Maryland DNR Summer Meeting of the Sport Fisheries ... · Ed O’Brien David Sikorski David Sutherland Roger Trageser James Wommack Maryland DNR Fisheries Service: Dave Blazer, Co-Chair

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Maryland DNR

Summer Meeting of the Sport Fisheries

Advisory Commission(SFAC)

Tuesday,

July 24, 2018

Held at the

Maryland Department of Natural Resources

Tawes State Office Building

C-1 Conference Room

Annapolis, Maryland

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Audio Associates (301) 577-5882

Maryland DNRSport Fisheries Advisory Commission Meeting

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

SFAC Members Present:

John Neely, Co-Chair

Micah DammeyerBeverly FlemingToby FreyJames GracieSteve LayPhil LangleyScott LennoxVal LynchDr. Ray Morgan, IICharles NemphosEd O’BrienDavid SikorskiDavid SutherlandRoger TrageserJames Wommack

Maryland DNR Fisheries Service:

Dave Blazer, Co-ChairPaul Genovese

Secretary Mark Belton

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Audio Associates(301)577-5882


I N D E X

July 24, 2018

PageWelcome and Opening Remarks:

by Chair John Neely and Dave Blazer, MD DNR 5

Welcome Remarksby Secretary Mark Belton 6

Introduction of New Commission Member Sewell (Toby) Frey:by John Neely 21

Bay Water Conditions: by Tom Parham, MD DNR 23

NRP Activity Report:by Lt. Brian Noon 30

Recreational Fishing License Sales:by Karen Knotts, MD DNR 35

Freshwater Fisheries:Quarterly Report - Tony Prochaska, MD DNR 56Black Bass - Joseph Love and John Mullican, MD DNR 57

Committee and Workshop Reporting:Black Bass Subcommittee - July Meeting Summaryby Roger Trageser, Commissioner 80See Handouts for: 85* Penalty Workgroup - June 7 Meeting* Oyster Advisory Commission - May Summary* Aquiculture Coordinating Council - May Summary and August Agenda* Blue Crab Industry Committee - June 13 Summary* MORE Commission - May Summary and July Agenda

Forage Fish Index:by Jim Uphoff, MD DNR 89

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I N D E X

July 24, 2018

PagePolicy Program :

by Sarah Widman, MD DNR: 113* Regulatory, Penalty and Scooping Updates* Penalty Review for Recreational Oyster Harvest Violations

Motion:by James Wommack 130* Motion Carried 141

Public Comments:by Kirkland Hall 134by Larry Jennings 136

Fishing Management:by Lynn Fegley 143

Final Comments:by Chairman Dave Blazer 160

KEYNOTE: "---" Indicates inaudible in transcript.

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1 A F T E R N O O N S E S S I O N

2 (3:00 p.m.)

3 (Corridor noises interfered throughout the committee

4 meeting.)

5 Welcome and Opening Remarks

6 by Chair John Neely and Dave Blazer, MD DNR

7 CHAIRMAN NEELY: It is three o’clock and welcome to

8 the 2918 Summer Sport Fisheries Advisory Commission Meeting.

9 Thank you all for coming.

10 We have, as always, a very full agenda. Please keep

11 your comments succinct. Some of the questions we may defer to

12 future meetings. But again, thank you all for attending

13 today.

14 Dave Blazer, who chairs our Fisheries Department is

15 going to introduce our very special guest, Mark Belton.

16 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Thank you, John. A lot of you

17 know our Secretary. He has been our Secretary of the

18 Department of Natural Resources for three years. Almost four.

19 Three and a half. And it is great to work with somebody who

20 is a great listener, a great leader and I enjoy working with

21 him so closely.

22 Although I think all the Fisheries issues, I know I

23 talk to Mark probably, almost every day, about something,

24 crab, fish, Striped Bass, Trout. There is always an issue

25 with Fisheries. So, I have gotten to know and work with Mark

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1 very well. And I enjoy my time with him and appreciate his

2 leadership, advice and counsel for Fisheries.

3 And we thought -- John and I talked and John thought

4 it would be a good idea if we invited the Secretary to come in

5 and make few brief remarks to us today and he is going to

6 talk, I think, about one of the issues that -- one of the

7 commissions that he is working with, as well.

8 But, Secretary, this is the Sport Fisheries Advisory

9 Committee, plus some extra guests in the back row. And these

10 folks are here to advise you and the Department on sport

11 fishing issues, which I know you have heard a lot about, at

12 least in the three plus years that I have been here.

13 So, without further ado, Secretary Mark Belton,

14 thank you.

15 Welcome Remarks

16 by Secretary Mark Belton

17 SECRETARY BELTON: Thank you, John. John and I had

18 the pleasure to have lunch together a couple of three weeks

19 ago, I do not remember exactly when.

20 MR. BELTON: Yes, sir.

21 SECRETARY BELTON: And John suggests that I come

22 down and say hello and talk for a few minutes with you all. I

23 do not get around enough to all the various boards and

24 commissions that DNR has, and lord knows there is a lot of

25 them. But it was a great suggestion. I thank you for it.

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1 I know a lot of you. Some of you I do not know.

2 But I thank all of you for participating on this very

3 important group.

4 I got to tell you of all the subjects and all the

5 wildlife and all of the issues that DNR deals with, Fisheries

6 is by far the most emotionally evocative -- people feel very

7 strongly --

8 (Laughter)

9 SECRETARY BELTON: -- and passionately about their

10 issues with Fisheries. That is why you all are on this

11 committee and that is why there are so many other folks in the

12 room, and that is why it is followed so closely by so many

13 people around the State.

14 Dave was being a little modest when he says, we talk

15 every day. It seems like some days we talk --

16 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: All day.

17 SECRETARY BELTON: All day.

18 (Laughter)

19 SECRETARY BELTON: It got to the point where, where

20 okay, we need to figure out our schedules a little bit here,

21 and so let us consolidate all of these issues. Some of them

22 are not so emergency that we have to talk every day about it.

23 Let us kind of sync them up every once in a while because Dave

24 developed this little meeting that we have once a month that

25 is called “Fish Guts”.

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1 And we talk about how the guts of the Department of

2 Fisheries works regarding Fisheries issues. And it is really

3 an informative and valuable forum for me. We schedule an

4 hour. We generally go over and I get to ask a lot of

5 questions and learn a lot about the ins and outs of Fisheries

6 issues. So, again, very valuable for me.

7 I have had the pleasure of going to several

8 in-person, the Atlantic States Fisheries Commissions and have

9 seen some of you there and seeing how those 17 or 18 or so

10 member groups work. And that has been a fascinating marine

11 experience for me.

12 I did want to mention one group that a couple of

13 folks have asked me about recently that is related to our

14 Sport Fisheries Advisory Commission work and that is something

15 called the MORE Commission. People heard about that? Some

16 yes, some no. It stands for the Maryland Outdoor Recreation

17 Economic Commission. The MORE Commission. And it stems from

18 an executive order that Governor Hogan signed last year. And

19 he put a two year time period on the Commission. He asked the

20 Secretary of Commerce, Mike Gill and myself to co-chair.

21 And it is kind of a parallel effort to what seven or

22 eight other states are currently doing around the Country

23 right now. And it is looking at ways to maximize the economic

24 benefits from our recreational, outdoor recreational

25 activities. It has five specific tenents that upon which we

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1 are supposed to make recommendations. One of them, I think,

2 is telling, it shows we are not trying to exploit our natural

3 resources and trying to preserve them and maximize our

4 people’s use of them. One deals with stewardship, which I am

5 really excited about.

6 But in any event this committee has 17 members,

7 specifically appointed by the Governor. We decided it is a

8 two year committee. We decided that the first year, to take

9 out time and get around the State and learn about the outdoor

10 economic activity that is inherent to all the regions of

11 Maryland, because we realized like Governor Schaefer used to

12 call Maryland “American Miniature”, our outdoors has different

13 attributes depending on where you are.

14 So, we had an organizational meeting. We had a

15 first regional meeting out in near Western Maryland which

16 would be Washington and Frederick Counties out there. We

17 visited some state parks. We talked with National Park

18 Service folks. We talked with a lot of folks who are involved

19 with the battlefields and the trails, C&O Canal, connecting

20 trails through Pennsylvania and that type of thing. The

21 Appalachian Trail. It was really informative. Our committee

22 got a lot out of it.

23 Our second meeting, our second regional meeting

24 tomorrow we are going to meet at North Point State Park,

25 actually can start the day -- the hardy souls that wish based

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1 on the weather, we are going to start it with a boat trip out

2 to Hart-Miller Island and focus the day on boating, the

3 boating industry, outdoor boating recreational industry, which

4 I think will be really interesting. We got a lot of folks

5 coming in to chat with us about that.

6 The next meeting after that will be in September, we

7 will do it on the Eastern Shore and focus on the outdoor

8 recreational activities that are Shore centered, including the

9 Ocean City area and our coastal ways.

10 And we will do that for every region in the State.

11 And in the second year we are going to break down into

12 committees and talk about the five specific areas that the

13 Governor asked us to make recommendations on. Our interim

14 report that is due December of this year. And then a final

15 report that is due December of 2019. And I suspect given the

16 eagerness of a lot of my work commission members we will have

17 several recommendations listed on the interim report, we will

18 not wait until the end to actually make recommendations, so

19 that if the Governor and the Legislature will like to take

20 some action on those, instead of waiting until the end they

21 can do so.

22 It is a very enthusiastic group. I am excited to be

23 part of it. I am certainly learning a lot as are the folks

24 that are on the Commission. So -- that is the MORE

25 Commission.

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1 And if you all, and John as the Chair I address this

2 to you, wanted to at some point address the group, the MORE

3 Commission or send some correspondence to the group after some

4 --

5 CHAIRMAN NEELY: I would love that.

6 SECRETARY BELTON: -- discussion.

7 CHAIRMAN NEELY: That would be great.

8 SECRETARY BELTON: Making recommendations from the

9 Sport Fisheries Advisory Commission for the MORE Commission’s

10 consideration in their final report.

11 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Sure.

12 SECRETARY BELTON: That would be terrific.

13 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Great.

14 SECRETARY BELTON: The more input that we get the

15 better.

16 CHAIRMAN NEELY: You got some good people on that

17 Commission.

18 SECRETARY BELTON: Yes, I do. It is a real exciting

19 group.

20 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Yes.

21 SECRETARY BELTON: Starting -- it is starting to be

22 -- to lead that group with that much talent and enthusiasm.

23 Yes.


25 SECRETARY BELTON: Yes. So, that is fine. And with

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1 that, again, I cannot say thank you enough to you guys. But I

2 would want to give you all the opportunity to ask questions of

3 me while I am here for a few minutes about anything that might

4 be related to the Sport Fisheries Advisory Commission Center.

5 What do you think?

6 I know John and I had a great lunch. We did not

7 stop talking the whole time. And we had a lot of things

8 talked -- actually he came with a quite a list and did a lot

9 of talking. And I responded once in a while.

10 (Laughter)

11 SECRETARY BELTON: But we talked about a lot of

12 stuff. You know, John, I guess that is probably how he

13 normally operates. He is usually very well prepared and has a

14 long list of things that he wants to accomplish.

15 What do you guys want to talk about? Anything?

16 Sikorski is over here going I do not know if I should bring

17 this up.

18 (Laughter)

19 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Yes, exactly.

20 (Laughter)

21 MR. SIKORSKI: You read my mind.

22 MR. GRACIE: Funding for fisheries.

23 SECRETARY BELTON: Funding for fisheries.

24 MR. GRACIE: We need more.

25 SECRETARY BELTON: We sure do. I agree. So, DNR is

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1 a special funded organization for the most part. Meaning that

2 we have a budget that is somewhere between two hundred and

3 fifty and three hundred million dollars. And more than 60

4 percent of our budget comes from special funds. These are

5 funds that are brought in not by tax dollars necessarily.

6 Things like buying a fishing license. And buying a hunting

7 license. Things like that that actually have a specific

8 purpose and have specific parameters that you can and cannot

9 spend that money on.

10 So, consequently we have -- I think -- I forget the

11 number of special funds, but it is you know, in the dozens.

12 And that makes it very challenging to manage a budget with all

13 those different parameters on them.

14 And what we have seen and Dave and I have talked a

15 little bit about this at our Fish Guts meetings and other

16 things, is a reduction in the revenue that are generated from

17 those sources that we historically get money from, from

18 Fisheries. So, we are trying to address that in various ways

19 in the future.

20 One discussion we had not long ago with the State

21 House regarding money for the public oyster fishery which is

22 necessarily a -- a SFAC issue, but it is directly on point to

23 your question. In that we have had over the past, what three

24 or four years I want to say, a declining trend in our bushels

25 harvested in the public fisher, there is a dollar a bushel tax

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1 on those bushels that goes into a special fund that is then

2 used to help replenish oysters in the public fishery. Usually

3 through the Seed and Shell Program.

4 Because we have had a lessening of that money there

5 has been less of that activity available to help, you know,

6 boast a lagging resource. So, the State House was able to put

7 a supplemental bill as part of the budget during the

8 Legislative Session and get some additional money for that

9 purpose. And so that is one example.

10 And so I just to say we do take action on things

11 when we see we really have to -- it gets to be, you know, a

12 problem where we cannot move forward. And I expect we will

13 see a lot more of that in the future.

14 I noticed when I first came in as Secretary, and Jim

15 you were part of those discussions, that we had during the

16 transition team, one of the things that was very noticeable

17 to me was over the previous decade and now it is approaching

18 15 years, there were reserve funds in all of these special

19 accounts.

20 Basically, you know, tax money, you cannot roll over

21 year to year. It just goes into the -- back into the general

22 fund. But special funds you can roll over year to year if you

23 do not use them. And our rate of using these fees has been

24 such that over the last 15 years they have been dwindling down

25 the saving account, dwindling down the saving account, et

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1 cetera. To the point where almost all of our reserve accounts

2 now do not have much, if any, reserve balances. So, it is a

3 really challenge for us through the organization.

4 MR. GRACIE: My question was, probably should have

5 been worded more specifically, I would like us to take --

6 SECRETARY BELTON: I do not like specific questions.

7

8 (Laughter)

9 MR. GRACIE: That is why I tried the general first.

10 What we can do to convince people that more general fund

11 contributions to fisheries makes sense because the benefits

12 are so wide and the economic returns are so high.

13 SECRETARY BELTON: Yes, I agree with you. We get -

14 - get through a better job of -- budget, powers that be,

15 including the Legislators and at the State House up at that

16 point.

17 Somebody mentioned to me recently, might have been

18 you John, I want to think maybe it was, a little story about

19 how when they came across a gentleman recently who had not

20 been fishing for a decade. But every year he bought a fishing

21 license because someone taught him once early in his adult

22 life that even if you do not fish it is important to buy a

23 fishing license because the money goes into managing the

24 fisher and promoting public fishers around the State, to take

25 care of that resource. So, that gentleman bought a fishing

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1 license to support the program even though he did not

2 participate in the fishing. I thought that was really

3 extraordinary.


5 SECRETARY BELTON: The more we can communicate that

6 ethic out there, the better off, you know, our resource would

7 be. Great question, thank you.

8 CHAIRMAN NEELY: We will take one more. Yes, Phil.

9 MR. LANGLEY: Secretary, hi, how you doing?

10 SECRETARY BELTON: Good.

11 MR. LANGLEY: The only thing I would like to mention

12 and there are some people here today who probably have

13 concerns is we have seen in the Bay a dwindling stock.

14 Basically of all species. And, you know, we can only harvest

15 what gets to us in the State of Maryland. We are the last

16 state up in the Chesapeake Bay. And there are some thing that

17 may be happening on the ocean, on the coast, maybe our

18 neighboring state, I do not know, but we are certainly not

19 seeing the species here in Maryland, Trout, Grouper, Spot, all

20 the things that I grew up with. There is a lot of focus on

21 Striped Bass, which is a very -- it is our State fish. It is

22 a very important species.

23 SECRETARY BELTON: Right.

24 MR. LANGLEY: But unfortunately we are almost

25 limited to targeting Striped Bass now, even though --

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1 SECRETARY BELTON: There are a few other things --

2 yes.

3 MR. LANGLEY: Yes, the fresh --- this year. Even

4 Spanish Mackerel and Blue Fish that we normally even have, you

5 know, in the lower part of Maryland’s Bay, we really are not

6 seeing this year. And like I say it could be a weather

7 related fresh type of thing.

8 But, you know, the possibilities and actually had a

9 conversation with this earlier today about working maybe, you

10 know, more regionally. There are some thing that happen in

11 our neighboring state that in the early spring season for

12 Striped Bass that a lot of pre-spawned fish are harvested and

13 targeted commercially, a time of year these fish are hammered,

14 you know, 12 months out of the year.

15 And just possibly working with other states to do

16 something smarter. Whether it is to -- the shrimp trawls in

17 the Carolinas that bi-catch, while we are not seeing croaker

18 or Spot, whether it is strictly environmental conditions. But

19 there is, you know, there is a lot of concern about our

20 fisheries especially in the middle-lower part of Maryland’s

21 Chesapeake Bay where there is a lot of recreational anglers,

22 as well as commercial guys that are not seeing the species

23 that they once saw.

24 SECRETARY BELTON: Right. The diversity of species.

25 MR. LANGLEY: The diversity. Absolutely.

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1 SECRETARY BELTON: Bio-diversity, I guess.

