Caught this video today from a link sent by a friend. It is a video made by Peter Laurelli of his 2010 Surf Fly Fishing adventures in and around New York. Cool video worth checking out.

Surf Fishing 2010 – NYC Edition from Peter Laurelli on Vimeo.

Nico sent us this picture of a nice Pira Pita he caught while on an expedition to locate new Dorado infested waters in Bolivia. Where you find Dorado you often also find Pira Pita which are a blast to catch on the fly. Nice catch Nico, keep the pictures coming!

Andy keeps chasing and catching steelhead. Another nice fish Andy, WTG!

We love to hear from Lateral Line customers. George bought one of our Crisfield shirts over the holidays for a good friend who is an avid fly fishermen. He wanted to add some flair to it and had his friends initials and a sweet looking fly rod embroidered on the cuffs. We like man, pretty customization, thanks for sending in the pictures!

This is an update on the plight of the Atlantic Menhaden by Charlie Hutchinson. Charlie has been working on the menhaden issue for many years as a representative of the Maryland Saltwater Sportsman Association (MSSA). You can find more information about Atlantic Menhaden and other of his articles on the Save Menhaden website

Menhaden Muddle: update # 17
by Charlie Hutchinson
There has been a considerable gap in time between Muddle #16 and #17. One of the reasons for the lack of commentary is the lack of any perceived action with respect to changes in menhaden regulation. However there are things occurring that have a bearing on what may or may not transpire at the next Menhaden Management Board meeting scheduled sometime in March.

First is a change in leadership on the Board. Mr. Lapoint (from Maine) is no longer the chairperson. Under his chairmanship the attitude of the Commissioners changed from apparent indifference to one of concern and the acceptance of the need for new management methods. Perhaps this was related to some degree to the situation in New England where abundance,or more properly lack thereof, of forage fish is having a significant impact on fishing both commercial and recreational. His replacement Mr. Daniels hails from North Carolina and that area has traditionally been more pro industry than pro conservation. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in Board dynamics in March.

Second is the legislative activity in the state of Virginia. Five bills have been introduced relating to menhaden. Some are geared to transferring responsibility for managing  menhaden from the General Assembly to the Virginia Marine Resources commission. Others place limits and restrictions on the harvest in Virginia waters. Most seem to feel that Omega’s political influence needs to be blunted both in terms of more professional management and in terms of conservation.

Third, the Technical Committee has met prior to the March meeting where it is generally expected that they will announce that the revised assessment results are such that relative to the existing standards for menhaden abundance, the stock is being overfished. In addition they will be responding to the Boards requirement for them to provide new reference points for varying actions to rebuilding abundance by restricting harvest. Specifically the committee was directed to evaluate requirements to increase the age 3+ stock component to Continue Reading »

Atlantic Menhaden – Critical to coastal food chain

Five bills concerning menhaden are before the Virginia General Assembly. The bills are summarized below. You will no doubt want to contact members of the two committees (listed below), which will hear these bills, and express your desired action.

E-mails and letters are equally acceptable. You can also call and speak with the legislators’ assistants (listed with each senator or delegate below). By copying and pasting your e-mail message, the time required to contact all committee legislators can be minimized.

In addition to contacting the individual members of the two “Ag” committees, you should also contact your own delegate and senator (To identify them, click HERE).

See menhaden background info at bottom

SB765/HB2280 - Sen. Northam and Del. Cosgrove
Would transfer the authority to implement ASMFC menhaden fishery management plans from the General Assembly to the VMRC. The VMRC already executes ASMFC directives for all other saltwater species.

HB1656 - Del. Purkey
Would prohibit harvesting of menhaden with purse nets within one mile of shore of Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Newport News, and Hampton.

HB2369 – Del Knight
Would reduce current cap on menhaden harvest in Chesapeake Bay (109,020 metric tons) by 20% each year starting January, 2012.

HB1913 - Del. Miller
Would prohibit the harvest of menhaden by purse nets in the Rappahannock River and its tributaries.

HB2165 – Del. Abbitt
Would assess a fee of $10 per ton on menhaden harvested by purse seine in Virginia waters. Funds would be used to evaluate the menhaden fishery in the Chesapeake Bay.

Continue Reading »

Caught a picture of Grand Slam Outfitters rockin center console fishing truck while down in south Florida last week. If you are ever in South Florida keep an eye out in and around Jupiter for this rig, they drive it around.

Has overfishing ended? Top US scientist says yes, but fishermen say cost was too high
Jay Lindsay, Associated Press

For the first time in at least a century, U.S. fishermen won’t take too much of any species from the sea, one of the nation’s top fishery scientists says.

