This is a guest entry from Ted Williams and is printed here with his full permission.

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This from Albion Goodwin of Pembroke, Maine—governor-appointed fish-and-wildlife advisor to his state and the man who, on behalf of the Grand Lake Stream Guides Association, has probably done more than anyone to set management policy for river herring in the Pine Tree State’s vast St. Croix River system. “They’re trash fish; they’re of no value.” Maine has more river-herring habitat than all other states combined. And the St. Croix—which, from source to sea, defines the boundary between the United States and Canada—has more river-herring habitat than all other Maine rivers combined.

More on Goodwin and the guides later. But first some background on the fish. “River herring” is the collective name for two close relatives, rarely exceeding 14 inches in length and so similar they’re managed as a single species: the alewife; and the slightly sleeker, smaller-eyed blueback herring.

No spring tonic was more curative to the spirits of winter-weary anglers than the first pulse of river herring in rills and rivers from Nova Scotia to Florida. One morning in mud season, water that had appeared lifeless the day before would surge with a storm of protein from the Atlantic. Below towering hydroelectric dams and tiny, crumbling mill races, at the outfalls of giant fish lifts and rickety fish ladders, they’d spiral like star clusters, spooking themselves, dashing down-current and then moving back and holding. Easing into the northern and southern estuaries with this rich forage were all manner of inshore and even pelagic fish such as striped bass, bluefish, cod, haddock, pollock, tunas, mackerels, sharks, weakfish, redfish, snook and jacks.

River herring (many of which die after spawning in fresh water) transferred nutrients from the fertile marine environment high into sterile, glaciated feeder streams where eggs and fry and rotting carcasses fueled vast aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. The sea energy flowed into aquatic insects, thence to fish, frogs, turtles, salamanders, warblers, flycatchers, bats, ospreys, herons, egrets, kingfishers, otters, minks….

In New England and southern Canada, Atlantic salmon kelts would recondition themselves by gorging on ascending river herring. Weeks later the spawned-out herring would provide “cover” for ocean-bound smolts (nourished from parrhood on herring fry and roe) as they swept tail-first past ravenous predatory birds and fish.

Hitchhiking on river herring were glochidia, the parasitic larvae of freshwater mussels that detach and colonize the bottom of streams and still water, feeding fish, diving ducks and mammals and maintaining water quality by filtering out organics. In short, river herring were, as Aldo Leopold wrote of passenger pigeons, “the lightning that played between two opposing potentials of intolerable intensity”—in this case, the fat of the sea and the precipitation of the sky.

I suppose I’m not quite correct in referring to these fish in the past tense because they’re not quite exterminated. For example, in 2007 a total of 69 river herring (all bluebacks) were counted at the Holyoke, Massachusetts, fish lift on the Connecticut River. This was down from 630,000 in 1985. In response to the range-wide plunge toward oblivion, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts have placed moratoria on harvest of river herring. And the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has declared Continue Reading »

A report was released today that reported that fish stocks along the North Carolina coast as well as tidal rivers, sounds and bays have remained unchanged since 2007.  This is good news that no fish stocks decreased, but some stocks are still depleted or still recovering. Read below for full details.

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 Striped bass populations are still doing well in the ocean and in the Albemarle Sound area.

Bluefish stocks are still viable, too.

Red drum stocks are still recovering. Bay scallop populations are still depleted.

No important marine fisheries species is doing better or worse than it was last year, according to the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries 2008 Stock Status Report. The report was released today at a N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission meeting in Raleigh.

“I am pleased no stocks were downgraded in this year’s report,” said Louis Daniel, director of the state Division of Marine Fisheries. “I am hopeful that this trend will continue as more stocks recover and become viable.”

