New regulations affecting striped bass anglers fishing in eastern North Carolina rivers and trout anglers fishing in public mountain trout waters will go into effect July 1.

Two striped bass regulations, which were developed jointly by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission and the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries, are designed to conserve spawning stock by reducing harvest and catch-and-release mortality.

The first regulation prohibits the harvest of striped bass in the inland and joint fishing waters of the Cape Fear River and its tributaries year-round. The second regulation reduces the daily creel limit to two fish, prohibits harvest of fish between 22 and 27 inches in length and establishes an Oct. 1 to April 30 harvest period for the inland and joint fishing waters of the Tar-Pamlico, Neuse and Pungo rivers and other rivers and waters in the Coastal Plain, except the Roanoke River/Albermarle Sound striped bass management area and the Cape Fear River.

Electrofishing surveys conducted since 1994 in the Neuse and Tar rivers and 2003 in the Cape Fear River indicate excessive striped bass mortality rates. Estimates of fishing mortality in these waters have greatly exceeded the rate necessary for population growth and sustainability and striped bass populations are well below their potential. Although fish larger than 27 inches in length are found occasionally, the population is dominated by younger, smaller fish. Surveys found that these smaller fish quickly drop out of the population in subsequent years. Continue Reading »

Along with watching fireworks and grilling out, celebrate Independence Day by indulging in another favorite pastime, fishing — no license needed! From midnight until 11:59 p.m., on July 4, anyone — resident or non-resident — can fish in any public water, including mountain trout waters and coastal waters, in North Carolina without a fishing license.

So that anglers of all ages and skill levels have an excellent chance of catching fish, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission stocks a variety of fish in waters across the state, from trout in the mountains to striped bass and channel catfish in the Piedmont and coastal regions.

“The purpose of the free fishing day is to show people how much fun fishing can be,” said Kent Nelson, fisheries program manager for the Commission’s Division of Inland Fisheries. “It’s a great way to spend quality time with your kids outdoors and help them develop an interest in nature and conservation.”

To make finding a spot to cast a line easier, the agency has listed on its Web site, www.ncwildlife.org, nearly 500 areas that are accessible to the public for fishing. Click on the Fishing link on the left side of the page; then click the Go Fishing! icon on the fishing page.

More than 100 areas are managed by the Commission as either a Community Fishing Program (CFP) site or a Public Fishing Area (PFA), while others are managed by local parks and recreation departments, power companies, N.C. State Parks and other natural resource agencies. Continue Reading »

National Coalition of Marine Science (NCMC) President Ken Hinman was invited to testify at a House Fisheries Subcommittee hearing May 8th on a pair of bills to protect Atlantic menhaden. HR 3841, authored by Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), would prohibit the commercial harvest of Atlantic menhaden for reduction purposes while giving the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) and NOAA Fisheries 5 years to study the role of menhaden as forage for striped bass and other predators; report on the impact of the reduction fishery on the food web; and recommend future sustainable fishing policies. HR 3840, the Atlantic Menhaden Conservation Act, introduced by Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ) along with Gilchrest, similarly declares a moratorium on catching menhaden to reduce to fish meal and oil until the ASMFC develops regulations that take menhaden’s ecological role into account.

Hinman emphasized that the current cap on catch in Chesapeake Bay expires in 2010, and NCMC is concerned that the ASMFC will not fulfill its promise to implement ecosystem-based catch limits by then without the threat of Congressional intervention. He recommended that, instead of using a moratorium on industrial fishing for menhaden to supercede the interstate management regime that is in place, congressional intervention could be used to reinforce that regime. He asked the bills’ authors to Continue Reading »

Virginia Fishing Report: Covering the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, Inshore and Virginia Offshore Fishing by Tidal Fish Correspondent Julie Ball
Virginia Fishing News
New!! Pending State Record GOLDEN TILE off the Ocean Pearl
On June 10th this past week I  received the call from CAPT Steve Wray at about 6pm when he was passing Cape Henry. He thought his angler had a new state record golden tile. I was already on my way to Long Bay Pointe to certify an IGFA Record Spadefish.
The group was deep dropping in the Norfolk Canyon, aboard the Ocean Pearl when Aaron Sledd of Virginia Beach hooked into something that took him 30 minutes to hoist to the top. The golden tile weighed in at a whopping 56lbs 8oz, topping the existing record caught last year, and just a few pounds shy of the All-Tackle World Record also caught last year.
VSWFT committee member, Capt Craig Paige showed up to verify the weight, and everything seemed in order.  Congratulations to the angler, captain, and crew aboard the “OCEAN PEARL.”

