
2009
5,001 -- -- 6,835
100
2010
173,092 -- -- 71,756
70.2
This new MRIP estimate represents 50,000 --FIFTY THOUSAND-- More Tautog Than All the Party/Charter catch --in every state-- during any year from 2003 fwd.
This new & improved estimate of March and April NJ Shore fishing is almost exactly 100,000 fish higher than 2010 party/charter for the whole coast--for the whole year.
Try again MRIP!
Species: SUMMER FLOUNDER - Maryland Shore Fishers Only/No Boats - Just Fishing Shore - Sept/Oct Only
Year
HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)
PSE
2002
MRIP begins in '03 -- 874
100
2003
MRIP - 874 -- -- 978
100
2004
0 -- -- 0
0
2005
10,485 -- -- 12,773
58.8
2006
0 -- -- 0
0
2007
39,410 -- -- 36,017
48.4
2008
11,102 -- -- 14,962
51.8
2009
0 -- -- 0
0
2010
0 -- -- 0
0
2011
4,518 -- -- 1,806
100
Maryland Charter/Party might take 5,000 flounder in a great year. This shore effort estimate is for two months..
Nothing but a WAG.
Species: TAUTOG - Maryland Private Boats Only - March/April from 2002 to 2011 -- Years Absent Are Zero
Year
HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)
PSE
2002
No MRIP Adj. 613
100.1
2007
MRIP - 5,042 -- -- 12,482
76.8
2008
1,053 -- -- 1,350
0
2009
5,592 -- -- 3,319
100
2010
6,158 -- -- 18,572
23.8
A Twelve Thousand fish reduction in Mar/Apr 2010. That's about 2,000 private boat trips less. I think the estimate's still 6,000 fish too high.
Species: BLACK SEA BASS - NY - Private Boat Only - Sept/Oct
Year
HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)
PSE
2005
MRIP - 5,220 -- -- 7,749
50.3
2006
56,347 -- -- 58,398
32.7
2007
43,960 -- -- 42,352
25.7
2008
81,601 -- -- 54,352
34.7
2009
107,321 -- -- 105,256
45.1
2010
308,862 -- -- 325,074
24.4
2011
57,128 -- -- 52,918
48.2
Species: BLACK SEA BASS - Rhode Island - Private Boat Only - May & June
Year
HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)
PSE
2005
MRIP - 3,884 -- -- 6,160
57.2
2006
604 -- -- 1,975
70.4
2007
1,432 -- -- 3,601
43
2008
0 -- -- 0
0
2009
885 -- -- 989
90.4
2010
29,353 -- -- 36,182
50.7
2011
0 -- -- 0
0
Species: BLACK SEA BASS - Wave 3 - May & June - Private Boat - All Waters - MASS
Year
HARVEST (TYPE A + B1)
PSE
2000
Same - - 3,748
72.5
2001
Same - - 27,773
43.4
2002
Same - - 52,891
55.4
2003
Same - - 16,282
36.6
2004
Same - - 17,177
46.7
2005
103,635 - - 53,349
32.3
2007
30,335 - - 28,281
85.3
2008
54,678 - - 65,376
29.1
2009
34,493 - - 26,827
38.9
2010
448, 181 - - 218,790
31.3
Sure is hard to guess if these guys are going to go fishing for sea bass or not..
From the Canadian border to our Mexican Border, party/charter/for-hire had 597,588 sea bass in ALL of 2010 -- for the whole year.
Here MRIP has raised the Massachusetts private boat May/June estimate from a number that MA's party boat guys laughed at, to almost twice as high.
Now the Massachusetts private boats south of Cape Cod in June --not much of May the way their fish run, maybe 5 weeks total- The United States Goverment says these private boat guys caught almost as many cbass as the entire US professional fleet in the sea bass's entire range for the entire year..
We've got to create statistical stops..
Trees can not grow to the moon.
Rebuilding reef fish without even a thought of reef; and wrapping data like this around the baseball-bat of closures creates very poor governance.
Species: ATLANTIC COD - Massachusetts - Private Boats Only - Mar/April (March was closed by regulation in 2010) Here I'm Showing All Fish Caught Including Throwbacks Because in 2011 NMFS scientists decided to use Recreational Discards as 100% Dead Discards - To Count Them ALL Against The Gulf of Maine Region's Quota..
This April 2010 Estimate Is the Most Miraculous MRFSS Assertion I've Yet Seen
..and the most damaging.
Year
TOTAL CATCH (TYPE A + B1 + B2)
PSE
2004
MRIP - 1,073 -- -- 2,663
69.5
2005
171,157 -- -- 429,200
44.8
2006
51,595 -- -- 55,916
32.9
2007
134,996 -- -- 167,862
35.9
2008
23,283 -- -- 180,518
37.5
2009
54084 -- -- 87,294
48
2010
(Wow!) 159,558 -- -- 1,467,493
39.3
1,307,935 fewer cod in 4 weeks..
MRIP decreases the MA Recreational annual cod kill in 2010 from 5,794.9 to 2029.9 Metric Tons. In this fishery assessment every throwback is counted as dead--what horse hockey! The actual fish brought home for dinner is much lower still.
This "newly found" 3,765 MTs of restored biomass ought to change the stock assessment on Gulf of Maine cod -- Its a HUGE change in catch -- So far NOAA won't budge.