2 MR. LANGLEY: Bio-diversity, right.

3 SECRETARY BELTON: That is a great question. And if

4 I had a magic wand I would --

5 (Laughter)

6 MR. LANGLEY: I would wave mine with you.

7 SECRETARY BELTON: But let me just say a few things

8 about it. So, first of all one key factor into bio-

9 diversity is to help the Chesapeake Bay, right. And that is

10 something that we spend just a tremendous amount of time,

11 effort and money on here in Maryland and the Department of

12 Natural Resources. Not only in my department but in the Bay

13 Cabinet, which includes the Department of Environment, the

14 Planning, the Agriculture, Energy Administration,

15 Environmental Service and the --- to Maryland Center for

16 Environmental Science. That group gets together constantly to

17 talk about Maryland’s efforts to clean up Chesapeake Bay.

18 And, you know, we are at the midpoint assessment now

19 of the Chesapeake Bay Program which is shooting towards 2025

20 to get to that effort where all the programs and policies are

21 in place that will clean up the Bay.

22 And we are making good progress. Not every state

23 has made the same amount of progress. Maryland is as good as

24 any other states’ effort, but we have to catch up a little

25 bit, we are a little behind in storm water, I want to say, in

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1 particular to focus our efforts. Other states like

2 Pennsylvania have a long way to go. And of course, they mean

3 so much to us because of the Susquehanna contributing about 50

4 percent of the fresh water to overall Bay.

5 But there are signs of progress. We all know them.

6 So, we had a record number of --- vegetation which is so

7 important to our fishery species. Water clarity has been over

8 the previous several years, really good. And species

9 abundance actually have -- those numbers have been pretty

10 good. I know we mentioned we have seen -- have not seen the

11 diversity but the abundance of the species that are attracted

12 by the Bay program have been pretty strong.

13 And then we do work very closely, as I mentioned

14 before, with the Atlantic States Fisheries Commission. I have

15 seen you at those meetings. And so I know you are familiar

16 with that works. And all I can do is to help us make

17 Maryland’s part on cleaning the Chesapeake Bay, and courage

18 the other states to do their part. And then work with the

19 other states through the Atlantic States Fisheries Commission

20 to help make sure that those decisions that are made there are

21 based upon science, that everybody has an abundance of stock

22 issues from.

23 You said those Striped Bass get hit all along the

24 way and then we are the last ones to see them as they come up

25 the Bay.

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1 MR. LANGLEY: The 12 months out of the year.

2 SECRETARY BELTON: But the folks in New York will

3 look at it just the opposite. They would say golly, they

4 started up there in the Chesapeake Bay and then they run the

5 gauntlet before they get to us. It is a resource that

6 everybody benefits from. It is so important for everybody to

7 contribute to make sure that they are going to be abundant in

8 the future.

9 Yes, great comment though. It takes everybody

10 working together to get it.

11 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thank you, Mark.

12 SECRETARY BELTON: Oh, my pleasure.

13 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thank you very much.

14 SECRETARY BELTON: Thanks again for your time and

15 effort on this Commission. We talked about the MORE

16 Commission before you got here. Dave is one of the newer

17 members of the Commission. So, I do not know if you are

18 coming to tomorrow’s meeting?

19 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: I am.

20 SECRETARY BELTON: Good. Great. So, we will see

21 you then.

22 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Thank you, again.

23 SECRETARY BELTON: Appreciate your time and effort

24 you put in. Thanks for everything you do.

25 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thank you. Secretary. Thank you.

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1 I will echo Dave Blazer’s remarks and thanking Secretary

2 Belton for coming over to our meeting.

3 Mark has said he would like to develop a better

4 relationship with the Commissioners. He has even suggested

5 that maybe that we would consider having a retreat out of the

6 State offices where we might have an opportunity to delve into

7 the fishing issues more in depth. I am probably in favor of

8 that if there is enough interest.

9 Introduction of New Commission Member - Sewell (Toby) Fry

10 by Chair John Neely

11 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Join me in offering our newest

12 Commissioner. A warm welcome to Toby Fry our newest

13 Commission. Toby has had a --

14 (Applause)

15 CHAIRMAN NEELY: -- long interest in fishing.

16 Including aquiculture in the Mid-Eastern Shore area. And I

17 encourage everyone to get to know Toby during the coming

18 years. So, thank you very much. With you and Charlie, Scott

19 Lenox, we definitely have some new blood on the Commission and

20 welcome.

21 Finally, we do have lots of issues. Many issues.

22 Most are dealing with water quality in the Bay and right now

23 with hooking mortality. I am hearing it over and over again.

24 But there is a lot of good stuff going on around the

25 State. Right now we have got with Program Open Space, we are

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1 purchasing land in sensitive areas out in Western Maryland

2 along Trout streams. There are any number of remediation

3 projects that are going on right now to reduce nitrogen and

4 phosphorus to prevent siltation and runoff. We have

5 construction of new oyster sanctuaries going on. And lastly,

6 the Bloede Dam is scheduled to be removed I guess in August or

7 September. And that is going to open up a 65 miles of new

8 habitat, new fish habitat, spawning grounds. These are good

9 things.

10 I have said it before, the whole country is watching

11 Maryland. I am very proud of the work we do in our Commission

12 and I thank you, all of you, for what you do. So, thank you

13 very much.

14 So, with that being said let us get into the

15 meeting. Dave Blazer, why don’t you talk about Tom Parham.

16 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Yes, as Chairman Neely mentioned,

17 you know, there is a lot going on the Bay and if you look out

18 the window you will see a lot of what has been happening

19 recently. So, we thought it was a good idea to invite Tom

20 Parham back.

21 Tom has been before this Commission a couple of

22 times to talk about what are quality influences on fisheries

23 and with what we have heard about the Freshet down on the

24 Potomac and some that we have seen there. We asked Tom to

25 come and talk a little bit today about some of the rain and

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1 the water quality, Susquehanna, the Conowingo Dam is looking

2 to open up a lot of gates in the next day or two. And some of

3 the impacts that that might have on the Bay. So, Tom, fire

4 away.

5 Bay Water Conditions

6 by Tom Barham, MD DNR

7 MR. PARHAM: Dave said to keep this brief so I am

8 going to keep this very, very short.

9 As Secretary Belton said, you know, the State of

10 Maryland and also Maryland DNR, you know, cares a lot about

11 the Bay and is working hard to restore it. What our group

12 does is we have a monitoring group. We have 125 stations

13 throughout the Bay watershed that we monitor monthly or

14 biweekly and some of them are continuously monitored every 15

15 minutes to track progress towards restoring our Bay.

16 Well, this information is also useful too for

17 looking at habitat conditions and obviously for this group

18 right here, you know, how does it relate to fish that living

19 here.

20 So, what I was going to do is kind of break this up.

21 It is going to be two slides, but it going to be before what

22 happened last Saturday and then what is coming up.

23 So, before last Saturday, you know, we are coming

24 into Summer conditions. Everyone remembers those rains from

25 late May. Lots of rain. For folks at the Potomac River flows

km 24


1 never even got down to normal. So, lots and lots of rain.

2 Right now, we are, before last Saturday, the river

3 temperatures were running about 84 degrees and the --- of

4 Maryland’s waters. Main Bay temperatures were just a

5 little bit cooker, around 82 degrees. But if you go from the

6 surface down to the level where there is no longer aqua-

7 oxygen for fish, of three milligrams per liter, that was about

8 80 degrees. So, there is not a lot of difference between

9 surface temperature and --- temperatures.

10 In fact when you look at all our --- information we

11 go out like two weeks, and we look at water conditions from

12 surface to bottom. The coolest water that had best oxygen was

13 at these Bay Bridge, Swan Point and South of Dorchester. And

14 those areas right there ---.

15 MR. GRACIE: I am having a little trouble hearing

16 you.

17 MR. PARHAM: Sure. All right. I will speak up.

18 MR. GRACIE: Can I ask you a question because I am a

19 little lost already.

20 MR. PARHAM: Sure.

21 MR. GRACIE: The 80 degree temperature only occurs

22 at low oxygen levels. That -- and it is higher than that

23 everywhere else. Is that what you are seeing?

24 MR. PARHAM: The surface waters are a little bit

25 warmer. As you go deeper it gets cooler.

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1 MR. GRACIE: I understand that.

2 MR. PARHAM: Bottom temperatures are the coolest but

3 fish cannot go there because there is not enough oxygen.

4 MR. GRACIE: I am asking you if the breakpoint for

5 hypoxia let us call it, as the breakpoint, it is at 80

6 degrees?

7 MR. PARHAM: No.

8 MR. GRACIE: It is lower than that?

9 MR. PARHAM: It varies, depending on how the flow of

10 the salinity. So, right now the conditions where the oxygen

11 at the three milligrams per liter, most areas of the Bay it

12 above 80 degrees.

13 MR. GRACIE: In other words we do not have three

14 milligrams per liter at temperatures below 80 degrees?

15 MR. PARHAM: Correct but --

16 MR. GRACIE: That is what -- just making sure I

17 understood that.

18 MR. PARHAM: That is what makes it tough. I mean

19 because the literature shows Rockfish like, you know, above 84

20 degrees, that is their limit. So, it does not give them a

21 lot of bottom places to ---.

22 So, this was before last Saturday. And now we are

23 going to talk about since last Saturday. So, I am sure you

24 all have seen this. This is a rainfall totals for the last 72

25 hours. These numbers, this center thing is over 10 inches.

km 26


1 You can see Maryland got pounded and also the Bay watershed

2 got pounded too with lots and lots of rain.

3 So, this has certainly impacted what is happening on

4 the Bay. And you can notice that from the last couple of days

5 and the cool temperatures the Bay water temperatures, surface

6 water temperatures are around three to five degrees. So, that

7 is a good thing.

8 There is going to be more oxygen in deeper waters.

9 We had from like Saturday on and even -- I think through

10 Wednesday we had a small craft advisory, lots of winds going

11 on. So, those winds helped mix the waters. Drive oxygen a

12 little bit deeper ---.

13 Of course, you see all the rain up in the watershed,

14 Susquehanna is supposed to peak at Thursday at two hundred

15 thousand CFS, so we are going to have lots of cloudy water

16 coming down the river. These areas right here are -- all the

17 tributaries in Maryland and a big chunk of Potomac River

18 watershed is going to be having high flows for quite some

19 time. So, we will have reduced water clarity.

20 And ultimately when things start to clear up again,

21 going to be -- the water starts to clear up, that means lots

22 of food for algae. So, we will probably have another round of

23 algae --- coming after.

24 MR. DAMMEYER: Will that -- sorry to interrupt, will

25 that -- I image we will see as the algae goes up we will see

km 27


1 less oxygen again.

2 MR. PARHAM: Correct.

3 MR. DAMMEYER: I mean you may even have a crash.

4 Right.

5 MR. PARHAM: Correct. And the other thing that is

6 going to happen is when, the Susquehanna which provides 50

7 percent of the flow to the Bay, and that is pumping out water,

8 that draws in dense low oxygenated saltwater through the mouth

9 of the Bay, and those do not mix very well. That fresh water

10 and that salty water. And what will happen is when the algae

11 dies, and decomposing, use up oxygen, those layers will be

12 very tight. Will probably move close to the surface and come

13 up again, especially if we have clear, you know, prolonged

14 warm conditions, which would typically be in the Summer.

15 So, we have our monitoring folks out this week

16 looking at conditions. So, I guess you can flip to the final

17 slide. So, what we do -- is this information is --- to

18 myself, I said how can we use this stuff to help the folks

19 that are out on the water. So, we put together all our

20 monitoring information and set it up in formats that you guys

21 can use to help you identify what is the depth where the

22 oxygen drops out, what is the difference in the surface

23 temperature and bottom temperature to confine the cooler

24 water. Where the flows are occurring. Where the locations in

25 the algal blooms. What are the bottom habitat locations.

km 28


1 We put all these tools together so you can quickly

2 look through and help you zero in on your area. Like I said,

3 we have 125 monitoring stations. Some of them are, like I

4 said we monitor them every two weeks, some of them are

5 monitoring sites that are in real times. You can see

6 conditions in real time as to what is going on.

7 So, when you go to this, what we do is provide every

8 week, I will write a weekly forecast of what is coming up,

9 very similar to what you see right here. Except it will be a

10 little bit more detailed in areas, what kind of conditions you

11 are going to see. And then they will have -- allow you to go

12 to any of these locations and see the conditions where you

13 are. Yes?

14 MR. GRACIE: Will that be a click-on location and

15 then I would be able to get a very profiled temperature and

16 oxygen under that Spot?

17 MR. PARHAM: Yes. Yes.

18 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Wow.

19 MR. GRACIE: Thank you.

20 MR. PARHAM: Certainly. So, it is -- you can -- one

21 of the cool things above is you can see what -- when I talk

22 with Paul and I talk with folks in Fisheries and ask them

23 where is the fleet and where are they catching fish. You can

24 see like in the Summertime there are at that coolest water

25 than can go. And when you match it up with the monitoring

km 29


1 data, it fits in very, very nicely.

2 CHAIRMAN NEELY: What is the web address for that?

3 MR. PARHAM: Just look up -- click before you pass,

4 it is under Eyes on the Bay. Just do like Google and you will

5 find it.

6 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Okay. Okay.

7 MR. PARHAM: But is it, you know, putting together

8 tools for you guys to, you know, take advantage of, you know,

9 the monitoring programs and -- use it for more than just

10 seeing, you know, the conditions of the Bay but also to help

11 you guys catch more fish.

12 MR. GRACIE: I am embarrassed to ask, first of all I

13 did not know that was there. I am embarrassed to ask you this

14 question. How long has that been available?

15 MR. PARHAM: Since last July.

16 MR. GRACIE: Oh.

17 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Okay.

18 MR. PARHAM: It is part of the Maryland --

19 MR. GRACIE: I guess I had my head in a dark place.

20 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Well, we did have a presentation

21 here about this at the Sport Fish Advisory Committee to

22 introduce it. But a -- that was a year ago, I think.

23 MR. PARHAM: So, off line if anyone has any

24 questions, I would be glad to go through it and show you how

25 to use it in your areas.

km 30



2 MR. PARHAM: You are welcome.

3 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Thanks, Tom.

4 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thanks, Tom. Sir, you want to come

5 on in with the NRP report.

6 LT. NOON: Yes.

7 NRP Report & Priorities

8 by Lt. Brian Noon

9 LT. NOON: I think the stats for disseminated

10 everyone. In the second quarter fishing without a license was

11 the top citation getter. But also as many for undersized

12 Striped Bass and fishing in prohibited areas -- fishing

13 Striped Bass in prohibited areas.

14 Natural Resource Police are still surveilling and

15 saturating Matapeake, Kent Narrows and Hoopers Island area.

16 And still writing tickets there. And there are some -- and

17 that was also -- disseminated some of the bigger cases.

18 And one that struck my attention while surveilling

19 Kent Narrows, the bridge tender was fishing out the window of

20 his office and pulling in undersized Striped Bass.

21 (Laughter)

22 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Mack.

23 MR. WOMMACK: Yeah, I had a question for him. And

24 actually I -- can see if he can just do a little research.

25 Something that really concerned me, I was at Solomons,

km 31


1 actually I was at Brooke Valley and I traveled down to

2 Solomons. And one of the DNR police came up on me. And --

3 make a long story short, gave me a citation for not having an

4 approved life preserver, with ---.

5 So, he told me that you have -- you can’t be on the

6 water with out. So, we packed up and we went, we got on -- he

7 wrote the ticket. We packed up, we went and we got back on

8 land and went on up. I was going to go to the Walmart and get

9 one. But I decided to keep on going.

10 I got to Prince Frederick and the phone rang. And I

11 happen to look down at the phone and it was New Jersey number.

12 And I was kind of, you know, passed it on. But I answered the

13 phone anyway. And it was the officer from Solomons that had

14 talked on the boat. And he said well, I made a mistake. I

15 need to see you. And I said well, I’m in Prince Frederick

16 right now with the boat. And he said well, can you pull on

17 the side and I’ll be up to see you.

18 And my concern is, is this, I sat there 45 minutes

19 before he showed up on the side of the road with the flashers.

20 Now, he wrote the citation or the ticket and he said well, I

21 made a mistake. And I overcharged you and I put the wrong

22 stuff down.

23 Now, my concern is that, you know, as officers I can

24 worry about -- I can deal with it because I’m on the Advisory

25 and I can understand things. But I’m really concerned when

km 32


1 you ask people with boats to pull over on the side of the road

2 for 45 minutes while you come off the boat, get in your car,

3 and drive up to correct a ticket.

4 So, I’m just wondering what kind of training might

5 be going on.

6 LT. NOON: Well, hopefully that never happens. I

7 mean that’s the first thing, that they are issuing the right,

8 the right --

9 MR. WOMMACK: Right. Well, I’m going to give you

10 this card, maybe you can --

11 (Laughter)

12 MR. WOMMACK: Because he even gave me his card. So,

13 maybe you can tell me what is going on down there in Solomons.

14 LT. NOON: Well, that makes life easier having a

15 name.

16 MR. WOMMACK: Yeah, because I’m a little concerned

17 when you got a regular citizen sitting on the side of the road

18 for 45 minutes, while they got to wait for a ticket to be

19 corrected.

20 LT. NOON: I’ll get your name and number before we

21 leave.

22 MR. WOMMACK: Okay.

23 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Are there any other -- and yes,

24 point of order, if you do have a question, just put your name

25 tag up so we can recognize you. Got it, Roger.

km 33


1 MR. TRAGESER: Got it.

2 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Got it. Thank you.

3 MR. TRAGESER: One of the -- an issue that came up

4 at our Black Bear Sub-Committee Meeting dealt with the group

5 of individuals that like to go out in the evenings boat

6 fishing. And we had video of some Large Mouth Bass that had

7 been shot with a bow. I’m trying to find out whether NRP

8 really puts their eyes on this activity much at all.