Virginia Fishing Reports
With all of the summer species now place, anglers are turning most efforts towards the abundant cobia, which are now available all over the lower bay and inshore waters. These brown-colored hunters are making their presence known as they take chummer’s offerings, and cruise along the top waters as if it were August. Boats using the chumming technique are having excellent success from the Rock Pile to the Buckroe area, and Latimer Shoals. Christian Seay and Charles Thain, both from the Eastern Shore, landed an 86-pounder, and a 90-pound bruiser respectively while chumming near buoy 13 this week.

The drum bite is

still good, as big reds continue to bite on the shoals and in the surf near Fisherman’s Island, as well as the Nine-foot Shoals and CBBT area. The black drum action is shifting more to the islands of the CBBT, which is common for this time of year.

Spadefish are still lagging Continue Reading »

 NOW LET’S SEE HOW DUMB WE REALLY ARE?
Just a couple of days ago, NOAA Fisheries released a proposed rule on the National Saltwater Angler Registry that requires anglers to be “registered” before fishing in 2009.   NOAA’s Fisheries Service is seeking comment on the proposed rule, which was a requirement of the reauthorized Magnuson-Stevens Act.
Because states in the Northeast which already have statewide saltwater license couldn’t get it together, the Federal Government has had to step in and do this.   Here’s why:  The recreational fishing data collection system (Marine Recreational Fishing Static Survey- MRFSS) sucks.  Basically a bunch of contractors make cold-calls to random households to try and find people who fish.  I mean come on.  What are the odds they’ll find an angler?  There is a dockside survey also, but there are a ton of problems with that as well.  I’ve been fishing Jersey, NYC and Long Island Waters hard for about 15 years and I have never once been surveyed.    There are simply not enough folks surveyed.  And what about all those folks that fish estuaries or fish at night?  Nope, they aren’t even in the picture.  No survey exists for them.   And let’s be honest.  Lots of fishing mortality, particularly with bass, occurs at night.  Quite simply, MRFSS is a terrible system and it’s not even designed to do what it has been tasked to do. 

Here’s where the serious problem lies:  When managers don’t have complete and accurate data it can and often does result in overly restrictive measures, or much worse, it can result in continued overfishing.  In either case, we are the big losers.  It is undeniable that with a licensing or registry-system, fishery management numbers would be greatly enhanced.    “The national registry of saltwater anglers is the key to closing a major gap in information on recreational fishing,” said Jim Balsiger, NOAA acting assistant administrator for NOAA’s Fisheries Service. “It will help us conduct surveys to get a more complete picture of how recreational fishing by an estimated 14 million people is affecting fish stocks. This will lead to better stock assessments and more effective regulations to rebuild and manage these valuable fish.”
Now here’s what sucks about this National Angler Registry when you compare to a regular state license.   While the registry will start out free in 2009, in 2010 anglers will be charged around $25.  While a state license can and will be used for restoration and fishery management in the state, by law, the registry fee taken by NOAA is to be used solely to offset the cost of issuing the registration. It can not be specifically directed to fisheries management.   And get this…   The money wouldn’t even go to NOAA, but rather directly into the black hole of the U.S. Treasury!

At this point it’s just stupid for all those bonehead states in the Northeast to continue to resist implementing a saltwater license.  Yet, with the exception of Connecticut, whose license bill failed this year, no such license bills exist as far as I know.  In my home state, there have been meetings and a lot of talk.  But any reasonable draw up of a palatable license proposal gets shot down by a handful of loudmouths in the recreational fishing industry.  That’s a huge bummer.  So much good could come out of a reasonably drawn up saltwater licensing system.  Money, clout, a louder voice etc…  And such systems have certainly been drawn up.

Yet, despite all the well-written articles describing the benefits of such a license out there, there are still a lot of false arguments flying around against a saltwater license.  E.g. the money will go into the general coffer and not be used for fisheries (even though there is a law in the books of every state that would prevent this, not to mention the federal Wallop Breau audits)… It would kill an already strained recreational fishing industry (yeah right…  Look at FL).  The list goes on and to cover it all would take more space than I have here.

Aside from all of these fallacies, the simple fact remains that if those non-saltwater-license sates in the Northeast don’t get their act together and implement a license we might as well be throwing that money away, when it could be benefiting those states recreational fisheries greatly.   Still, there seems to be no movement, and still, the same folks are voicing the same short-sighted opposition.  So, how stupid are we???

