Fishery

Next weekend, top regional and national powerboat racing returns to Baltimore when the field in the Chesapeake Challenge takes the green flag on the Patapsco River near Fort McHenry.Racing headquarters will be at Baltimore Marine Center on Boston Street, where 60 racing boats in 12 classes will be open for viewing and surrounded by vendors of food, drink, equipment, T-shirts and memorabilia.The Chesapeake Challenge first came to Baltimore last year after more than a decade of racing at other sites on Chesapeake Bay, and the racing was spectacular.

A popular fishing spot at the head of Chesapeake Bay, which has been off limits for nearly a decade to protect spawning rockfish, could be opened for a limited, catch-and-release season this spring.The Department of Natural Resources proposes to allow anglers to again enjoy the Susquehanna Flats, a light-tackle fishing area that has been included among protected spawning areas for rockfish since Maryland lifted its five-year moratorium on the state fish.If approved by the state, the season could run from as mid-March through the end of April, DNR secretary John R. Griffin said late last week.

The largest fishery in Maryland waters probably is for the blue crab, a species caught by pots, trotlines, traps, handlines and dip nets, and one a Department of Natural Resources official said yesterday might already "be fully utilized."Yet DNR's Fisheries Service is proposing changes to crabbing regulations that could result in increased catches by recreational crabbers. But there is method in what, to some, might appear to be madness.Although the proposed changes allow for increases in gear and potential catch for noncommercial crabbers, the changes also include provisions for a $5 license and catch surveys among those hard-core crabbers who fall between dockside hand-liners and commercial operators.

Baltimore County's Gunpowder River is a nationally recognized destination for anglers, but its trout fishery is in danger of becoming a casualty of the drought gripping Maryland.Temperatures in the river are rising as the water level of the Prettyboy Reservoir recedes -- threatening a devastating fish kill.The reservoir's water is released into the Gunpowder so it can flow to Loch Raven Reservoir, which supplies the city and surrounding counties with drinking water. Water in the Prettyboy is warmer than usual now because it is so low.State officials say they are taking steps to protect the fishery, but if the drought forces a choice between its needs and those of homes and factories, the trout are out of luck.

Estimates of the early rockfish season range from good to excellent, but it already is clear that this year's spring season is unlikely to match last year's."

Maryland, which almost 15 years ago took the lead in restoring a depleted rockfish (striped bass) population, again plans to act aggressively to protect the future of the species.The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which oversees recreational and commercial fishing for migratory coastal species, recently determined that rockfish ages 8 and older (28 inches and larger) are being overfished.The ASMFC has mandated a minimum 14 percent reduction in harvest across the range of those fish in the year 2000 to protect the breeding stock.

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission imposed a one-year moratorium yesterday on new commercial crabbing licenses and on license transfers as part of a number of measures aimed at reducing the pressure on the Chesapeake Bay fishery.The moratorium comes at the request of Virginia watermen, who have said they are worried the blue crab is being overfished and is in need of protection. It marks a reversal for Virginia officials, who historically have not been as aggressive as Maryland in regulating watermen.

THE OCEAN off our mid-Atlantic coast provides rest, relaxation and seafood for millions of people. But beneath the waters lurks a crisis created by too many boats chasing too few fish.And the response by the people who manage fisheries in our region has been a classic case of too little, too late. Over-fishing is widespread throughout the United States.According to a recently released government study, more than 40 percent of the species whose status has been studied are classified as over-fished.

Worried that blue crabs are in trouble, Virginia's top fishery manager has endorsed a plan to create a network of crab sanctuaries stretching most of the length of the Chesapeake Bay, where the delectable and valuable creatures would be off-limits to watermen.Jack Travelstead, fisheries manager for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, also urged the commissioners meeting in Newport News last night to enact other restrictions on crabbing, amid growing evidence that the bay's last great seafood crop is being overfished.

The state has been asked to approve proposals for 1999 recreational and charter-boat rockfish seasons that include a new catch-and-release season in April and May on the Susquehanna Flats.The Department of Natural Resources submitted the proposals to the General Assembly's Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review Committee on Friday.The proposals also allow anglers to fish for and keep rockfish 18 inches or longer from June 14 through Nov. 30. Previously, the rockfish season had been closed during portions of the summer when warm water resulted in high mortality among undersized fish that had been hooked and released.

Crabbers, name your price. In an unprecedented move to protect Chesapeake Bay crabs, the state is offering to buy back more than half of the commercial crabbing licenses held by Marylanders. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources announced Thursday that it wants to retire up to 3,676 of the "limited crab catcher" licenses it has issued over the years and is willing to pay for them. The voluntary buyback is the state's most recent bid to protect the bay's iconic crustacean from overfishing as it recovers from a near-disastrous decline.