9 LT. NOON: Where was this located?

10 MR. TRAGESER: I -- probably happened in a couple of

11 different areas, but I know it is more prevalent on the

12 Potomac, probably more than anywhere else.

13 LT. NOON: I know they are shooting Snakeheads.

14 MR. TRAGESER: I mean I heard people say at night,

15 because those boats are all outfitted with lights, it is like

16 a stadium --

17 LT. NOON: Right.

18 MR. TRAGESER: -- down there and those guys are

19 going out. And not to paint a group of -- with a wide brush

20 because I didn’t make this comment -- but a lot of these guys

21 aren’t out there to fish, they are just out there to kill

22 stuff.

23 LT. NOON: Right. They can’t shoot Striped Bass --

24 I mean --

25 MR. TRAGESER: Large mouth.

km 34


1 LT. NOON: Large mouth with a --

2 MR. TRAGESER: Right.

3 LT. NOON: Most of them, I believe, are snakehead

4 fishing.

5 MR. TRAGESER: Snakehead, I know there have been

6 tons of carp that have been fished and what not. But we had a

7 -- we had a video that showed bass -- I believe we have

8 extended an invitation to somebody from NRP to be at our next

9 October meeting.

10 LT. NOON: Okay.

11 MR. TRAGESER: So, I believe it is October the tenth

12 we have that meeting. And we are going to discuss it a little

13 bit more and I would just love someone from NRP be present for

14 that.

15 LT. NOON: Before we leave I will get some details.

16 MR. TRAGESER: All right. I appreciate it.

17 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thank you, Roger. And thank you,

18 Officer.

19 This next area about fishing license sales, the

20 Commission has repeatedly demonstrated an interest. And at

21 future meetings we are going to be talking about marketing

22 plans, ideas to get -- to promote family time. But getting

23 folks out enjoying recreational fisheries.

24 So, would you like to step forward?

25 MS. KNOTTS: Sure.

km 35


1 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thank you.

2 MS. KNOTTS: Sure.


4 Recreational Fishing License Sales

5 by Karen Knotts

6 MS. KNOTTS: My name is Karen Knotts. And I’m with

7 the Stake Holder Outreach Service Division within Fishing and

8 Boating Services. And I know we are already running a little

9 bit late so I will do my best to run through this quickly.

10 CHAIRMAN NEELY: You are doing great, Karen. You

11 are doing great.

12 MS. KNOTTS: And try and get us back on schedule a

13 bit. So, you all should have in your packet a copy of this

14 license sales table. I know it is really small and it is

15 probably hard to see. So, I am not going to spend much time

16 on it other than to point out that you have it and if you --

17 (Slide)

18 MS. KNOTTS: If you look at the far right column, I

19 don’t know if you can see it, it is so small, this is license

20 sales by calendar year from 2011 to 2017. And if you look at

21 the far -- the far right column from where you sit, that is

22 the percent change from 2016 to 2017. And all the two, of the

23 19 categories you see listed there are negative percent

24 changes. So -- they decreased by some amount.

25 Now, that is just from 2016 to 2017. So, it is just

km 36


1 one small amount of time but where we are bit concerned

2 because obviously in 2015, October 1 of 2015, is when Maryland

3 switched from calendar year license to 365 day year license.

4 So, we are watching it closely and trying to, you know,

5 understand, is there something going on here that is related

6 to the 365 day license, is it just a low period, we are not

7 sure but we are trying to keep an eye on things.

8 So, this table you have in your booklets, I also

9 want to point out that you can look on our website. And I

10 don’t know, Paul, maybe when you send out the summary we can

11 give them the link, you can get calendar year sales all the

12 way back to 2004. So, if you really want to dig into what

13 things have looked like for a long period you can do that.

14 But if we can move to the next slide, Paul.

15 (Slide)

16 MS. KNOTTS: This next slide is a graph that

17 basically is the same information, just in a graph form. All

18 19 of the categories that were on that table are not here,

19 just because it would be too busy. So, this graph goes from

20 10,000 licenses up to 120,000.

21 (Slide)

22 MS. KNOTTS: So, I kind of just picked off the top

23 license sales products so that we wouldn’t have -- we would be

24 missing a lot of the detail of the trend if I tried to cram

25 everything onto my graph.

km 37


1 So, you have that information though and we are

2 happy to answer any questions if you have any concerns.

3 (Slide)

4 MS. KNOTTS: These are again the top ten or so

5 products in terms of numbers sold. And you can see the --

6 obviously the -- I drew a line in here, the red line, that is

7 2015, which is when we began 365 day licenses.

8 So, we have got some declining that is happening

9 from that point. Again, we don’t know what the 365, we do not

10 know what is causing it, but we are keeping an eye on that, on

11 the trends.

12 And you will be getting the Sport Fisheries -- the

13 budge report that you guys get every year, has a lot of detail

14 on license sales and trends. And we will be working -- you

15 will be getting the FY-18 budget report probably this winter.

16 So, this information is meant just to get to your

17 request about some trends and obviously there are some --

18 there are current concerns here because as Secretary Belton

19 said and you guys are aware of the percentage of funding that

20 we get from license sales is a pretty critical part of our

21 funding.

22 So, anytime that we see our highest selling license

23 products declining over a couple of years like this, it really

24 kind of makes us think and we have begun a couple of actions

25 that will be -- I can talk to you about here in a minute, but

km 38


1 I see we have got a few cards up, so -- I don’t know which one

2 went up first. So, Dave.

3 MR. SIKORSKI: Yes, do you have a -- or could you

4 provide us a month-to-month analysis from the 365 and after?

5 I am curious if we see the same trends for when people fishing

6 licenses. And I say that because I think of my own

7 experience. Nothing changed for how I buy my fishing license

8 after that deadline -- that 365. So, I am just wondering if

9 we can see something from the day of the month point to that.

10 MS. KNOTTS: I think we can make that an action item

11 and we certainly do have it. We will just have to go in and

12 get it. And we did just lose Jonathan Manly, who was our

13 license guru. So, might take us a little bit of time. But

14 Paul is pretty proficient with the database, too. So, yes, we

15 can make that an item.

16 MR. SIKORSKI: And will we get this presentation?

17 MS. KNOTTS: Yes.


19 MS. KNOTTS: Okay.

20 MR. NEMPHOS: I am a partner in a retail store. And

21 we have licensing. And I think we get fifty cents a license.

22 And for the work. And we take the computer and -- my only

23 question is, I mean it is great to have you come in because a

24 lot of times they will buy while they are in. But the other

25 thought was, have you ever thought about multiple year

km 39


1 licensing instead of annual?

2 MS. KNOTTS: That is one of the things we have been

3 discussing. So, it is a -- a point of discussion.

4 MR. NEMPHOS: It takes a lot of time. You have

5 people standing in line.

6 MS. KNOTTS: Yeah.

7 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: If I can interject. I do not want

8 to steal some of Karen’s thunder, but one of the things we

9 started to talk about internally and I think we may have this

10 discussion in October talking about marketing, is how do we

11 reverse this trend. Are there something that we can do. We

12 have looked at auto-renewal, you know, collecting e-mails so

13 we can e-mail folks back and get them to renew on line. You

14 know, how can we make it easier for people to do these -- to

15 get their license again. Are there other marketing things

16 that we can do.

17 MR. NEMPHOS: Do you take credit cards for license,

18 does the DNR take it --

19 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Yeah.

20 MR. NEMPHOS: -- because we don’t.

21 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: I think so, yes. Yes.

22 MS. KNOTTS: Yes.

23 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: So --

24 MR. : So, does Maryland.

25 MR. NEMPHOS: Maryland charges, too?

km 40


1 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Yeah. So, I think like the multi-

2 year license thing, you know, one of the tricky things is you

3 have to -- one of the things that we -- we are a small state.

4 And we use our license sales as a leverage to get Wallop

5 Breaux money from the Federal dollars, you know, from the

6 Federal taxes on fishing gear and so forth. But we’re a small

7 state.

8 One of the issues that we had earlier on was because

9 we sold the boat license we were only credited that as one

10 license even though you could take six people on the boat. It

11 took us a couple of years to do surveys to get an estimate of

12 how many were actually using that.

13 And one of the issues, I think, that has come up

14 with multi-year, we talked about lifetime licenses, is well,

15 Wallop Breaux only wants to give you credit for that one --

16 that license during that year and if you are fishing during

17 that year. So, if you buy a three-year license, are you going

18 to get credit for all three years or are you going to get

19 credit for it one time as you go through.

20 So, there are some things that have to be worked out

21 on issues like that. But, you know, those are a lot of the

22 discussions that we have started talking about internally and

23 I appreciated the Secretary’s comment about -- the individual

24 who no longer goes fishing but has been buying a fishing

25 license for ten years. I mean that’s helpful obviously for us

km 41


1 to be able to use for a lot of our programs. So,

2 this conversation, I think, is going to continue with some of

3 that.

4 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Karen, will you make sure that this

5 chart is distributed to the Commission?

6 MS. KNOTTS: Sure.

7 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Through Paul.

8 MS. KNOTTS: Yes. Absolutely.

9 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Please.

10 MS. KNOTTS: Yes.

11 CHAIRMAN NEELY: In no particular order, I am just

12 going to go around the room and recognizing our time, Toby,

13 you want to start?

14 MR. FREY: Just quick. Does the Bay and Coastal

15 sport registration generate money, revenue?

16 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Yes, but not Wallop Breaux money.

17 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Right.

18 MR. FREY: My question is --- registration.

19 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: He is asking about the

20 registration.

21 MS. KNOTTS: Yes. That -- no, that -- that probably

22 shouldn’t be on there. It is not a license product. It’s a

23 free registration but folks that go on pleasure boats need to

24 have obviously.

25 MR. FREY: That is what I’m talking about.

km 42


1 MS. KNOTTS: Yes.

2 MR. FREY: My question is if you look, that is

3 roughly a third today of what it was in 2011. But yet our

4 resident Bay and Coastal Sport, which is a revenue thing, is

5 up about ten percent in the same period.

6 MS. KNOTTS: Yeah, and earlier on those

7 registrations, when it first started, the Potomac River

8 Fisheries Commission wasn’t set up for the registration. So,

9 that -- the early year that -- the 2011 does include the

10 Potomac River whereas now that is not -- the Potomac River is

11 not in there, so. That big decline --

12 CHAIRMAN NEELY: I got you.

13 MS. KNOTTS: -- is a little bit deceptive.

14 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Okay.

15 MS. KNOTTS: For that one.

16 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Jim.

17 MR. GRACIE: A comment. I am looking at that chart

18 and I was part of a workgroup I guess we call it that started

19 a whole new marketing program for fisheries. And this was

20 after a long uninterrupted decline in license sales in

21 Maryland. And we had growth from 2011 to 2015. And 2015 was

22 the last year we had the full promotion.

23 I was concerned at the time about taking away that

24 marketing effort and I think somebody should look at this in

25 light of what has happened since then because the fisherman’s

km 43


1 challenge included a big event at the Chesapeake Bay at the

2 Seafood Festival every year. Had two -- a couple of hundred

3 fishermen, it had a lot of interest. And it got cut out right

4 at the point that the -- the inflection point is just past the

5 year when that occurred.

6 So, that is a marketing program we had. We actually

7 showed that it was working with results. And we eliminated

8 it. So, when you have your discussions and maybe this will

9 get said in the MORE Commission, David, that is an important

10 element --


12 MR. GRACIE: And we now have data to prove it.


14 MR. GRACIE: So, when that was cut out, this program

15 along with some other things that were cut, we should never

16 looked what happened as a result of that.

17 CHAIRMAN NEELY: We are going to continue to revisit

18 this. And we very much hope that you are going to come back.

19 (Laughter)

20 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Val.

21 MR. LYNCH: In round numbers what are the dollars

22 associated with those declines in registrations?

23 MS. KNOTTS: I am not able to --

24 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Do you want me to take that one?

25 MS. KNOTTS: Yes. I am not able to answer that.

km 44


1 I’m sorry. We can get that information.

2 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Just to give you an idea because

3 it is fresh on my mind, our numbers this year are a little

4 about where 2017 is. And we think that is about a million, a

5 million and a half below where we had budgeted.


7 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: So, we were hoping to see a

8 rebound, to come back up to a little bit higher but it is --

9 that dip from 2015 to 2017 is probably -- two and a half to

10 three million dollars. In our budget.

11 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Serious ---.

12 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Yes.

13 CHAIRMAN NEELY: One last comment. Dave.

14 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Micah is up. I was last.

15 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Oh. I’m sorry.

16 MR. DAMMEYER: Well, I had a question, you know, is

17 there currently any ongoing dialogue between tackle shop

18 owners and say like fresh water fishing guys. We don’t have

19 like a boat license but everybody fishes on there. And like

20 I’ve got to get everybody either to a shop or on-line the

21 night before to get a license.

22 Is there any ongoing conversations with people like

23 us about how to make it easier or a little smoother, to get

24 them in and out the door of a shop or say for a fresh water

25 fishing guides, to have us become kind of a go-between -- I

km 45


1 would be happy to go on-line a couple of days before

2 somebody’s trip and say give me your info, okay you are good,

3 you know, pay this one day fee or that kind of thing. Is

4 there anything like that going on?

5 MS. KNOTTS: I’m not aware. David, do you know?

6 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: There are similar discussions with

7 something like that. Again, internally we have kicked around

8 a lot of different ideas. In fact, just this morning we

9 talked about something similar.

10 MR. DAMMEYER: Yeah.

11 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: So, again, we will try and flush

12 through some of these and maybe come back in October with some

13 of the different ideas. But we are looking at ways to, you

14 know, take what we have, how can we improve it, how can we do

15 better outreach, how can we do better marketing, how can we

16 make it easier and more efficient so that these numbers can

17 kind of turn around a little bit.

18 MR. DAMMEYER: And I think you guys do a good job

19 because I travel. I have gone on a lot of the website, you

20 know, some of them are awful, you know, it is like you are

21 applying to like a building permit but it is fishing license.

22 Right.

23 (Laughter)

24 MR. DAMMEYER: Like D.C., Delaware, they are

25 horrible. I mean it’s like I wouldn’t buy that if I didn’t

km 46


1 have to, you know. But, you know, come on. That is how I buy

2 I fishing license, you know, everywhere I go.

3 And so I am sure Charles will probably --- if, you

4 know, you guys want input to come have coffee and chat about

5 it. Yeah.

6 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Okay. Appreciate that.

7 CHAIRMAN NEELY: On last comment, Ed.

8 MR. O’BRIEN: Yeah, two or three years ago I brought

9 up the situation relative to communicating particularly with

10 Hispanics so that they understand the rules, that they know

11 how to get the licenses and that kind of thing.

12 Fourth of July weekend I get a place down there that

13 I cast. And where they like to go to. Near ---. And it was

14 parents and about seven relations. And we just asked them,

15 you know, courteous questions, trying to get a feel for it.

16 And nobody could speak English.

17 So, do we have like so many entities do, like the

18 tax people, like brokerages, whatever, to where they have --

19 and in the medical industry, to where when we put out the

20 Rules and Regulations try to encourage people to sign up, do

21 we also have that in Spanish and -- I think we made a lot of

22 progress in all that. But still not seeing it.

23 MS. KNOTTS: We do have some. We have some signs

24 that we work with Natural Resource Police, I think a

25 Conservation Officers help us put out some big yellow signs,

km 47


1 that are very simple. That just say, you need to have a

2 fishing license, you have to follow the rules, anybody over

3 16. Just very simple. That are posted pretty -- pretty much

4 across the State. The signs are about ten dollars apiece, so

5 we can’t put them everywhere. But we have those.

6 We also have on our website, we have a Spanish

7 language page, which we are working on. It has size limits

8 and seasons in Spanish. So, we have been working with the

9 woman who is -- we have a liaison officer now that we can work

10 with who actually is fluent in Spanish and so we have been

11 working with her to try and get as much as we can onto our

12 Spanish page. And have that as a resource.

13 So, we are doing some cursory work to try and get

14 out there and make the information available so that we can

15 talk to the folks in their own language.

16 MR. O’BRIEN: All right. You look at publications,

17 you know, that are read by the Spanish and, you know, I do not

18 know what the progress is --- on that, that certainly would be

19 helpful.

20 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thank you, Karen.

21 MR. O’BRIEN: It worries me from several

22 standpoints, because I see a certain laxity when it comes to

23 safety on some of these little boats.


25 MR. O’BRIEN: And a -- anyway.

km 48


1 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

2 MS. KNOTTS: So, I had a couple more slides, if it

3 is okay, Chairman, to just -- okay. Paul, if you could.

4 So, I just wanted to run through a couple of action

5 items that were meant to -- things that we felt that we could

6 right away. In terms of reaching out to folks if the 365 is

7 the issue. And as Dave pointed out we can provide that

8 information on the monthly sales.

9 (Slide)

10 MS. KNOTTS: But starting in February of this year,

11 we started sending renewal reminders to people that just said,

12 hey, your license is due to expire this month. Would you like

13 to renew.

14 Everyone that -- whose license, recreational license

15 was expiring that month that we had an e-mail address for,

16 which by the way is a bit of a problem. We only have about 45

17 percent of the e-mail addresses. So, we are not reaching

18 everybody that buys a license. So, for those that were

19 expiring, we sent a message, then we sent it a week later so

20 that in case they missed it whatever, they would get another

21 shot at it.