On to the Northeast Fishing Reports
Crazy good fishing pretty much across the board (except for the last two days in my neck of the woods…  Will get to that later).   New Jersey continues to have that sick run of menhaden right off of its beaches and each day blitzes have been going off right up on the beaches as bass pin the big bait up against jetties.  Inshore, their fishing slowed quite a bit with a big increase in water temp this week.  New York Harbor started the week out fishing pretty good.  Now?  It kinda sucks.  Unless of course you like bluefish. Lots of them around, but the bass are small and sparse.  Same in Jamaica Bay.  Some schoolies at dawn on poppers and small stuff being thrown up against the sod banks, but after that, nada.  The livelineing in both Raritan and Jamaica Bay is petering out quickly.  Still, some nice bass being caught early in the morning, but after that it’s all blues bighting your bunker in half.   As one moves east across Long Island, the fishing reports get better.  In central Long Island, there are some monster weakfish being caught in the Great South Bay.    On the North Shore there seems to still be plenty of schoolie action, but very few bigger fish.  Out east, well…  It’s “East” and as you might have imagined, it’s fishing pretty good.  Lots of big fish showing in the flats out there and I’m told there is an extraordinary number of sandeels.   On the ocean side, the regulars are taking some really good fish tossing plugs and flies along the usual structure.  In central and eastern Connecticut, I’m hearing that things just exploded this week with an influx of squid and big fish busting on them good.  Same deal with Rhode Island.  In Mass, the action got quite a bit better this week as well.
The water is warming quickly and so far we seem to be having an exceptionally Continue Reading »

This is a very interesting development. If you have not been following it you should read up below. It’s been an issue that truly has divided the recreational anglers from the environmentalists that coul, and probably will, change how the two relationship on the east coast going forward.

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Dole, Burr and Jones Introduce Legislation to Allow Off-road Vehicle use on Cape Hatteras National Seashore

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr and U.S. Rep. Walter Jones today introduced legislation in the Senate and House of Representatives that would reinstate the Interim Management Strategy governing off-road vehicle use on Cape Hatteras National Seashore (CHNS). The reinstatement of the original Interim Management Strategy, issued by the National Park Service (NPS) on June 13, 2007, would set aside current mandates and requirements which were put in place in the wake of a consent decree filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, that prevent off-road vehicle and citizen access to a significant portion of this National Seashore. Continue Reading »

I’ll post when I find out more details other then below

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NOAA’s Fisheries Service will discuss a new proposed requirement that recreational anglers who fish in federal ocean waters be registered in a national saltwater angler registry before fishing in 2009 in a phone press availability on Wed., June 11. The rule also requires registration by those who may catch certain species anywhere, including striped bass, salmon, and shad.
WHAT: Phone press availability.
WHERE:Please contact Monica Allen at 301-713-2370 for call-in information.
WHEN: Wed., June 11, 1:30 – 2:00 p.m. ET
WHO: Jim Balsiger, NOAA acting assistant administrator for NOAA’s Fisheries Service Gordon Colvin, NOAA fisheries biologist.
Continue Reading »

*This is a guest entry from Capt. John McMurray. A version of this article, in greatly edited form, appeared in the March 2008 edition of Saltwater Sportsman Magazine. The article below is completely unedited.

The recovery of the striped bass is the first and one of the only successes stories of east-coast fisheries management. The population collapsed in the 1980s, but is now at or near record abundance, and bass have become, in terms of pounds landed, the most important recreationally caught fish in the nation. Some states still, however, permit a small number of commercial fishermen to harvest this publicly owned resource. Other states have long-standing “gamefish” laws that prohibit commercial harvest. “Gamefish” proponents have made more recent efforts to enact commercial prohibitions elsewhere, but have been universally rebuffed. New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone has repeatedly introduced gamefish legislation in the House of Representatives, but has been unable to marshal sufficient support to move it out of committee.

Gamefish advocates have up to now clothed their efforts in the rhetoric of conservation. However, commercial interests have been very successful in convincing policymakers that the gamefish movement is nothing more than an effort to shift harvest from commercial to recreational fishers, and exchange the current commercial harvest for a larger recreational kill.

The commercials’ arguments are supported by the actions of the State of New Jersey, which banned commercial harvest but permits anglers a third “bonus fish” in addition to the two bass permitted anglers under ASMFC’s Interstate Striped Bass Management Plan. Spokesmen for the New Jersey angling community justify the increased recreational kill by asserting that the commercial quota has to be “netted out” to the state’s anglers in order to prevent it from being returned to the “coastal commercial pool”, and further excuse their state’s regulations by claiming that fewer fish are killed under the bonus plan than would be harvested if a commercial fishery still existed in New Jersey. However, even a casual reading of the management plan reveals that there is no “coastal commercial pool”. Commercial allocation is calculated on a state-by-state basis, and there is no provision for one state’s unused commercial harvest to be reallocated elsewhere. Thus, the commercials’ have successfully convinced decision-makers thus far that sportsmen want to hog the fish for themselves and deny a traditional fishing industry its livelihood.
Continue Reading »