The division annually grades the status of 39 species of marine finfish, shellfish, shrimp and crabs as either viable, recovering, concern, depleted or unknown. The grades serve as a barometer of the overall health of the state’s fishery resources, and they are used Continue Reading »

Good news

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Yesterday, the National Marine Fisheries Service implemented strong conservation measures for severely depleted coastal sharks in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. Stock assessments conducted in 2006 revealed that sandbar, porbeagle and dusky shark populations have been severely overfished, and rebuilding timeframes are projected at 66, 100 and 400 years, respectively. Thanks to numerous comments filed last winter by conservation and fishing groups, including NCMC and its members, a tough program to protect and restore these species is now in place.

Sandbar sharks are a popular target for commercial fisheries because their dorsal fins command high prices in the shark fin trade. Dusky sharks, which have been a prohibited s

pecies since 1998, are often caught as bycatch on bottom longlines set for sandbars, negating rebuilding efforts. The new regulations, known as Amendment 2 to the Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Fishery Management Plan, will impose a dramatic 80% cut in the commercial quota for sandbar sharks and all sandbar must be landed as part of a research program limited to 5-10 vessels carrying observers at all times. Porbeagle catch has also been cut to a fraction of previous levels, with the majority of the quota allocated to the recreational fishery.

The drastic cuts in allowable shark landings would mean Continue Reading »

BITING OFF MORE THAN THEY CAN CHEW
Last weekend was in interesting one.  I’m Pretty much doing all of my fishing on the outside these days as the water in the bay is now in the mid-70s.  Depending on the day it’s been a mix of bass and blues, but mostly blues.  However, come Monday it was all bass, some of which were quite large.  Like I said, it all depends on the day.  What’s extraordinary is the sheer amount of bait this year.  Squid, butterfish, half-beaks, pollock, sandeels, spearing…  Lots of small stuff out there for bass and bluefish to gorge themselves on.  That’s why my encounter with a frighteningly large striped bass on the surface surprised me.

After banging a bunch of bass and bluefish, the tide began to slack and as expected things slowed considerably.  That tell-tale tide-line formed just to the south of us.  Amongst the scum and occasional piece of garbage that one finds in such tide-lines in the Lower New York Harbor area, I noticed the white belly of the fish trying to right itself.  As I got closer I could see that it was quite large.  Pulling up alongside, I reached down thrust my hand into the fish’s mouth and grabbed a gill and hoisted it.  Truthfully I wasn’t ready for the weight of this fish and almost threw my back out.

This fish bottomed out a 30-pound boga.  It measured at 50”.  It looked like it had popped right off the wall of someone’s game-room, with its outh wide open as if getting ready to suck a plug down.  While this fish was for-all-intents-and-purposes dead, I thought I may be able to revive it.  I figured that the cause of death was a hook in the belly from one of these knuckleheads using clam bellies.  But, before dropping in back in for the old back-and-forth, I took  a peak down its throat.  WTF!  There was a sizable summer flounder lodged in there.  Could it be possible that this 18-year-old bass choked because he “bit off more than he could chew.”  As I pulled the flounder out there was no hook.  Yep, that fish choked!

As you could imagine, there’s an analogy there somewhere, and the light-bulb went on as I stated snapping photos.  Why on earth would this fish grab that big flounder when all that other abundant and certainly more edible bait was around?  The answer to that is that fluke are abundant these days as well.  And there aren’t many anglers out there that don’t already know that big fat lazy fish like a big bait.

And why are fluke abundant?  It’s pretty simple really.  Fluke had been badly mismanaged for decades.  Prior to 2000, when the Mid Atlantic Council approved a management plan which essentially gave the species an 18% chance of recovering within the 10-year time frame stipulated in the Sustainable Fishing Act, the population was just a quarter of what it is now.  Fortunately, those “big bad environmentalists” sued and pretty much forced NOAA Fisheries to crack down.  The case’s landmark ruling that year required management councils to implement fishery management plans that had at the very least a 50% chance of success.  Since then the commercial industry and some in the recreational fishing industries have been wailing and moaning that they are all going to go out of business, and every coastal fishing community in the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast is going to disappear in the blink of an eye.  Each year we face tighter fluke regs so as to make that elusive rebuilding goal by 2013, and each year we’re seeing bigger and more fluke.  The spawning stock biomass is now 4-times what it was back when the management plan began.  That’s no coincidence my friend.