22 So, next slide, Paul.

23 (Slide)

24 MS. KNOTTS: So, the reminder message, basically

25 this is what it looked like. It was just a renewal notice.

km 49


1 It is a reminder that your license is up for renewal.

2 Some of you may have seen these or heard about these

3 going out. At the bottom there you will see the tag line,

4 “Renew Your License Today”, and then it is the on-line license

5 sale Compass portal, a link to the regional service centers if

6 you would like to go there, license agents so if you want to

7 go to Walmart, the closest one, and then the phone number.

8 So, that message, reminder message went out the

9 second Friday and then the third Friday was the reminder.

10 Next slide.

11 (Slide)

12 MS. KNOTTS: And so what we found was the open rates

13 on the messages were 40 to 50 percent which is above the

14 industry standard for messages if you look folks who sent out

15 e-mails, even the people that subscribed. It is generally 40

16 percent is pretty good. And we’re usually up closer to 50

17 percent.

18 And for those who didn’t open the first message,

19 they go the second message. So, you only got -- if you opened

20 the first one, you did not get the second one. But the folks

21 that got the second message, the open rates on that were about

22 19 percent. If you got it the second time we had a pretty

23 percentage of opening.

24 (Slide)

25 MS. KNOTTS: The Office of Communications is

km 50


1 spearheading this effort. They are working with Fisheries.

2 They changed that message to highlight what is going on. So,

3 the little boxes -- if you could previous slide, Paul.

4 (Slide)

5 MS. KNOTTS: The boxes at the bottom here for the

6 resources, you can see there are actually a spot for four of

7 them. We got a little cut off here. But this one highlighted

8 the angler’s log and angler’s surveys. We have highlighted

9 crab, going crabbing. We have highlighted Striped Bass

10 fishing. Depending on the season, these boxes change. But

11 this message is the same to each month. Okay, next one.

12 (Slide)

13 MR. KNOTTS: So, the Office of Communications, I got

14 in touch with them this week and for the -- just as an example

15 for the May messages that went out, the message went out to

16 12,000 folks who had licenses that were expiring in May. Of

17 those 12,000, 2,000 of them took action. They went to Compass

18 and they clicked which meant they intended to do something.

19 And then of those who went to Compass 1,323 of them actually

20 made a purchase.

21 So, what that translated to in the month of May was

22 about 11 percent of the customers who received the renewal

23 messages made a purchase. So, it was a relatively easy

24 automated thing that the Office of Communications can do and

25 it got a decent return on investment.

km 51


1 So, they are going to continue to send these

2 messages and track what the return is, what folks are doing

3 and that is something that we can report back to you guys if

4 you care to know that. Towards the end of the year we can

5 give you a little bit more information.

6 And the second part there, seven and a half percent

7 of Compass’ total sales were made by someone who came in

8 through one of those renewal messages. So, pretty good

9 turnaround on those. And then I think we have one more slide.

10 (Slide)

11 MS. KNOTTS: The second action that we took was the

12 Department submitted a grant request to Recreational Boating

13 and Fishing Foundation. They had a grant program. We

14 submitted a request to upgrade our Compass licensing systems

15 so that we could be -- have the ability to offer auto-renewal.

16 So, that you could renew your license without having to

17 remember. Some people are on different cycles, they buy their

18 title at one time, their non-tidal at another, they don’t buy

19 one in a certain year. They cannot remember. It used to be

20 January you bought your license. Now, with 365 often folks

21 don’t -- they wait until they are about to go fishing so they

22 are not on the same cycle.

23 So, what we are hoping to do is be able to offer our

24 renewal as an option for folks so that they don’t have to

25 think about is my license valid. It will always be valid. It

km 52


1 will be auto-renew. All they have to do. Yeah, with a credit

2 card.

3 So, we got some details to work out, which we

4 discovered. We submitted the proposal and then we realized we

5 had a few details that had to be tackled before we could

6 implement. So, we had to pull the proposal but Recreational

7 Boating and Fishing Foundation is really interested in working

8 with the Department so we are continuing to foster that desire

9 that they have to work with us and the hopes -- in the

10 meantime we are going to continue to try to work throughout

11 internal issues.

12 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Karen, thank you very much.

13 MS. KNOTTS: Yes.

14 CHAIRMAN NEELY: I am pretty certain that if we

15 don’t have the worst on-line licensing program in the country,

16 we got to be pretty close to the worst, because what --

17 MR. : No way.

18 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Because when I go -- when I go to

19 the service center, and I ask the people what are the largest

20 portion of your percentage of your complaints, it is people

21 who are not able to navigate the Compass system. And when I

22 go on and I fish around the country and I purchase my license,

23 it is so simple.

24 It is pretty terrible and it’s pretty embarrassing.

25 And so I really appreciate everything you are trying to do to

km 53


1 make this system better.

2 MS. KNOTTS: Thank you. And we will continue to.


4 MS. KNOTTS: We will continue to do that.

5 (Slide)

6 MS. KNOTS: And the last -- I think the last slide

7 is just the next steps, maybe. Paul? Yes. So, we are going

8 to continue the renewal messages. And again identifying ways

9 to resolve the barriers that are in the way.

10 There is a Recreational Boating and Fishing

11 Foundation workshop this December. All states are invited.

12 They always get all 50 states. And it is a great opportunity

13 to learn what other states are doing. Some of the low-hanging

14 fruit we can pick, what we can do in Maryland and generate

15 some ideas. And with the marketing discussion that you guys

16 are going to have in October, that will be good, too.

17 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Karen, thank you very much.

18 MS. KNOTTS: And then the last thing is the Sport

19 Fisheries Budget Report, which you will get this ---.

20 CHAIRMAN NEELY: We are going to have you come back.

21 MS. KNOTTS: Yes.


23 MS. KNOTTS: Sure.

24 MR. : Will you take questions, John?

25 CHAIRMAN NEELY: I really prefer not to. And I

km 54


1 would like to defer that to the next -- thank you. All right,

2 Jim. Yeah.

3 MR. GRACIE: You got about an 18 percent return on

4 that renewal message?


6 MR. GRACIE: Do you know what the break was -- but

7 you probably don’t know what the break was between the first

8 and second mailing. My question would be why don’t you try it

9 four or five times and see whether you get 25 percent because

10 it costs so little.

11 MR. KNOTTS: We could do that. The concern was, was

12 repetitive, like getting people upset because we are sending

13 them messages --

14 MR. GRACIE: No, sorting the ones that you have

15 already gotten. Sorting ones -- do not use the ---. And do

16 that more times, because that is a pretty good return. That

17 was 2,000 out of twelve. That is about a sixteen and half

18 percent return. Thank you.

19 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thank you. And actually that is a

20 very good point. Thank you.

21 We are going to move on. I always hear about the

22 legendary Joe Love. Is he here?

23 (Laughter)

24 MR. LOVE: I don’t know about legendary but he is

25 here.

km 55


1 (Laughter)

2 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Whenever anybody ever talks about

3 Black Bass in the State, oh, Joe Love, you need to talk to Joe

4 Love. So, at our next session we are going to -- I don’t

5 think Tony is here, is he?

6 MR. PROCHASKA: Here, John.

7 (Laughter)

8 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Hello, Tony.

9 MR. PROCHASKA: I snuck in.

10 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Let me turn the meeting over to

11 you.

12 MR. PROCHASKA: That’s all right.


14 MR. PROCHASKA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

15 Freshwater Fisheries

16 by Tony Prochaska

17 MR. PROCHASKA: Good afternoon. I am Tony

18 Prochaska, Director for Fresh Water Fisheries. Unfortunately

19 I missed the last two Commission meetings. I had other

20 obligations.

21 And so for the new members, essentially every month

22 we circulate what we call the Freshwater Fisheries Monthly

23 Report. And it provides an overview of what we accomplished

24 the previous month. It is really meant to inform the

25 Commissioners that serve on this body of what we are doing.

km 56


1 And we often post that or we do post that on our

2 Freshwater Fisheries web page. And I get a lot of questions

3 and comments about our monthly reports. So, I appreciate

4 that. I would ask that Commission, if there are sections of

5 what report that they feel are valuable to the constituents

6 that you represent, please pass that information on. So, that

7 would be good to do.

8 So, a few months ago the Chairman asked me to ask

9 some of the staff at Freshwater Fisheries to present on Black

10 Bass and I believe that was a request from Roger. So, we have

11 two presentations today. The legendary Joe Love is here.

12 (Laughter)

13 MR. PROCHASKA: He wears many hats for Fishing and

14 Boating Services, but today he is going to have his tidal Bass

15 Manager’s hat on. And John Mullican will give a presentation

16 on some of the work management activities in non-tidal waters,

17 inland waters of the State.

18 So, with that we have a brief presentation and I

19 believe Joe is up first.

20 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thank you, Joe.

21 Freshwater Fisheries

22 by Joseph Love and John Mullican, MD DNR

23 MR. LOVE: Thank you. Best introduction ever.

24 (Laughter)

25 MR. LOVE: So, thank you for having me up. I was

km 57


1 given about five minutes or so to convey this bird’s eye view

2 of tidal bass fisheries management. So, I am going to do the

3 best I can in that time. And --

4 (Slide)

5 MR. LOVE: I am going to start real quickly by

6 telling you who is who in tidal bass. This is mainly a catch

7 and release fishery for the Large Mouth Bass in tidal waters.

8 Although we do have some Small Mouth Bass in some areas.

9 (Slide)

10 MR. LOVE: I have sort of characterized the anglers

11 into three groups. They have recreational anglers. They are

12 mainly shoreline anglers. Motorboat anglers and kayakers.

13 They access the Fisheries differently and they have different

14 needs and requests of us.

15 We also have several businesses that rely on this

16 Fishery. Some of them are charter boat guys. We have Black

17 Bass fishing guides throughout, not just the Potomac River but

18 throughout the Tidal waters of the Bay. We also have hundreds

19 of tournaments. Every year the vast majority of them are in

20 Tidal waters as well. And we have bait and tackle shops and

21 they range anywhere from Bass Pro Shops that kind of built a

22 whole identity around Large Mouth Bass. Right down to smaller

23 tackler shops like Earp’s Tackle Shop and Persistent Tackle in

24 Northeast Maryland. So, we got a lot of folks who kind of

25 depend on this fishery and tide water to make money.

km 58


1 But we also have researchers, students and

2 professors across the system. The University of Maryland

3 system and other universities in the State that use Large

4 Mouth Bass as a model for North American Fishes. This is one

5 of the most well-studied species in the country and as a

6 result we have a lot of people who like to target Large Mouth

7 Bass to further their academic careers.

8 (Slide)

9 MR. LOVE: So, we care a lot about large mouth bass

10 in the State. We have a lot of people who are targeting this

11 species and this has been happening for decades within

12 Tidewater of the Chesapeake Bay. Since it was introduced in

13 the eighteen hundreds in some areas. People have been going

14 after this animal for both food and for recreation.

15 But there are some very important cultural values

16 associates with this specie. I remember being at Maryland

17 Bass Nationals President’s Meeting one day and a veteran, a

18 wounded veteran stood up and talked about how valuable this

19 fishery was for his recovery. So, there is a lot of value we

20 can’t measure regarding Large Mouth Bass with respect to the

21 culture of it within the country.

22 I mention that it is about cultural value within the

23 country because this is the most widespread, Large Mouth Bass

24 is the most widespread species of Black Bass in the country.

25 Probably arguably the most popular sport fish in the country.

km 59


1 It did involve in North America so it is endemic to this

2 continent. We are very proud to have it in our waters.

3 Because it has evolved in North America it is also

4 in a lot of areas, a keystone species so a very ecologically

5 valuable in terms of structuring freshwater fish communities

6 and making sure that ecosystems remain healthy and do what

7 they are supposed to be doing.

8 Now only the ecological value, we also pay attention

9 to the economic value. Tournaments that depend on this

10 fishery bring in a lot of money. A simple four-day, I say a

11 simple four-day tournament, large tournament can bring in

12 anywhere between one to three million dollars. We have the

13 Bass Master Lead Series coming this week, that is a four-day

14 tournament, brought three million to Cecil County last year.

15 We will see what it does to Harford County.

16 We have a lot of small club tournaments. Hundreds

17 within the State every year. We don’t know how much money

18 they’re bringing in but over the next year we are going to try

19 and do some in-house work to determine that.

20 Last year we got the first handle that we have on

21 the economic value of recreational fishing for Black Bass in

22 the State. We identified the Upper Bay of the Potomac as the

23 two most valuable fisheries in the State. Of the 51 million

24 dollars that we estimated for freshwater fish anglers in those

25 areas, we are spending 31.5 million was spent just from Black

km 60


1 Bass anglers. So, we are talking about a significant chunk of

2 revenue just from the Black Bass recreational fisheries as

3 well.

4 (Slide)

5 MR. LOVE: The is very important beyond just, you

6 know, having a fun activity for recreational or business. We

7 have a fishery that helps veterans. We have several

8 organizations, several tournaments like the Paralyzed Vets of

9 America that depend on this fishery for communion, for

10 fellowship among one another, for hosting these Black Bass

11 tournaments and for interacting with one another.

12 We have organized youth clubs that depend on this

13 fishery, both in the State and nationally. These are bass

14 fishing clubs in high schools, bass fishing clubs in colleges.

15 Making it to Maryland to come fishing and commune with other

16 bass fishing clubs in the country.

17 Our fishery interacts on the forefront of invasive

18 species management from everything from preventing the

19 establishment of zebra mussels and hydrilla. All the way to

20 managing Snakeheads and trying to protect our waters from

21 their impacts.

22 (Slide)

23 MR. LOVE: Our folks, our fishery also address

24 habitat enhancement issues within the Bay which transcend just

25 Black Bass and help out for forage fish within Tidal fresh

km 61


1 waters. There is a very popular recent reef project that

2 Roger’s group helped out with in Smoots Bay. And at National

3 Harbor it is very useful and very actually very successful for

4 both grasses and forage fish.

5 (Slide)

6 MR. LOVE: We also have a sub-committee you guys

7 know, the Black Bass Advisory Sub-Committee and they are

8 addressing issues, these are just some of the current ones.

9 Roger will identify probably. That they tackle -- and these

10 issues like want and waste and user conflicts and water

11 pollution, they transcend just Black Bass. They actually

12 transcend into freshwater fisheries and perhaps all Tidal

13 fisheries within the Bay.

14 (Slide)

15 MR. LOVE: And, of course, the Black Bass fish

16 conservation ethic stated within Large Mouth Bass and bass

17 tournaments and kind of has transcended itself into fishing

18 handling care beyond those Large Mouth Bass but into other

19 species of fish like Striped Bass. So, the ethics, the way we

20 handle Large Mouth Bass to protect them has actually educated

21 a whole new class of anglers who fish for other things, other

22 than Large Mouth Bass.

23 (Slide)

24 MR. LOVE: So, we do a lot to try and protect that

25 identity in Maryland. And the way we do it, we have five

km 62


1 basic methods. We work with hatcheries to try and protect and

2 promote some of our fisheries, to try and improve them. We

3 work with recreational anglers a lot. Get feedback from them

4 on what they are seeing, how we can do a better job to meet

5 their demands.

6 Every year we work with tournaments, both large and

7 small clubs. We permit them. We work on their release boats

8 to make sure that there is a good way -- that they are

9 handling fish properly so that we don’t end up with fish

10 kills.

11 We conduct studies every year. These studies

12 include tagging studies. We are trying to address things like

13 catch and release mortality and ways that we can improve the

14 fisheries by again, by interacting with our angling community

15 and help to promote this catch and release ethic and ensure

16 that those fish are alive when they are released.

17 (Slide)

18 MR. LOVE: And every Fall we have Fall --- surveys.

19 We diagnose the fisheries. We determine if there are any

20 problems. And we try and remedy those problems, if there are

21 any.

22 (Slide)

23 MR. LOVE: So, this is some of the status updates

24 here. Just kind of briefly tell you using emojis. In the

25 Potomac River and the Upper Bay, those are pretty good

km 63


1 fisheries right now.

2 CHAIRMAN NEELY: I like that.

3 (Laughter)

4 MR. LOVE: They struggled, they finished struggling

5 in the past two or three years, but --

6 (Laughter)

7 MR. LOVE: This is emojis speak now. Right. They

8 struggled the past couple of years but recruitments improved

9 in those systems and that has benefitted the overall size

10 structure within the system.

11 Such that in the Upper Bay area we have -- again the

12 Bass Master Release Series is coming this week and we are

13 hoping that they can catch some really nice size monsters up

14 there so that we can promote this fishery at the national

15 scale, not just within Maryland. We got to give people a

16 reason to come to Maryland and go Black Bass fishing.

17 Gunpowder River and Choptank River are struggling.

18 Those are habitat limited. Gunpowder River has had some fish

19 kills recently owed to some --- blooms. We are working on

20 addressing some of those issues through stopping.

21 In some areas like Pocomoke, Patuxent and Marshy

22 Hope Creek remain pretty quality fisheries. They are not huge

23 fisheries like the Upper Bay or Potomac. But their status

24 hasn’t really changed.

25 And if you guys want some more information on some

km 64


1 of this -- on our status or if you are interested in where to

2 go fishing for Black Bass, we have a lot of information

3 available on line. And welcome -- or invite you to check out

4 the kind of --- bass program to access it.

5 That is it. Turn it over to John.

6 MR. MULLICAN: Thank you, Joe. It is hard following

7 a legend.

8 (Laughter)

9 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Do you have emojis?

10 (Laughter)

11 MR. MULLICAN: Joe did a great job laying out the

12 importance and the popularity of Black Bass in the Tidal

13 water, but that also transcends pretty much to all freshwater

14 in Maryland and really nationally. It is -- you know, black

15 because, large mouth and small mouth and -- most sort after

16 game fish.