The projected end of overfishing comes during a turbulent fishing year that’s seen New England fishermen switch to a radically new management system. But scientist Steve Murawski said that for the first time in written fishing history, which goes back to 1900, “As far as we know, we’ve hit the right levels, which is a milestone.”

“And this isn’t just a decadal milestone, this is a century phenomenon,” said Murawski, who retired last week as chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service.

Murawski said it’s more than a dramatic benchmark — it also signals the coming of increasingly healthy stocks and better days for fishermen who’ve suffered financially. In New England, the fleet has deteriorated since the mid-1990s from 1,200 boats to only about 580, but Murawski believes fishermen may have already endured their worst times.

“I honestly think that’s true, and that’s why I think it’s a newsworthy event,” said Murawski, now a professor at the University of South Florida.

But fishermen and their advocates say ending overfishing came at an unnecessarily high cost. Dave Marciano fished out of Gloucester, an hour’s drive northeast of Boston, for three decades until he was forced to sell his fishing permit in June. He said the new system made it too costly to catch enough fish to stay in business.

“It ruined me,” said Marciano, 45. “We could have ended overfishing and had a lot more consideration for the human side of the fishery.”

An end to overfishing doesn’t mean all stocks are healthy, but scientists believe it’s a crucial step to getting there.

When fishermen are overfishing a species, they’re catching it at a rate scientists believe is too fast to ensure that the species can rebuild and then stay healthy. It’s different from when a species is overfished, which is when scientists believe its population is too low.

Murawski said it’s a nearly ironclad rule of fishery management that species become far more abundant when they’re being fished at the appropriate level, which is determined after considering factors such as a species’ life span and death rates.

A mandate to end overfishing by the 2010 fishing year — which concludes at different times in 2011, depending on the region — came in the 2007 reauthorization of the nation’s fisheries law, the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

Murawski said the U.S. is the only country that has a law that defines overfishing and requires its fishermen not to engage in it.

“When you compare the United States with the European Union, with Asian countries, et cetera, we are the only industrialized fishing nation who actually has succeeded in ending overfishing,” he said.

Regulators say 37 stocks nationwide last year were being overfished (counting only those that live exclusively in U.S. waters); New England had the most with 10. But Murawski said management systems that emphasize strict catch limits have made a big difference, and New England just made the switch.

Fishermen there now work in groups called sectors to divide an annual quota of groundfish, which include cod, haddock and flounder. If they exceed their limits on one species, they’re forced to stop fishing on all species.

About two-thirds into the current fishing year, which ends April 30, federal data indicated New England fishermen were on pace to catch fewer than their allotted fish in all but one stock, Georges Bank winter flounder. But Murawski said he didn’t expect fishermen would exceed their quota on any stock.

In other regions with overfishing — the South Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean — regulators project catch limits and other measures will end overfishing this fishing year. Already, South Atlantic black grouper and Gulf of Mexico red snapper are no longer being overfished.

The final verification that overfishing has ended nationwide, at least for one fishing year, will come after detailed stock assessments.

It will be a “Pyrrhic victory” in hard-hit New England, said Brian Rothschild, a fisheries scientist at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. He said regulators could legally loosen the rules and allow fishermen to safely catch more fish, but regulators have refused to do it, and fishermen have needlessly been shut out from even healthy stocks.

The science is far from perfect, Marciano said. Regulators believed fishermen were overfishing pollock until new data last year indicated scientists had badly underestimated its population, he said. And some stocks, such as Gulf of Maine cod, have recovered even when fishermen were technically overfishing them.

“To say you can’t rebuild stocks while overfishing is occurring is an outright lie. We did it,” Marciano said.

Tom Nies, a fisheries analyst for regional New England regulators, said stocks can sometimes be boosted by variables such as strong births in a given year, but they’ll inevitably decline if overfishing continues on them.

Peter Shelley, senior counsel of the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental group, said the industry’s problems are rooted in years of overfishing, especially during the 1980s, not regulation.

“It was a bubble,” he said. “Fishermen were living in a bit of a fantasy world at that point, and it wasn’t something you could sustain.”

That’s why Murawski’s projection about the end of overfishing is “a very big deal,” he said.

“I think we’re just starting to see signs of a new future,” Shelley said.

What fisherman Steve Arnold, 46, sees in his home port of Point Judith, R.I., are fewer boats, older fishermen and “a lot of frowns on people’s faces.”

Overfishing might end this year, but the fleet has suffered and has an uncertain future, he said.

“I believe we can get to a better place, but the work isn’t done,” Arnold said. “We’re living through something that we’re learning as we go. It’s not a comfortable feeling.”