Today we’re getting the same complains we’ve had every year since the management plan was implemented.  Now, however, they are much louder and certainly more shrill.  There is the standard questioning of the data, which has been peer-reviewed 16 times in the last 23 years…  Then the arguments that the rebuilding goal is unattainable, even though just about every scientist says that it is.  Then of course there is the argument that the stock is rebuilding so why can’t the rebuilding plan extend 20, 30, 50, 100 years?  Then of course there’s my favorite one: “Environmentalists just want to end all fishing!”  It would be laughable if so many folks didn’t actually believe that.  The fact of the matter is that without the environmentalist lawsuit back in 1999 (essentially forcing managers to do their job), our summer flounder fishery would be in terrible shape.  The spawning stock biomass certainly wouldn’t be 4-times what is was when the management plan started and folks wouldn’t be consistently catching 20.5” keeper sized fluke.  And that’s a fact!

It seems these days that all the commercial industry, as well as a good part of the recreational industry, feel that managers should leave them be and just let them fish at whatever levels they deem fit.  Historically, we can see where such management systems have lead to a Tradgedy of the Commons.

As is the case with that big bass that choked on the flounder, if we give fishers everything they want, they would most certainly bite off more than they can chew, essentially fishing themselves out of business.  And that’s not good for fishermen, fish or the general public.

There’s been a lot of talk about the hardships commercial fishers and the owners of charter/party boats because of the fishing regs and the cost of fuel.  They may not be making the profits that they had hoped, but I certainly don’t see that as a result of a lack of keeper sized fluke.  According to all the reports I’m reading, it looks like there are lots of them being caught.  Undoubtedly, we can thank the environmentalists for that.  On to the fishing reports

FISHING REPORTS  
Southern New Jersey’s back-country continues to produce lots of schoolies with the occasional larger fish in some very skinny water.  Up the Jersey coast there are massive schools of adult bunker and big bass blitzing hard on them at odd hours of the day.  Raritan Bay seems to be thinning out but the bait guys are still getting the occasional fish.  Jamaica Bay is very slow.  The guys livelining are still getting some quality fish really early in the morning, but the fishing with files and plus isn’t so great.  Sure, there are some bluefish and schoolie bass blitzes on spearing, but they usually aren’t composed of large fish.  On the ocean side of Lower New York Harbor it’s been bonkers!  Never seen so much bait around.  Sandeels, spearing, squid, butterfish, baby pollok and even 6” pin-fish!  Major Montauk bass-blitzes some mornings, other mornings it’s just bluefish.  Luck of the draw really.  Across the Island such bait concentrations and blitzes are popping up here and there, but Lower New York Harbor seems to be Ground-Zero.  Out on Eastern Long Island, some really big bass are being taken on the South Side.  The flats fishing in East Hampton seems to be as good as it can get right now with massive concentrations of bait and eager fish roaming the flats.   In Connecticut, the Western Sound is producing its usual schoolie bass and larger bluefish.   But the farther east you go, the larger the bass get.  Rhode Island seems to be fishing quite well.  Schools of bunker remain thick in Narraganset and the bass are still on them good.  In Mass, the news about town is bluefin.  Anglers are chasing 100-plus pound fish both inside Cape Cod Bay and on the Ocean Side.  They aren’t easy to catch though.  And if you connect, you better have the gear to bring them in.  These are serious fish!  North of the Cape, the bass fishing on the Merrimack and particularly the Joppa flats, is pretty much peaking now.  Lot of big fish taking Slug-Gos and flies in around 4’ of water.  In Maine, the bass fishing has been tough this year, as it was last year.  Not a lot of big fish around.  With that being said though the bluefin are Continue Reading »