17 (Slide)

18 MR. MULLICAN: Okay. So, what I am going to do is

19 talk about our managing Black Bass in the inland waters in

20 Maryland.

21 The Freshwater Fisheries Program is responsible for

22 managing our freshwater resources, fisheries resources, which

23 is a protection, restoration and conservation of those

24 resources. To do that we have to have scientifically valid

25 fisheries research population surveys and so on.

km 65


1 To accomplish that we have a decentralized

2 organizational structure that consists of five regions. We

3 have the Eastern Region which is all counties east of the Bay.

4 The Western counties are separated into two separate regions

5 or districts. We have West 1, which is Garrett and Allegany,

6 West 2 which is Washington and Frederick Counties. The

7 central region which includes a lot of the metropolitan area

8 around Baltimore. And the Southern Region which extends from

9 Anne Arundel County down through St. Mary’s County.

10 (Slide)

11 MR. MULLIGAN: To managing or our monitoring efforts

12 are the basis that management actions and regulations

13 proposals are made and we have a variety. It was mentioned

14 there Maryland is like a -- the country in miniature. We have

15 a lot of different habitats from far Western Maryland to the

16 Eastern Shore. And really the only waters in Maryland that we

17 don’t have Black Bass are some of our cold water streams. And

18 even those, some of them find their way in there.

19 In auditioning for managing for Black Bass we also

20 are charged with managing other freshwater, popular freshwater

21 species, and that our management efforts and monitoring

22 designs have to take into account also getting information on

23 other species.

24 We have also become more involved with the ---

25 species research and monitoring which I will mention how that

km 66


1 may impact Black Bass shortly.

2 (Slide)

3 MR. MULLICAN: Our monitoring efforts consist of

4 independent fisher data. This is data that is collected on

5 the resource itself. We used standardized scientifically

6 value surveys. It will determine things like relative

7 abundance, year class strength, size, distribution, relative

8 condition, growth and mortality of the fish population.

9 And then we have dependent fishery data, and this is

10 information on the users or the angler. And this is on angler

11 effort catch, harvest and that is collected through the

12 tournament permit system, the directors supply -- record back

13 with results of their tournaments. That data is meshed with

14 our independent fisheries data to help monitor transit in the

15 resource.

16 We also have an angler preference survey.

17 Occasional creel surveys and the on-line volunteer angler

18 survey.

19 (Slide)

20 MR. MULLICAN: As Joe mentioned the economic value

21 of Black Bass, large and Small Mouth Bass, this is partly

22 because there is really is no water that doesn’t have bass in

23 Maryland pretty much. So, they are available to almost

24 everyone. They are an exciting game fish. And the recent

25 angler preference survey in 2016 revealed that 70 percent of

km 67


1 fishing trips by freshwater anglers targeted bass. And based

2 on the average expenditure per trip, that resulted in a very

3 large economic impact in almost $150 million.

4 (Slide)

5 MR. MULLICAN: To monitor the Black Bass fisheries

6 and impoundments and really our other species as well, we have

7 adopted a standardized survey based on a lot of the

8 methodologies from the American Fisheries Society, the

9 Fisheries Technique Standardization Committee, these surveys

10 are used to generate population indices and it is the basis

11 again for our regulations or management actions.

12 This standardized procedure allows us to make

13 comparisons both within Maryland and also within the eco-

14 region that we are in, the Eco-Region 8, as well as nationally

15 because the methodologies are similar and for those

16 comparisons.

17 We use in the impoundment a systematic method of

18 allocation where we have both a systematic and a random

19 component to it which insures that we don’t sample the same

20 sites each time, but we are able to sample sites that

21 incorporate all areas of the reservoir. And the number of

22 sample sites that shows is based on previous sampling data and

23 we try to have a precision of up around 15 percent for

24 relative standard areas.

25 And sometimes we have to compromise with -- and --

km 68


1 this method allows us to get data from both Black Bass species

2 as well as some of the other king fish species without

3 stratifying.

4 (Slide)

5 MR. MULLICAN: Although we sample a large number of

6 waters, more than a hundred impoundments and major rivers, I

7 am just going to talk about a few of them here to get an idea

8 of how we go about doing that.

9 Deep Creek Lake this year is the electro-fishing

10 survey sites for Deep Creek Lake. And the seining sites.

11 Seining is used get -- to collect --- juveniles and we get an

12 index of year class strength from that.

13 The electro-fishing sites historically have been

14 fixed at 20 locations around the lake. Those sites were

15 established many, many years ago. And have been sampled

16 continuously. And we are now moving to more of a random site

17 generation for the reservoir and doing -- to increase our

18 precision we will probably increase the number of sites.

19 Some of these sites will be retained because it is

20 part of the habitat evaluation with SAV, the Parks have been

21 treating some of the evasive hydrilla and impoundment.

22 Another complicating factor for Deep Creek for those

23 who have fished it, and are well aware of the number of docks

24 around the lake, those are popular targets for anglers, but

25 they can also make it very difficult to sample the lake. So,

km 69


1 and those are in there for a pretty lengthy part of the

2 season. So, that is one of the factors that we have to work

3 around.

4 (Slide)

5 MR. MULLICAN: Deep Creek is the largest impoundment

6 fully within Maryland at 3900 acres. It has a multi-species

7 fishery which includes both cold, Trout species, cool and warm

8 water species, so we have all --- and of course, large and

9 Small Mouth Bass. It is a popular year-round economically

10 important vacation fishery. So, in addition to the Black Bass

11 the angler preference surveys that we have done indicate that

12 the -- for instance the Walleye Fishery is targeted nearly as

13 much as the bass fishery.

14 Again to assess the bass population we use and

15 annual seining survey during the Summer to get assess --- and

16 we use to fall -- both electric-fishing surveys to assess the

17 adult population.

18 (Slide)

19 MR. MULLICAN: Just to summary kind of the long-

20 term trend data, the Small Mouth Bass population, we have seen

21 an increase in the catch rate and proportion of quality in

22 larger size small mouth in the population. And a decline in

23 the Large Mouth Bass population.

24 (Slide)

25 MR. MULLICAN: The next summary will be for

km 70


1 Conowingo Reservoir. Conowingo is generally not as popular as

2 Deep Creek. You hear a lot more about Deep Creek. But --

3 Maryland anglers with a Maryland license have about 9000 acres

4 of the reservoir to fish. It is a great fishery for large and

5 Small Mouth Bass. Particularly for Small Mouth Bass.

6 (Slide)

7 MR. MULLICAN: Actually more than half of it is in

8 Pennsylvania, but through a cooperative agreement anglers with

9 a Maryland license can fish from the Conowingo Dam up to the

10 Hope --- Dam.

11 We have increased our presence on the Reservoir to

12 gain -- to get better fisheries data, Black Bass data for the

13 Reservoir. New sampling plan will include some June electro-

14 fishing surveys following the standard protocol to get better

15 population data on sunfish. Sunfish have been historically a

16 very popular target in the Reservoir. And back when we used

17 to have ice they were a very popular target for ice fisherman.

18

19 And then in the Fall we do our, every other year we

20 have a night survey to assess the Black Bass. We used a --

21 our random site protocol and we increased that to 30 sites.

22 And in order to get those sites done and that involved a

23 cooperative effort between our Eastern Region crews and our

24 Central Region crews.

25 (Slide)

km 71


1 MR. MULLICAN: This is some of the latest results

2 from Conowingo Reservoir. Small Mouth Bass are more abundant

3 than large mouth. And some of the largest bass that we see

4 are small mouth rather than large mouth. It is pretty

5 atypical for most reservoirs in Maryland. There has also been

6 a significant increase in the catch rate of large small mouth.

7 And it has a very attractive size distribution with a lot of

8 fish between 13 and 18 inches.

9 (Slide)

10 MR. MULLICAN: And the last water to kind of a

11 different approach would be the non-tidal Potomac River, our

12 preference surveys for our -- fishery dependent data indicates

13 that the non-tidal Potomac is the most popular freshwater

14 fishing destination in Maryland. And that is because it

15 offers, you know, multi-species opportunities. And since it

16 forms our southern border for over 200 miles it is accessible

17 to nearly everyone on the Western Shore. So, there is a lot

18 of opportunities.

19 (Slide)

20 MR. MULLICAN: We have to use a little bit different

21 methodology for the free flowing river because the conditions

22 can be pretty unstable. And it is generally very shallow,

23 rocky profile. So, we can’t -- it is very difficult to use a

24 random site approach there because some of the access points

25 are more than 14 miles apart. And it is just not navigable

km 72


1 for most of the time that we are doing the surveys.

2 (Slide)

3 MR. MULLICAN: So, we have established a number of

4 fixed sites that we survey annually in the fall. And well as

5 a number of fixed sites that we use the seining survey.

6 Some of the trends we have seen here, typically for

7 river systems and for bass fisheries in generally is a highly

8 variable reproduction, which you can see here are -- highest

9 year class or strongest year class occurred in 2007. But

10 since then we have not had any dominate year classes. And you

11 can see we had a couple that are right around the long-term

12 median with some very low year classes

13 (Slide)

14 MR. MULLICAN: The main cause for low year class,

15 the poor year class, for survival, of young small mouth is the

16 river flow in the springtime.

17 (Slide)

18 MR. MULLICAN: This graph here shows 2007 when we

19 had the record hatch. It shows, you know, very curly high

20 water and then a gradual decease in flow. Very stable

21 conditions. Lot of spawning opportunity for the fish. And

22 then through June, the juvenile fish had good opportunity for

23 survival and growth.

24 (Slide)

25 MR. MULLICAN: Compare that with this year, which

km 73


1 isn’t done yet apparently, and this would be the average flow

2 for the year and you can see how this graph kind of mirrors

3 what the average flow for the year would be. And this what we

4 have this year. And this might be the first year since the

5 seining survey was initiated in 1975 that flows may not be

6 conducive to even conduct the seining survey this year.

7 But nevertheless we assume that the year class will

8 be extremely poor this year.

9 (Slide)

10 MR. MULLICAN: And this is what that looks like.

11 This is over a hundred thousand CFS on the upper Potomac and

12 the structures in the center of the river, those are old

13 bridge abutments for any old railroad trestle that are more

14 than 20 feet high.

15 (Slide)

16 MR. MULLICAN: One thing that was related to flow

17 that was kind of interesting that looking back is how climate

18 change maybe effecting the ability of and changing the

19 horologic conditions in the river and reproduction, alters in

20 water temperature can alter species ranges, community

21 composition. We have already started to see this through the

22 results of our seining survey, where Large Mouth Bass are

23 becoming more common in the lower portions of the river.

24 And also the change in the horologic regime can

25 impact fish spawning time. For instance Small Mouth Bass.

km 74


1 (Slide)

2 MR. MULLICAN: This is the date of the maximum flow

3 in the river. And obviously it is quite variable from year to

4 year. But going back from 1895 you can see that the trend is

5 a trend for the maximum flow to move later into the year.

6 Where that now corresponds with the beginning of May. Bass in

7 the river generally start spawning and on the bed around May

8 5th to May 10th, in that time frame.

9 And then this also shows the corresponding average

10 monthly flows for May going back to 1895. And you can see

11 also that there is quite a bit of variability. But the trend,

12 the long-term trend has been for increasing flows in May.

13 So, that is something unfortunately that we are

14 contending with and this year is a perfect example of that.

15 (Slide)

16 MR. MULLICAN: Another issue that we are going to

17 have that might effect Black Bass on the river is flathead

18 catfish. In recent years their numbers have increased

19 dramatically. We are trying to get a handle now on, you know,

20 looking at their diet, their growth and how they may impact

21 the other ecology of the river and other fish species in the

22 river. So, they are another factor that we are going to have

23 to be dealing with.

24 And unfortunately years like this that impact

25 reproduction of bass don’t really impact the reproduction of

km 75


1 flathead catfish. It actually probably provides them with

2 greater opportunities to spawn since they are cavity spawners

3 and there is more, with the higher flows there are more

4 cavities available to them.

5 (Slide)

6 MR. MULLICAN: This shows just our long-term trend

7 data for Small Mouth Bass in the Upper Potomac. Over the last

8 decade these are measures of size, distribution and their

9 catch rate. And basically you can see here that our last

10 year’s data, in spite of some of the recent poor production,

11 we are still seeing the proportion of large fish in the

12 population and the catch rate of larger bass in the population

13 is at or slight above the mean for the last decade.

14 (Slide)

15 MR. MULLICAN: And this is shown by -- this is our

16 electro-fish and catch rate for Small Mouth Bass, 14 inches or

17 greater going back to 1985. And you can see that there has

18 been improvements in that.

19 (Slide)

20 MR. MULLICAN: And last Fall we collected the

21 largest Small Mouth Bass that we collected during electro-

22 fishing surveys in the river and that was just the fish at the

23 bottom which was 22 and a half inches Small Mouth Bass.

24 (Slide)

25 MR. MULLICAN: And that is just kind of a summary of

km 76


1 some of the waters that we sampled --


3 MR. MULLICAN: -- by no means all of them.

4 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Questions.

5 MR. MULLICAN: If anybody has any questions, you can

6 --

7 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Roger.

8 MR. TRAGESER: We had basically, John gave us this

9 presentation at our sub-committee meeting.

10 MR. DAMMEYER: I got a quick one. On the flathead

11 catfish is there kind of -- you guys kind of mapped out a

12 range on the river where you are seeing it?

13 MR. MULLICAN: Well, yeah, basically it is from Dam

14 5, which is near Clear Spring, down through Washington County

15 is the highest abundance. They have shown up down at Edwards

16 Ferry, Light Ferry and I’m sure from those points further

17 down.

18 MR. DAMMEYER: Yeah.

19 MR. MULLICAN: That’s just population. It is still

20 in the center. And one reason for concern we do a capture

21 survey every five years on the river. And in 2011 at

22 Shepard’s Town we collected no flatheads. It was all channel

23 cats and the last time we did the survey in 2016 more than

24 half the catfish we collected were flatheads.


km 77


1 MR. MULLICAN: And these fish are getting big. They

2 are 30 pounds or so.

3 MR. DAMMEYER: Are you guys seeing them far down, as

4 far down as like the tide line or is it --

5 MR. MULLICAN: I would imagine they can show up

6 anywhere in there --

7 MR. DAMMEYER: -- the middle of the river.

8 MR. MULLICAN: But right now the numbers are really

9 expanding in the middle of the river. But they have been

10 reordered down, you know, further down.

11 But the difference between them and a lot of the

12 other predator species is just the size they get and the

13 abundance. And flatheads are more predatory than the other

14 catfish.

15 MR. DAMMEYER: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

16 MR. MULLICAN: It is something that we will have to

17 evaluate.

18 CHAIRMAN NEELY: John, do you see the potential that

19 the small mouth population could crash because of flatheads?

20 MR. MULLICAN: I have looked a lot in the literature

21 trying to find, you know, studies that looked at the impact of

22 flatheads on small mouth. And, you know, there is a lot in

23 the mid-west where their native range is. They, you know,

24 they do co-exist. I couldn’t find any direct impact where

25 they would cause the population to crash.

km 78


1 It doesn’t mean they couldn’t have impacts on the

2 population and reduce numbers either, you know, they may be

3 direct predators, I’m sure they would take advantage of it.

4 But they probably would impact because they have --

5 competition for resources.


7 MR. MULLICAN: A lot of the items that the bass

8 would feed on, the flatheads feed on crayfish and sunfish and

9 stuff, so there would be a competition for resources.


11 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: One more?

12 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Yes, sir. Please. Thank you.

13 MR. GRACIE: I get mixed up on locations of dams

14 numbers. Are they above Hancock?

15 MR. MULLICAN: I have not heard any above Hancock.

16 MR. GRACIE: So, you haven’t see them there. So,

17 weren’t worry about --- yet.

18 MR. MULLICAN: Not yet.

19 MR. GRACIE: Okay. Thank you.

20 CHAIRMAN NEELY: We have some committee reporting

21 now. And Roger, why don’t you --

22 MR. TRAGESER: Real quick.

23 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Start with Black Bass.

24 Committee and Workshop Reporting - Black Bass

25 by Commissioner Roger Trageser

km 79


1 MR. TRAGESER: So, we have -- we are going to go

2 down and putting up possibly helping to put a weigh station in

3 Leesylvania. Virginia is really starting to pick up the

4 pace as far as fish care for larger touring. And Leesylvania

5 had a lot of large touring. They are sort of the Virginia

6 small --- given the number of tours they run out of there.

7 But we have seen some very bad tournaments run out

8 of Leesylvania before. So, we got their attention, --- got

9 some revenue in place. We have --- Maryland have actually

10 been responsible for three of the stations that have been

11 built in Maryland. I have got drawings and everything else

12 from the last station that we built up at Dundee Creek.

13 Once we set up a date we are going to go down with

14 some of the powers that be down there, John Odenkirk from

15 Virginia Fisheries and scope that out and see about putting a

16 station in down there for them.

17 As I mentioned before the bow-fishing, we have some

18 concerns, especially after the videos that we saw, where large

19 mouth had been targeted. Whether it is intentionally or

20 unintentionally. They are not supposed to be. So, my request

21 to have an officer present in our October 10th meeting, we

22 are going to set that up.

23 We also had some discussion about creating a waste

24 law. Wildlife has it, Fisheries doesn’t. There could be some

25 complications with that if it is even possible, but -- we are

km 80


1 going to have some discussion on that.

2 Nick Nutner is the gentleman who -- one of our

3 members who sort of heads up sort of water quality habitat

4 department. He and Joe had talked about utilizing an

5 (Applause) called “Water Report”. I haven’t had a chance to

6 go and take a look at it. But Nick wasn’t at our last meeting

7 so we are going to talk about that a little bit further. And

8 I think I actually have the creator of that (Applause). We

9 have invited that creator to come out to our October meeting.