CAMBRIDGE - Nearly 200 watermen packed the pavilion at Sailwinds Park last night to hear details of new harvest rules that they fear will ruin commercial fishermen whose business depends in large part on catching female blue crabs, the Chesapeake Bay's signature fishery. The number of crabs has dropped so sharply that Maryland and Virginia imposed restrictions last month that are aimed at reducing the annual harvest of females by one-third. About half of the blue crabs harvested in Maryland waters are females, officials say, and many are caught in warm fall waters.

High time to ban harvest of turtles I find it interesting to watch the political activity regarding legislative actions in Maryland to close the Chesapeake Bay terrapin fishery ("Shielding state's diamondbacks," Feb. 24). Instead of working with concerned biologists, conservation groups and the general public to close off a clearly unsustainable harvest, the state Department of Natural Resources continues to attempt to position itself to call the shots. After failing to persuade the sponsors of bills that would outlaw terrapin fishing to withdraw them, the DNR now suggests that the threatened terrapin habitat is the real problem.

If next week's meeting of regional fisheries regulators were an episode of I Love Lucy with Maryland playing the role of the zany redhead, you can almost guess what the opening line would be: "Loocie, you got a lot of 'splainin to do." It was just seven months ago in a gloomy hotel ballroom in Northern Virginia that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission heard Maryland promise to make good on exceeding its 2005 spring striped bass quota - by 29,720 fish - and to never do it again.

Maryland officials say they have no plans to reconsider a statewide ban on catching shad, despite a recent decision in Virginia that eases restrictions on the once-abundant but now-scarce species. Virginia officials voted last week to ease a 12-year moratorium on catching shad just for the 2006 season, at the request of local fishermen. Effective immediately, commercial fishermen will be able to keep five shad per day from the York, Rappahannock and James rivers, including those caught in the spawning sanctuaries that the state established two months ago. The fish must be part of the "bycatch," those caught accidentally in the process of trying to net other species.

SO NEAR YET so far. The quasi-government body charged with protecting fish along the East Coast will vote next month on whether to take the first step in saving one of the Chesapeake Bay's most important residents. Or it may do nothing. "This represents the worst of public service because they will not take a stand on the hard questions," fumed Pete Abbott of Annapolis, one of the 200 or so recreational and commercial fishermen who packed a hearing last Wednesday night to urge the folks with power to do something.

Pollution and bad weather forced so many Maryland watermen to stop crabbing this past summer that the state's Chesapeake Bay blue crab harvest will be the worst in 25 years, fishery managers say. The 2003 season, which ended Monday, is expected to produce a harvest of about 18 million pounds from the bay's Maryland waters, according to the Department of Natural Resources. That's a sharp drop from last year, when crabbers brought in about 24 million pounds. It is the lowest crab harvest since 1978, when the catch was 17 million pounds.

WHAT THE BAY provides is linked to what we are willing to invest in it. So it is disheartening to see Maryland and Virginia, to save a measly $75,000 a year each, risk selling their $100 million-a-year blue crab fishery down the river. If the crab population remains at or near its recent, historic lows, or crashes, blame the cheapskate states for chucking one of the best conservation tools devised to date. I'm talking about this week's disbanding of the Bi-State Blue Crab Advisory Committee.

SUPPOSE PEOPLE who are overeating were regulated like commercial fishermen who are overfishing. They'd know in their pudgy hearts that they should cut back on the calories, and they'd have some good ideas how they could do it, in ways that worked with their lives, their bodies. But the National Diet Board (I just invented it) is not much interested in what mere dieters think. Its experts know nutritional science, also what your ideal weight should be and precisely how you will reach it. Ultimately, the diet czars will make people healthier, and many will hate them purely for how they did it. Such a scenario is at the heart of David Dobbs' The Great Gulf - Fishermen, Scientists, and the Struggle to Revive the World's Greatest Fishery (Island Press, 2000)

Let's hope today's a washout. Tomorrow, too. Heck, it could rain from now until the end of the mourning dove season's first split on Oct. 19 as far as I'm concerned. That's what we need to help keep Prettyboy Reservoir afloat, put water back into the Gunpowder River tributaries and perk up the trout stock. To look at the Gunpowder right now, you'd swear things were hunky dory. Water gushes over rocks and races downstream. Wading fly fishermen need stout hiking sticks to fight the current.