10 And then one other last item right now, and we can

11 move on, this is was something that was hot and heavy. When

12 we first started the committee and that was haul seining in

13 shallow water areas. Now, we had people from the commercial

14 fisherman come in and talk about it. And they all seine and

15 anything much less than eight to ten feet. Well, we got

16 individuals, guys on the river all the time, Potomac and some

17 Upper Bay areas where they certainly have seen haul seining

18 activity take place in waters a lot shallow than that.

19 While we would love to not see haul seining in

20 shallow areas where there is good grass beds or whatnot occur

21 at all. Where we are particularly concerned about is early in

22 the spring when grasses are just starting to grow back up and

23 these individuals go out and swing their nets around and pull

24 them in.

25 They are going to rip anything and everything out of

km 81


1 there. And if there are new grasses starting up, they are

2 going to come up, if there are beds that have already been

3 created and they have bass’ by catching in the nets, you know,

4 they can throw them back and whatnot, but chances that it’s

5 gone and that portion of these beds have just been gone.

6 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Have you spoken to the Fisheries

7 biologists from DNR about this?

8 MR. TRAGESER: Well, you mean as far as the impact,

9 per se?

10 CHAIRMAN NEELY: And are they concerned?

11 MR. TRAGESER: No, I think -- see, I think that is

12 where part of the probably is. I think --

13 CHAIRMAN NEELY:

14 MR. TRAGESER: -- this is an observation which is

15 pretty detrimental to the population possibly. But we haven’t

16 really done any studies on it.


18 MR. TRAGESER: The concern -- the Department action

19 is negligible because haul seining is one activity that the

20 Department of Natural Resources does not have any control of.

21 That is basically done on a county-by-county basis.

22 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Perhaps you could follow-up.

23 MR. TRAGESER: Oh, we are.

24 CHAIRMAN NEELY: And then come back at a future

25 meeting with a report.

km 82


1 MR. TRAGESER: That is on our agenda for October.

2 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Be great.

3 MR. TRAGESER: We go in a little further than that.


5 MR. TRAGESER: Okay. That’s it.


7 MR. TRAGESER: Sure.

8 CHAIRMAN NEELY: You know, your sub-committee meets

9 regularly and thank you for all you do.

10 MR. TRAGESER: Oh. My pleasure, our pleasure.

11 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Did you have a question, Steve?

12 MR. LAY: I did if you could take questions.

13 CHAIRMAN NEELY: We will take one question.

14 MR. LAY: Just to comment, if you are looking to

15 look in haul seining there were actually films made of haul

16 seines made on the Susquehanna Flats back when it was a

17 Rockfish issue. And the haul seines did not bother the grass

18 beds.

19 MR. TRAGESER: Well, my understanding is when we saw

20 those films, those films were made in like July or August.

21 So, we had grass beds that were already well-established. And

22 that is probably the case.

23 With a well-established grass bed that is already

24 out there, as those nets go through, this concern is really

25 new established, new season grass beds where the grass is just

km 83


1 coming up, whether or not we are -- and we have had propel

2 report where they can see where there is, you know, bits and

3 chucks of grass that has just come up.

4 It is more a real shallow -- and plus, I think they

5 were haul seining in, again eight to ten feet of water.

6 MR. LAY: No such water on the Susquehanna Flats.

7 They have to wade round their nets.

8 MR. TRAGESER: Well --

9 MR. LAY: At waist deep when they do this.

10 MR. TRAGESER: -- this is where the confusion comes

11 in because we got information from watermen that showed up at

12 one of our early sub-committee meetings telling us this, that

13 and the other. Oh, we don’t do any shallow water haul

14 seining. And we have people out there that see it happening.

15 And we are concerned about it, because obviously

16 there are things that are happening that aren’t being reported

17 to the --

18 MR. LAY: Yeah, I was part of that Susquehanna Flats

19 --

20 CHAIRMAN NEELY: All right. Thank you, Rod. Thank

21 you. But please do follow-up.

22 MR. TRAGESER: Oh, we are following up.

23 CHAIRMAN NEELY: All right. Thank you. Dave Blazer

24 is going to take over. This just this next section on the

25 handouts.

km 84


1 Handouts

2 by Chairman Dave Blazer

3 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Yeah, what we have talked about

4 doing is we’ve sent all these handouts from all the

5 workgroups. We’ve tried to get the information of what

6 happens at the workgroups to you all early, because there is

7 some information in there.

8 So, what we would like to do is send you those

9 handouts. Have you read them. And if you have questions when

10 we come to the meeting, instead of kind of rehashing or

11 repeating a lot of those.

12 So, like the penalty workgroup, if there are some

13 specifics, because a lot of the things that come out of these

14 workgroups if they are specific recommendations or issues we

15 are going to bring them to you automatically. But sometimes

16 the handouts are just the discussion. We are pressed for time

17 most of the time anyway.

18 So, we felt let us just send the minutes and the

19 handouts saying what these workgroups are discussing instead

20 of taking time here until we get a proposal or something

21 specific.

22 So, for example like the penalty workgroup, the

23 oyster advisory committee, the aquiculture coordinating

24 council, you know, there are a lot of discussions going on at

25 those meetings, but there is really nothing to really report

km 85


1 out as we go through.

2 So, the only that, you know, I really wanted to

3 report out was the Blue Crab and industry workgroup that we

4 met. You know, we presented the winter dredge survey results

5 to the workgroup, where it is basically to hold the status quo

6 on the Blue Crab fishery, for the female Blue Crab fishery.

7 We met with the workgroup. Their recommendation was to keep

8 kind of the status quo but to extend by ten days, but reduce

9 the bushel limits for a conservation equivalent process as you

10 go through.

11 That was the recommendation of the industry

12 workgroup. We are going to take that to Tidal Fish on

13 Thursday. So, we just wanted to report that out that that is

14 probably the approach we are going to take as we go forward

15 with Blue Crabs based on the winter dredge survey. That was

16 pretty much the consensus of the group.

17 And then I guess the last thing is the MORE

18 Commission. The Secretary was here, referenced that pretty

19 well. David Sutherland, one of your members is on that

20 commission. And Kelly, who is here, is one of the staffers,

21 if you have any more commissions about -- any more questions

22 about the MORE Commission.

23 So, if you guys are okay with that process, again is

24 the --

25 MR. GRACIE: Who is the staff person? Say that

km 86


1 again. I’m sorry.

2 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: I’m sorry?

3 MR. GRACIE: Who is the staff person --

4 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Kelly.

5 MR. GRACIE: Hi. I did not know who she was where

6 she was --

7 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Yeah, I’m sorry. Well, Kelly

8 doesn’t work in fishing and boating. She works for Chesapeake

9 and Costal Services. So, in another unit within the

10 Department. And she is staffing that effort. And I think we

11 got a meeting with her to talk some of the stuff here in the

12 very near future about some of the fisheries related stuff.

13 So, again -- Kelly, just for your information,

14 Secretary Belton was here and did an introduction and talked

15 about a little bit briefly about the MORE Commission and what

16 they are doing, so he may have -- stolen some of your thunder

17 going on.

18 MS. COLLINS: I am happy to answer any questions.

19 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Yeah, we’ll see. Anybody have any

20 questions or comments.

21 MR. GRACIE: Last name one more time, please.

22 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Chow.

23 MS. COLLINS: Mine?

24 MR. GRACIE: Yes. Spell it.

25 MS. COLLINS: Collins.

km 87


1 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Oh.

2 MS. COLLINS: C-o-l-l-i-n-s.

3 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Okay.

4 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Is there anybody here who serves

5 on the Oyster Advisory Commission? Has -- I am just curious,

6 has the Commission taken position on the dredging of May-O-

7 War Shoal?

8 MR. : No.

9 MR. : No.

10 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Okay. Will they?

11 MR. : I seriously doubt it.

12 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Okay. Thank you. Are there any

13 other questions? Yeah, Mack.

14 MR. WOMMACK: Talk about issues, but I don’t know if

15 it is the right time to do that, you know --- right time to

16 talk about it.

17 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Does it pertain to any one of these

18 handouts that we just --

19 MR. WOMMACK: No.

20 CHAIRMAN NEELY: -- went over?

21 MR. WOMMACK: Something dealing with the Lower Bay.


23 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: I think that is on the next page.



km 88


1 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: We will get there.

2 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thanks, Mack. And Dave, do you

3 want to introduce Jim Uphoff.

4 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Yeah, one of the initiatives that

5 is going on is looking at forage fish, not only here in

6 Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay but also on the Coast. And we

7 have asked Jim Uphoff from Fishing and Boating Services to

8 come and talk about some of the work that he and his group are

9 looking at some of the forage issues and information that we

10 have. So, Jim, if you want to --

11 Forage Fish Index

12 by Jim Uphoff, MD DNR

13 MR. UPHOFF: Yes. Okay. I’m Jim Uphoff. I’m the

14 manager of what is called the Fish Habitat and Ecosystem

15 Program. I probably -- the times I have been here before it

16 has all been kind of habitat stuff, so this is from the

17 ecosystem.

18 And essentially -- well, been working on a forage

19 indicted for Maryland’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay. And it

20 is a response -- well, to the Chesapeake Bay Agreement that

21 they have actually two forage goals. One is very expansive

22 trying to do multiple predators and a whole big bunch of prey.

23 This is something a little more focused with the hope that,

24 you know, that maybe by starting small things can build rather

25 than trying to do it all at once. So, that is kind of the

km 89


1 idea behind this. Go ahead, Paul.

2 (Slide)

3 MR. UPHOFF: And so what is -- and this is like the

4 probably ten slides overview of, you know, what was a twenty-

5 something slide presentation that started out as a sixty-

6 something slide presentation. So, we are rolling through this

7 thing. I know there will be questions. And at the end, I --

8 you know, anyway I am more than happy to further discussions

9 later, maybe just make that offer again right at the end.

10 So, the indicator approach. Well, why would you

11 pick Rockfish. They’re obviously Maryland’s State fish.

12 They’re really important to our fisheries. They are our main

13 year-round predator. They eat a wide variety of diet items.

14 And there has been concern over the years about the lack of

15 forage and their health, disease outbreaks, lesion outbreaks,

16 things like that.

17 So, the idea here is to basically assess the major

18 forage for Striped Bass and the also how well they’re doing.

19 What’s their condition, how well are they surviving.

20 So, this was actually, I don’t know, we have a

21 workshop down in Solomons, this was the question that Lynn

22 asked that was incredibly concise. It was how much forage is

23 there and is it enough. So, that is kind of what we’re trying

24 to at least lay out here is something that is hopefully

25 understandable and kind of gets things rolling as far as

km 90


1 working on these kinds of concerns in a marine environment.

2 These are often questions that are asked of

3 freshwater management but for some reason in marine management

4 we kind of neglected it and there is a big more towards it.

5 (Slide)

6 MR. UPHOFF: So, the major forage for Rockfish based

7 on past studies are Menhaden, Spot, Bay Anchovies and Blue

8 Crab. That is by diet weight, that is about 90 percent of

9 what they eat. They eat a bunch of other things, too, and

10 some other food is important in episodes, but on average these

11 have been the things that have been identified in diet studies

12 all the way back into the nineteen thirties.

13 (Slide)

14 MR. UPHOFF: We are using existing surveys and

15 existing data as much as possible. We have to keep the cost

16 low. We did add some diet sampling from one project that does

17 fish health stuff. They are already collecting lots of fish,

18 killing them, anyway we can get the diet information from.

19 We have five indicators and we’re trying to

20 summarize it with one final score. And this isn’t etched in

21 stone. These are not the Ten Commandments. They can be

22 chanced and improved over time and is part of the reason

23 bringing them here is just to see, you know, if this meets,

24 you know, fishermen’s needs and if there isn’t maybe something

25 else that we can add to it. Go ahead, next one.

km 91


1 (Slide)

2 MR. UPHOFF: So, the first thing and I’m going to go

3 through each of the indicators and then the score and a little

4 bit of other stuff. But this is the first indicator is the

5 condition of Striped Bass. I have a colleague and he is also

6 a good friend of mine, who did his Ph.D. work at the

7 University of Maryland. He did a lot of diet. Challenging

8 Striped Bass that had micobateriosis with -- by feeding them

9 and not feeding them.

10 So, he ended up with this really good data set and

11 did this really thorough analysis of condition indicators.

12 Typically in our business we just take the weight of the fish

13 and divide it by the length. And for Striped Bass that is

14 actually pretty insensitive. When they start the -- basically

15 the way you have healthy fish is they accumulate body fat.

16 And when Striped Bass use up their body fat they replace it on

17 a one-to-one basis with water. So, they don’t necessarily

18 lose enough, that much weight, but their condition might be

19 really poor.

20 So, essentially we are looking a period here of

21 forage conditions where on average -- where almost 70 percent

22 of these fish had no body fat. So, body fat, having no body

23 fat means you are vulnerable to starve. Doesn’t mean you will

24 starve. But you are at that last stage before you start

25 absorbing your proteins and things like that, that are not

km 92


1 good.

2 The target condition is down here at about 30

3 percent. It is based on some observations from 1990. And

4 what you are seeing basically is that these fish, for the body

5 fat times here, is 1998 on, started out in very poor

6 condition, gradually improved, had some years interspersed in

7 here where they had been in good condition. And they have

8 sort of have been -- really what has happened is it has gone

9 from poor to just kind of bouncing around up and down in these

10 being, you know, going from poor to good condition and in

11 between. Next slide.

12 (Slide)

13 MR. UPHOFF: Okay, Rockfish abundance. These are

14 resident fish. These are the fish that after bit females

15 spawn and migrate up the coast, these are the fish that stay

16 in the Bay. They are primarily males and there are some

17 immature females in this. We actually don’t have surveys that

18 collect these adult fish. But the recreational fishing

19 records -- survey that is done actually can give us a pretty

20 good indicator of the relevant trends.

21 This is -- used in a lot of different stock

22 assessments. So it is just a borrowed technique from the

23 Striped Bass assessment, wheat fish, blue fish and so on.

24 And so in the moratorium years, in the over fishing

25 and in the recovery, catches were very low. Dominant year

km 93


1 class occurred in 1993, recruited into the fisheries in that

2 this is not just harvest, these are harvested and released

3 fish. So, we talking fish basically that are two to five

4 years old in this pod of fish.

5 Went through a prolonged period of high abundance, a

6 drop and now we were back with two dominant year classes into

7 a period of high abundance again.

8 And the best, the fish are in their best condition

9 unfortunately when there aren’t many of them and when there is

10 a bunch of them, they are in poor condition. Next slide.

11 (Slide)

12 MR. UPHOFF: These are our foraging indices. We

13 have -- Maryland is blessed with some very long-term seining

14 records. And we also have some troll surveys. So, we have

15 seine indices for Atlantic Menhaden, the Anchovy, the Spot.

16 And we have a trawl surveys that do a good job with Anchovies

17 and Spot. And we have the Blue Crab dredge survey. And these

18 are the small crabs. Certainly times of the year Striped

19 Bass, a lot of those. They will eat bigger crabs. But they

20 have to be -- basically have to be soft crabs or paper-shells

21 for them to eat them.

22 Anyhow, the scale here is a one on this scale means

23 it’s average for 1989 to 2017. So, all these things are now

24 on the same relative scale. So, Menhaden this year would have

25 been about 15 times higher than they would be on average

km 94


1 during 1989 to 2017. As an example.

2 So, high forage period somewhere in the mid-

3 nineties, it downshifted into low forage with occasional

4 bursts of good years of forage. Next slide.

5 (Slide)

6 MR. UPHOFF: There is more to successful feeding of

7 predators than just the abundance of prey. There is this --

8 if you have enough predators and a lower amount of prey, the

9 predators actually get in each other’s way. It is kind of

10 like having a boat that can handle about two people and you’ve

11 got five onboard and they are all trying to fish at once.

12 Doesn’t work out real well.

13 And so they are all competing for this limited

14 amount of prey, getting in each other’s way and so on. So,

15 this ratio then of the forage index to the Striped Bass index

16 I showed you previously, gives you some idea of the relative

17 availability of prey that is relative to the amount of Striped

18 Bass around here. It is a little different picture than what

19 you see.

20 And this is during the period where we have our

21 condition index. And yes, there are targets and limits, but

22 two more lines on this thing just would make it impossible.

23 But this is essentially, some of the years where conditions

24 were particularly good would have been 2005, this is 2008,

25 2011.

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1 And particularly for Spot they bounced up and down,

2 but there is a period here where it is a little more abundance

3 in --- but this is pretty much all during this low forage

4 period. And then Striped Bass ---. Next slide.

5 (Slide)

6 MR. UPHOFF: Use the fish themselves as an indicator

7 of how much forage is out there. So, we get samples in the

8 fall. Fall is a pretty good time to sample for Striped Bass

9 for prey, because prey are well mixed. They are now out in

10 the water column, leaving the rivers, they are being fed on --

11 their mixed up from top to bottom and then the Strippers are

12 coming in there feeding on them. So, it is a very well mixed

13 system as opposed to -- it might have been in the Summer,

14 Striped Bass are just hunkered down, they are not really

15 feeding a lot. You are seeing prey on top but you won’t find

16 it necessarily in their guts.

17 So, what we are looking at here is simply the

18 percentage of the fish that are 18 inches and smaller, that

19 don’t have prey -- yeah, that don’t have prey in their guts.

20 This allows us to go back to a study that was done

21 by Ed Hollis in the thirties. One of the first diet --

22 probably the first published diet study in the Chesapeake Bay.

23 Some work that was, Jennifer Griffin did on DNR collections

24 from the fifties. This was a Ph.D. candidate. Somebody I

25 knew, good guy, Anthony Overton. He did a big study in the

km 96


1 nineties.

2 And this is when the condition was the poorest. So,

3 this, at about this point --- percent of the Striped Bass in

4 this study didn’t have food. We kind of used that as an idea

5 of, well, this is the point that you do not want to really

6 necessarily want to go beyond.

7 And so from the period where we have some diet data,

8 you are basically looking at quite a few years -- or several

9 years where you had these kind of really poor feeding

10 condition. You have also have some years where the body fat

11 index, the body fat target was met, body fat was good. So, we

12 have some idea that in the 20 or 30 percent of empty stomach

13 range, they have been feeding pretty well, at fifty-

14 something percent empty stomachs they hadn’t been feeding that

15 well. Next slide.

16 (Slide)

17 MR. UPHOFF: And finally, this is just something

18 that is trying to get some indication of the relative survival

19 of fish before they harvest -- before harvest gets at them.

20 So it is a little easier to interpret.

21 And we have a -- the Striped Bass people have a kill

22 net survey in the spring. Age three males are very common in

23 this. It is a good index for their relative abundance. If

24 you take that and divide it by the juvenile index three years

25 earlier, you get some idea of the relative survival. The

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1 faction of fish that are surviving.

2 So, in this period here, which is our target period,

3 the relative survival is much higher than it is down here

4 where we have poor feeding conditions and -- well, lower

5 survival. So, we have some idea, your good survival here,

6 poor survival here and since then it has been bouncing up and

7 down. And these are fish that could be catch and release

8 mortality but it doesn’t seem likely that it is bouncing

9 around that much.

10 So, that is the world wind tour of that. Next

11 slide.

12 (Slide)

13 MR. UPHOFF: So, what we are doing now is you take

14 those indices, basically you assign them a rank, where one is

15 really low indicating your worst conditions, five is really

16 high, it’s you best conditions. You kind of take the -- so,

17 you have the various indices and you have the average. This

18 gives you some idea of what a summary of -- again, your worst

19 feeding conditions, your best feeding conditions and what is

20 in between.

21 And then you could look at these, which you can’t do

22 because I’m rushing through this thing, to get some idea,

23 well, what indicator is doing what. They were generally low

24 in this period and they have been much more variable in there.

25 But essentially when Striped Bass were high, their

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1 scores were very abundant, forage being low, scores were low,

2 it got better as the -- and then it got worst, again. Next

3 slide.

4 (Slide)

5 MR. UPHOFF: So, the issues with the indicator,

6 basically you can always find somebody to criticize your

7 sampling. So, this is somewhat opportunistic and it is based

8 on that hook and line sampling, et cetera. But many diet

9 studies are just, you know, built that way and this is what we

10 are going to be able to do for the money. It is a lot more

11 expensive to do it otherwise.

12 We have low forage contrasts, that is the Rockfish

13 are bouncing up and down lot more than the forage. So, we

14 don’t really know if it was possible to shift back into this

15 high forage regime, what this thing might look like.

16 There is a mix of responses of the indicators and it

17 is ecological stuff. It is complicated. You can’t see it.

18 It is not all occurring at the same pace. Some things might

19 take two years to show up. Other things might show up in a

20 year. Sometimes the responses are very immediate and abrupt

21 and not just linear like you would like. So, it gets pretty

22 complicated. Some of the indicators are going to be

23 contradictory, just because of this mix.

24 The Fall diet that we are using is going to miss

25 some of the other feeding that could be important,

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1 particularly things like feeding -- there are years where

2 polycletes in particular are very abundant and that gives

3 those fish a boost in the spring that carries over into the

4 fall. Their condition will actually be better than might be

5 indicated by foraging indices.

6 And forage availability does not necessarily mean

7 the same thing as forage abundance. For one thing fish

8 actually -- well, they learn. They are not robots. They

9 figure things out a little bit. If it is successful then they

10 are going to repeat it. If it is not successful they are

11 going to die. So, it is an evolutionary thing that basically

12 makes them more flexible, more efficient than just being

13 indicated by the abundance of a prey alone.

14 And for the smaller fish the six of Spot and

15 Menhaden, can be a big issue. If they are too big they can’t

16 feed on them. If they’re small they actually do very well.

17 This is something that happened with the 2011 year class. In

18 2014 it should have been a lot worse than it was, but there

19 were in particular both Menhaden -- well, Menhaden were small

20 enough that they could handle and were at least where these

21 samples were drawn from they did very well.

22 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Jim, please leave time for

23 questions. Because I --

24 MR. UPHOFF: I am but if I don’t speed through this

25 then you won’t get any --

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1 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Yeah, but I know there are going to

2 be a lot of questions.

3 MR. UPHOFF: Okay. Next slide. I think this is the

4 last one.

5 (Slide)

6 MR. UPHOFF: And these are management costs. They

7 were not policy statements or anything but if you are going

8 into this world of now broadening your management beyond

9 regulating fishermen and their harvest, you start to think

10 about some of these things.

11 Our major prey are basically stuck at low levels on

12 the relative basis. They are not -- they are not high. They

13 have been that way for over two decades. The high Rockfish

14 population is a real popular idea but it may not be the best

15 thing for an ecological balance or forage balance in the

16 Chesapeake Bay.

17 Managing for abundant forage is going to be

18 difficult because basically the spawning stock doesn’t have a

19 lot of influence on how well they do. It is a lot of -- it’s

20 environmentally driven. Could be also water quality, et

21 cetera.

22 The harvest, the one option would be to harvest more

23 and smaller Striped Bass. But you got to get that through and

24 that is not an easy sell in any of the traditional management

25 arenas. But that may not entirely balance the prey either.

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1 There is not a one size fits all solution to all this. It is

2 possible that the worst conditions may be avoidable. But the

3 best are going to be hard to, you know, the best conditions

4 are going -- for the fish are going to be really hard to ---.

5 Suggestion both from what I showed you with that

6 relative survival and also tagging experiments that have been

7 done on adult fish. The natural mortality is increased. If

8 that is the case then these expected outcomes for Rockfish,

9 from low fishing mortality may not be realized because it

10 would be offset by natural mortality. And the next slide.

11 (Slide)

12 MR. UPHOFF: Obviously I am not going to be able to

13 handle every question or anything. I am available. I make

14 myself, call, e-mail, I will come talk to your group. I can

15 do a seminar. Bar Mitzvah or --

16 (Laughter)

17 MR. UPHOFF: Whatever you need, you know, if think

18 this is entertaining. There is a longer version on the

19 Chesapeake Bay website. I don’t know how the hell you are

20 going to write this down. I gave this to the --- kind of --

21 that is why Dave said okay. You only get ten slides.

22 (Laughter)

23 MR. UPHOFF: And so, questions.

24 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Questions.

25 MR. UPHOFF: Comments.

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1 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Yeah.

2 MR. LANGLEY: I have a question. Jim, based on the

3 presentation earlier that we saw with this oxygen, water

4 temperature and whatnot, these fish seem to be getting pushed

5 and concentrated areas --

6 MR. UPHOFF: Okay.

7 MR. LANGLEY: -- in the Summertime. How is that

8 effecting the forage fish or are the forage fish necessarily

9 being pushed in the same areas as the Striped Bass and if --

10 MR. UPHOFF: I can’t tell you that from this. We

11 would have to have diet samples. But generally in the Summer

12 from the diet samples I’m familiar with, I work with a fellow

13 named Jim Price for years -- he on his own initiative

14 collected something like 20 something thousand Striped Bass’

15 stomachs including sampling of charter boat catches off of

16 Tollman and so on.

17 So, the Summertime these fish are basically are

18 almost shut down, as far as feeding. They don’t really get a

19 lot of food. It maybe because it is not available because

20 again the forage is one place, you know -- on an evolution

21 thing it is not a good idea to grow up around where all your

22 predators are. So, they kind of try to keep separate.

23 CHAIRMAN NEELY: That makes sense.

24 MR. UPHOFF: But you also -- you know, things that

25 used to be real abundant like Spot, that they would feed on

km 103


1 all Summer, aren’t nearly as abundant.

2 In fresh water reservoirs Striped Bass can do very

3 well in poor water quality if they have a lot of food.

4 Reservoirs are pretty cool because they are like big

5 experiments. And there have been some, you know, work that

6 was done on that particularly in North Carolina where the warm

7 water temperatures and oxygen conditions and things like that

8 weren’t near as bothersome if they were like chock-a-block,

9 you know, whole bunch of Gizzard Shad, Thread Fin Shad,

10 Herring and stuff like that that they could feed on.

11 So, there may be a reinforcing component of this

12 that if the forage is not particularly abundant, you know,

13 they are going to seek out a place and just wait, try and wait

14 it out. And then when the Fall when the forage starts coming

15 out of the rivers or the Menhaden in particular, you know,

16 they will take advantage of it.

17 A lot of these -- some of the fish move out --

18 smaller ones move out in the Bay and feed on Anchovies all

19 Summer.

20 MR. LANGLEY: And if I can explain, the reason for

21 this question is, I know we enacted the regulation with circle

22 hooks and from personal experience circle hooks got hooked

23 less fish -- I am speaking personally -- from what I have

24 done. So, it certainly is a move in the right direction.

25 But I’m hearing still rumors of fish and mortality

km 104


1 being high and whether it could be because of these fish are

2 really hungry and aggressively feeding and maybe chumming or

3 techniques they’re engulfing the baits in competition for food

4 more. I am just kind of --

5 MR. UPHOFF: No. I understand. And I think -- I

6 was involved in the chumming study that was in the --- did,

7 helped him out on that some and I analyzed a lot of the data.

8 The deep hooking is one aspect of what is going on.

9 June is just a really, and July are kind of crummy

10 months for catch and release. Some of it might be because of

11 the difference between air temperature, water temperature.

12 You are taking a cold-blooded animal out of that water and

13 suddenly you are hitting him with a 90 degree air temperature.

14 They can’t regulate that and it just -- does them in.

15 One of the things I wished we really had done is pad

16 some indication of condition. We just didn’t think about it

17 then. You have to think about that these males in particular

18 have just exhausted enormous amount of energy spawning. They

19 come down, now they are, you know, they are looking to feed.

20 Some years they may do okay, get a bunch of May Worms or

21 sometimes -- I have seen them now feed with --- Rays, they

22 have like bellies full of clams. Maybe eat some White Perch.

23 But if that doesn’t happen they are already in a -- so, you

24 know, you got nutritional stress, temperature stress, oxygen

25 stress. Stress.

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1 And it is not necessarily the best combination for

2 catch and release, but you have what you have.

3 MR. LANGLEY: Thank you.

4 MR. UPHOFF: Yes.

5 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Captain Ed.

6 MR. O’BRIEN: Yeah, this a very good presentation

7 I’ve got a half dozen questions I would like to get into in

8 some detail.


10 MR. O’BRIEN: But I know we can’t do that tonight.

11 I won’t try to open it up to that. If you tell me you think

12 you can get him back on the agenda as we proceed through this

13 Striped Bass season, because we got a lot of questions coming

14 out of ASMFC people and they are genuine, they are really

15 interested, this hook and line fishery, has really brought us

16 to the forefront of curiosity. What we are doing here now.

17 And it has really opened some doors about how

18 interested Maryland is in conservation. And you have really

19 got a lot there.

20 MR. UPHOFF: Like I said, if you guys need me to go

21 someplace and talk at some other time, rather than just this

22 forum, I can --

23 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Well, I’m curious. With Captain

24 Phil and Captain Ed, did you feel like his numbers on forage

25 fish on the stock assessment, does that jive with what you are

km 106


1 seeing, with what you are observing?

2 MR. LANGLEY: --- one of my ---.

3 MR. O’BRIEN: I think it does in many ways. But

4 there are a lot of questions that come from it, you know. We

5 keep talking about reference points.


7 MR. O’BRIEN: And we were shot down at ASMFC in a

8 previous administration, simply because we didn’t have

9 reference points really defined. And they really didn’t think

10 at the time they really wanted to handle that. So, that is

11 something right now, you know, as in the last meeting, they

12 were starting to ask some questions that were sort of -- from

13 a couple of people, not a whole bunch because there was a

14 gathering of respect around how we’re handling this.

15 And so what I said is, hey, you all turned us down

16 when we were going to get into reference points. It seems

17 like reference points in the discussion that we are having

18 here --


20 MR. O’BRIEN: -- have disappeared. And now we’re

21 talking about other things. Would you agree with that, Phil?

22 MR. LANGLEY: Well, I think I mean Chesapeake Bay

23 reference points for to manage our ecosystem as in the Bay or

24 important enough, I think that is the direction that we

25 certainly want to give. But I don’t know how that is all

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1 going to play out in the next dock assessment.

2 MR. O’BRIEN: Some of those reference points though

3 are so key as he said, the male/female ratio and when these

4 fish leave the Bay, it is not the same very year, but they’re

5 two reference points that don’t seem to get into the dialogue.

6 MR. UPHOFF: What kind of is happening I gave -- a

7 few years ago I gave something similar to this. I’m on what

8 is known as the -- I guess we are the ecological reference

9 point group, trying to come up with essentially forage

10 reference points for many.

11 We had a whole slew of candidates approaches,

12 anything from simple indicators all the way up to ---. And

13 the composition of the group basically, they favored the

14 modeling approach. They felt like if they had something like

15 this well -- we can’t get reference points from that. Which I

16 didn’t --- Alexi and I actually -- we vigorously disagreed and

17 we lost. And I haven’t seen Alexi that upset. Usually he is

18 pretty good. We actually went out and had lunch by ourselves

19 ---.

20 (Laughter)

21 MR. UPHOFF: And that is real unusual for him

22 because he is a very congenial guy. So, there is -- but on

23 the other hand I think I made the point in doing that, there

24 may be regional aspects to forge fish management that don’t

25 show up in a coastal assessment.

km 108


1 In other words, you could have a problem here but if

2 you average it out along the coast, it doesn’t show up. And

3 so I think some of the people sort of, you know, got it and

4 that’s kind of the point behind this, is to have something

5 that you can say, okay, yeah, this might work pretty good here

6 buy, you know, we are -- we have a particular problem that may

7 not be well addressed by the comprehensive strategy that you

8 are trying to promote.

9 And, you know, the underlying causes and stuff of

10 this are not real straight forward. You know, we obviously

11 have undergone lots of ecological changes due to nutrients

12 and, you know, there is temperature, there is also some

13 climate variables and fishing and so on.

14 But at the same time okay, we do need to show that,

15 we got a problem, here are at least some things we do need to

16 think about and have a broader discussion than -- I don’t

17 think you solve all your problems by cutting back on ---.


19 MR. UPHOFF: I know you don’t.

20 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Jim?

21 MR. UPHOFF: Yeah.

22 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Your work is so fundamental to

23 recreational fishing and when will your next set of figures,

24 your surveys, be available?

25 MR. UPHOFF: Well, the stuff through 2017 we are

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1 getting our annual report done here hopefully in the next few

2 weeks. And for 2018 I got to wait until 2018 is over, because

3 --

4 CHAIRMAN NEELY: The point is when should we bring

5 you back?

6 MR. UPHOFF: Well -- if you are really bored --

7 (Laughter)

8 MR. UPHOFF: Every quarter.

9 (Laughter)

10 MR. UPHOFF: I’m happy to come -- it probably -- I

11 can generally put these things together -- or most of them --

12 we usually have most of the information available by the end

13 of November. It is not hard to put some of these things

14 together. You know, this isn’t a lookout ahead, this is a

15 look --

16 CHAIRMAN NEELY: All right.

17 MR. UPHOFF: -- a look behind. So, I can’t do any

18 better than 2017 right now.

19 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Right. Okay.

20 MR. UPHOFF: If you are interested --

21 CHAIRMAN NEELY: We will talk. Paul, Dave and I --

22 MR. UPHOFF: -- that is a good sign for me --

23 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Yeah. Thank you

24 MR. UPHOFF: -- and, you know, and a -- yeah, I’m

25 sure --

km 110


1 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: And if I can, Jim, and correct me

2 if I’m wrong, is just to kind of wrap this up, is, you know --

3 this is kind of at the forefront of the new frontier, if you

4 will, of we’ve talked about ecosystem based management, we’ve

5 talked about forage fish impacts and finally, Jim and his

6 team, started to put data to the real issue.

7 Is it conclusive, is it, you know, absolute? Maybe

8 not yet. But it’s a good direction that we’re going and that

9 is why we wanted Jim to come and give this presentation today.

10 This is part of the Bay Agreement. This is ASMFC and the Mid-

11 Atlantic Council, they are all looking at these things.

12 And as Jim has described, you know, he is on the

13 ASMFC, you know, ecosystem based management. So, this -- this

14 effort that Jim and his group are taking is really kind of,

15 you know, pushing and at the forefront of looking and putting

16 data to the actual issues.

17 I know when I was here 20 years ago, we talked about

18 all this stuff --

19 MR. UPHOFF: We’ve been talking about this for far

20 too long.

21 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Right. But now we actually, you

22 know, Jim has been able to take data and put graphs and try to

23 put some of that stuff together. So, you know, there is going

24 to be a lot more on this. This is kind of at the forefront of

25 some of the Fisheries management stuff we’re going to be

km 111


1 focused on over the next several months.


3 MR. UPHOFF: Whoever in 20 years hopefully won’t be

4 still doing this.


6 MR. UPHOFF: There actually will be some management

7 involved.

8 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thank you. Commissioners,

9 Commissioners, one minute break. Everybody just stand up, do

10 a stretch.

11 (Break)

12 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Commissioners, this meeting is

13 hereby reconvened, and Sarah Widman is going to come on up

14 with her quarterly report.

15 Policy Program

16 by Sarah Widman

17 MS. WIDMAN: Hello. I am going to be fast because

18 we don’t have too much to go over tonight. So, you have a few

19 handouts for us or from us.

20 (Slide)

21 MS. WIDMAN: One that is up there, oh, switching

22 around. It is ---, so we will do that first.

23 MR. : Okay.

24 MS. WIDMAN: A lot of it is housekeeping. I am

25 going to try to go through this quickly because it this is the

km 112


1 most substance that I have for you tonight.

2 So, this is Black Drum, this is the discussion, I

3 think that I want to say that Mike may have brought it up

4 before, it has been discussed at ASMFC. So, again, we wanting

5 to reopen the historical --- with Black Drum Fishery, which

6 in the Bay at levels that match up with this up, South

7 Atlantic States. So, we are looking for feedback on that.

8 MR. : --- outside.

9 MS. WIDMAN: I can speak up, too.

10 MR. : I have a comment on the Black Drum

11 thing.

12 MS. WIDMAN: Sure.

13 MR. : Can you put that back up? So, this

14 language we are looking at is what?

15 MS. WIDMAN: So, we are just looking to get feedback

16 on the reopening of the commercial Black Drum Fishery at

17 levels that would be in alignment with the South Atlantic

18 States. So, I think in here, that we were requesting to

19 reopen it at a 20 inch minimum and a limit at about 10 fish

20 per vessel per day.

21 MR. : And what is the time line on this

22 when you are ---

23 MS. WIDMAN: So, these ideas we are bringing today

24 to get any feedback you might have immediately on them. We

25 will take that feedback and these concepts and internally and

km 113


1 to decide if we want to pursue them, come back to the drawing

2 board on some other ideas and then we would go out to public

3 comment for two weeks if we decided to move it forward to see

4 what everyone thinks.

5 MR. : Thank you. I got confused because of

6 the ASMFC comment period that was ---.

7 MS. WIDMAN: Oh, yeah. Nothing -- until we get

8 comment from the public we wouldn’t make any decisions.

9 MR. : And just to be clear, there are two

10 separate processes. There is the ASMFC that we had to get

11 before we could start our process.

12 MR. : Right.

13 MS. WIDMAN: Right.

14 MR. : So, now we are starting our process.

15 And looking for recommendations. The ASMFC limits were kind

16 of a not to exceed, if you will, and that is what those 20

17 inch and the -- so forth. So, that is what ASMFC has approved

18 as kind of where we can go to.

19 MS. WIDMAN: Anything else on that one? Okay.

20 MR. : Well, wait. I think Jim Gracie --

21 MS. WIDMAN: Oh.

22 MR. GRACIE: Yeah, I just have a question. Maybe I

23 missed it and you said before. Do we have any way of

24 measuring the health of --- in Maryland so that we are

25 actually managing --- on something other than ASMFC maximum

km 114


1 limits? It is a migratory field, I mean it is not there all

2 year.

3 MS. WIDMAN: So, Black Drum is a costal stock. It

4 is managed by the ASMFC. This was put -- we put this forward

5 to the ASMFC because we are the only state among the South

6 Atlantic States, that is managed from New Jersey south, that

7 has a complete commercial large ---. We are the only ones.

8 So, this proposal was put in place to -- and

9 basically the reason that happened was because we had closed

10 the fishery with the intent that it would be -- well, we

11 closed it when we started --- study. The ASMFC took it on and

12 froze everybody where they are. So, we got frozen in the

13 moratorium.

14 So, to your question there is no specific state

15 management. It is managed according to Coastal reference

16 points, the like Striped Bass, like all the other ---.

17 MR. GRACIE: Thank you.

18 (Slide)

19 MS. WIDMAN: Okay. Anything else on Black Drum?

20 All right. The next few I will go through quick because they

21 are housekeeping.

22 (Slide)

23 MD. WIDMAN: So, there was a Bill clarifying

24 commercial licenses related to oyster divers and attendance.

25 And we just want to make sure that language is clarified in

km 115


1 regulations, to match the Statute that was passed.

2 Also, there was a Statute that passed increasing the

3 oyster recycling tax credit. So, we did some housekeeping,

4 fix up our regs to what passed there.

5 (Slide)

6 MS. WIDMAN: The next one was one that I will

7 probably talk more with the tidal fish about. There was a lot

8 of discussion on it. But essentially we had these equo ---

9 enterprise zones that really weren’t being used because we

10 kind of, things changed as we went through the aquiculture

11 process and kind of started that whole industry going a few

12 years ago. And so they were just kind of sitting there as

13 areas that weren’t very useful. And so we had some

14 discussions.

15 So, basically I think the concept that would be

16 scooped is to take the natural oyster bar areas and those -

17 -- and return those to the public shellfish fishery, the

18 commercial fishery. And then the areas outside would just be

19 undone from the AEZ and be open areas so that clammers could

20 be in there where they used to be.

21 (Slide)

22 MS. WIDMAN: Sheepshead, this -- was something that

23 the anglers had expressed concerns about the depletion of

24 Sheepshead in State waters. So, considering that we wanted to

25 scope of the idea of changing the creel limit for Sheepshead.

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1 So, right now they are grouped with a whole bunch of

2 other species in the Snapper/Grouper complex, which means you

3 cannot keep more than 20 of them a day or combo of 20 of those

4 species. So, technically someone could keep 20 Sheepshead per

5 day. So, we were thinking of throwing out some options for

6 folks to consider and give us feedback on, they are listed

7 there.

8 So, one would be four fish per day per person.

9 Which makes it consistent with Virginia. One of them would be

10 two fish per person per day, and that is recommended by some

11 anglers that have weighed in already.

12 Third one would be ten fish per person per day.

13 That is similar to some of the southern states, or we could

14 just not make any changes. So, those were ones we wanted to

15 go out and some public comment on, for people thought we

16 should go ---. Just comments on that one.

17 CHAIRMAN NEELY: I am just curious from Scott and

18 Beverly, any thoughts about Snakeheads?

19 MR. LENOX: I’m actually the one that brought this

20 up a couple of meetings back.


22 MR. LENOX: And before I brought it to the

23 Commissioner’s attention. We didn’t even know that it was

24 supposed to be managed by the State. So, this is a real move

25 in the right direction because -- we know it is a southern

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1 fish. We are starting to see it pretty prevalent in Ocean

2 City in the Summer months and even earlier now. We saw some

3 in June this year.

4 So, what we want -- what our anglers want to have

5 happen is have it not become a problem where people can’t come

6 down because there might just be one wave of fish that comes

7 earlier in the season, we don’t know enough about it. But we

8 don’t want that wave to be completely depleted by anglers that

9 know what they’re doing. We want it to be available for other

10 people that come down basically. So, this is a real move in

11 the right direction.

12 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Okay. Anything.

13 MS. FLEMING: I agree with Scott.

14 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Yeah, okay. Thank you.

15 MS. FLEMING: It is a nice Fall fishery off the

16 rocks.


18 MS. WIDMAN: The next one --

19 MR. GRACIE: John, you going to give any of us the

20 chance to ask questions?

21 CHAIRMAN NEELY: I’m sorry.

22 (Laughter)

23 MR. GRACIE: I guess, I don’t know -- I mean I look

24 at three options here, I don’t know that anyone has any basis

25 for me to make a decision, except maybe be consistent with

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1 Virginia. Are there reasons behind these or is there some

2 information that we should have before we -- I mean you are

3 asking for recommendations. I wouldn’t know what to base it

4 on.

5 MS. WIDMAN: So, I think that the first

6 recommendation obviously being consistent with Virginia is

7 something we see a lot in our State just because of the

8 proximity. The second one came from the community itself, the

9 third one would align us with some of the other management in

10 similar states along the coast. And then obviously we could

11 just go with no change, so that --

12 I mean obviously, when we go out for feedback on

13 things like that we throw out options were we are completely

14 open for people giving us additional options. It is not like

15 you are limited to those four. Those were just the ones that

16 I guess, our staff had thrown --

17 MR. GRACIE: When you going out for feedback are you

18 talking about Scooping?

19 MS. WIDMAN: Yes, these are also --

20 MR. GRACIE: Oh, okay.

21 MS. WIDMAN: -- be going over.

22 MR. GRACIE: When is that going out?

23 MS. WIDMAN: So, this would go before Tidal Fish on

24 Thursday and then we would run it through the Department with

25 any other questions or comments internally and then hopefully

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1 in the next week or two we would get --

2 MR. GRACIE: Okay. So, it’s imminent?

3 MS. WIDMAN: Yeah. And we put it out for two weeks

4 for comments. And --

5 MR. GRACIE: Okay. Thank you.

6 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thank you. Yeah, Phil.

7 MR. LANGLEY: Just a quick follow-up with where Jim

8 was going with this, too. I think of maybe Lynn or Dave or

9 Mike or somebody, when was the last stock assessment on

10 Sheepshead and how is the Atlantic stock -- based on this

11 stock assessment.

12 MS. FEGLEY: So, with Sheepshead this was managed by

13 the South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council. So they are

14 the advisory body ---, we got the North Atlantic, the Mid-

15 Atlantic which are very familiar with and the South Atlantic.

16 They manage Federal species.

17 So, we were consistent with the Federal Management

18 Plan initially. That is why that creel limit was so high.

19 That is where the stock assessment purpose animal resides is

20 in that Federal document. But because this animal is moving

21 north and it has some very localized behavior the South

22 Atlantic Council said we’re out. We are not going to manage

23 this anymore. And they are giving management authority back

24 to the States. And so that put us in a situation where we

25 have really no regs for this except for this high creel limit.

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1

2 So, to answer the stock assessment question, that it

3 has been a while. And those documents maybe four or five

4 years, and they are in the Federal documents ---.

5 MR. LANGLEY: Thank you so much.

6 CHAIRMAN NEELY: You okay? Beverly.

7 MS. FLEMING: In my opinion if the anglers are

8 recommending two fish per day I think that is where we should

9 go because it is a more conservative figure. You can always

10 go higher. And if the anglers themselves are recommending it,

11 then they would possibly not be so upset.

12 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Okay. And Scott.

13 MR. LENOX: I think that the two fish per day might

14 be something that I said at a commission meeting, you know, a

15 few months ago. But that was just thrown out by some guys

16 that said they wouldn’t be opposed to seeing a two fish limit,

17 because I think that is plenty for two fish per angler.

18 And I think this is moving in the right direction

19 because initially this wasn’t on the radar of you guys at all

20 and it is only the South Jetty in Ocean City, Maryland, that

21 is the only place that we really catch them now. We catch

22 them down by the bridge in Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay,

23 that that is it. That is the only place that we see them.

24 So, I think our stakeholders want to see it get put

25 on the radar so that they see it is being looked at and

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1 managed like other fish are in our area. It is kind of a

2 proactive approach to something that they see, would plan on

3 seeing more and more of in the future as these, you know,

4 tropical type fish move into our area.

5 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Right. Are there any other

6 questions or comments? Yeah, Mack.

7 MR. WOMMACK: I get kind of confused with sometimes

8 when we talk about the ---. Well, they been coming in the

9 lower Bay on the Virginia and Maryland side for a while on the

10 --- they --- fish most of them.

11 And when you say two fish a day, you are talking

12 about the economic growth of the State. And as a fisherman I

13 can see four. But two fish a day you getting back to the

14 Trout situation. When we are talking about the Gray Trout

15 ones. You might as well close the season.

16 One fish and then you are asking the question why

17 people are not buying license and all and why things are going

18 downhill. Well, if you can’t catch anything what is the use

19 of doing it.

20 So, I think you really need to think about that two

21 fish a day. I mean, per man, that’s a little, you know --

22 especially on something that is, you know, is not a real heavy

23 fish here, so if you catch four, you know -- you know, it is

24 more of a southern fish. And they do come up and feed on our

25 wrecks and stuff, even here at the --- Street between Point

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1 Lookout, they do come up. I have caught them there. But, you

2 know, two fish a day I think that’s a little bit, you know.

3 CHAIRMAN NEELY: As usual you add your homespun

4 common sense.

5 MR. LENOX: I agree with Mack. Like I say, that two

6 fish per day number which is thrown out there by some guys who

7 are really concerned by --

8 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Yeah, it didn’t say all anglers, it

9 just said --

10 MR. LENOX: No, I am interested in --

11 CHAIRMAN NEELY: -- some anglers.

12 MR. LENOX: I’m interested in seeing what the

13 Scooping brings out and when it goes to the public comment,

14 I think that most of the people that I represent down in Ocean

15 City are going to say four fish would be great.

16 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Great. And David, one last

17 comment.

18 MR. SIKORSKI: Yes. And a short one. I think it is

19 always important to keep consistent regulations with

20 neighboring states when possible. That is a fish that people

21 commonly fish for in Virginia. Keep Maryland’s regs as

22 similar as possible. We are good to go.

23 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Great. Thank you.

24 MS. WIDMAN: Move on? Okay. Moving on. So, there

25 are some recreational changes we would like to scope. One of

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1 them is really just updating the ASMFC and the allow

2 recreational anglers an unlimited number of Smooth Hound

3 Sharks. So, we just wanted to update ours to match that.

4 And then adding in a component in the regs that

5 would basically safely release them and amend the maximum as -

6 -- survive-ability. This is already kind of incorporated in

7 Rules and the Federal Highly Migratory Species Shark Rules.

8 And we think it is just a good practice to continue in

9 Maryland State waters, as well. So, those are two things we

10 would like to scope on Sharks.

11 Snapper/Grouper complex, again just minor spelling

12 errors on that. And adjusting the size and possession limits

13 by public notice so that we can implement management measures

14 from --- in a more timely manner for those fish. Would be two

15 things that we would like to go scope.

16 Golden Tidal Fish, again this is more to try to

17 update our stuff so that we are in consistency and compliance

18 with the Atlantic Council’s management plan on Golden ---

19 Tidal Fish.

20 So, for the record it would be -- Golden Tidal, pre-

21 limit would be eight per person per trip. And using a rod and

22 reel fishing gear.

23 And I think that is it for Scooping. Questions on

24 Scooping? I don’t have too much else.

25 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Are there any questions.

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1 MS. WIDMAN: You guys have the -- on the regulatory

2 update stuff, there is not a lot -- to go over there. The

3 only reg that went into effect was the Circle Hooks, J-Hooks

4 from earlier this year that we discussed at length. But we

5 don’t have anything new to go over.

6 You also got some handouts to summary of the sport

7 fish --- workgroup that met last month. And then current

8 recreational and --- suspensions. That is it unless people

9 have questions.

10 CHAIRMAN NEELY: One last opportunity for any

11 questions of Sarah.

12 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Could I make a comment?

13 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Please.

14 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: I want to give kind of the same

15 spiel that TFAC later this week, but we have run into a

16 situation where we promulgated regulations that upset some

17 folks and we have been hearing about it since we promulgated

18 those regulations.

19 So, I want to mention that here because you are the

20 body that we run these things past all the time. We scope

21 them. Then we let you know about the regulatory, you know,

22 what is being considered there.

23 And it kind of took us by surprise with this

24 regulation that we did on the commercial side that people were

25 upset about it. And we ran it through the system. We scooped

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1 it. We ran it through TFAC and then when we said, okay, it’s

2 done, it’s gone through, the public comment period and

3 everything else, then all of a sudden we had people coming out

4 of the woodwork complaining to us about it.

5 Well, we are wait a minute, wait a minute, you know,

6 we’ve got these processes designed so that we get feedback,

7 not only with public comments and public hearings that we

8 advertise those things, but we also want to rely on you all to

9 provide that advice to us.

10 Just, I just want to remind you that as an advisory

11 commission the input that we receive today was very valuable.

12 We appreciate that. But talk to your folks. I’m sure Scott

13 and Beverly will talk to their folks down in Ocean City about

14 Sheepshead. Talk to them. Find out. Help us get that

15 information so that we can do the right regulations so that we

16 don’t have a problem later on.

17 You know, we don’t -- that is why we started the

18 Scooping process because if we did a regulation, and people

19 wanted it changed, we would have to start the whole process

20 over. So, Scooping gives us an opportunity to get some

21 feedback before we make a formal proposal.

22 So, again you all have a responsibility as advisory

23 committee members. We rely very heavily on your all to help

24 us get the word out and get that information back to us or to

25 have your constituents get back to us about things. We want

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1 to make sure that we’re getting the public comment, public

2 feedback and we don’t want to go through a whole process being

3 totally silent and then we promulgate a regulation and then we

4 get blind-sighted.

5 So, I am going to talk to TFAC about that, but I

6 also want to remind you of your responsibility.

7 MR. : Can you tell us what the issue is?

8 It might help us figure out what --

9 MS. : Yeah, what went wrong?

10 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Well, I will tell you for five

11 years we extended the pound net season for Striped Bass. Into

12 December, which is part of the gill net season. So, now we

13 have an overlapping of the pound net and gill net season. So,

14 now all the gill netters are mad that the pound netters have

15 access into their time. But for five years we’ve extended

16 that pound net season into December because they still had

17 quota left.

18 So, now the gill netters are mad. Well, they didn’t

19 want that. I said well, five years we’ve been doing this. We

20 went through the whole process. And, you know, now we’ve got

21 a little bit of a controversy going on there. So, Steve, I

22 don’t know --

23 MR. LAY: Yeah, what it was, was the season was

24 extended on a year-by-year basis.

25 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Right.

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1 MR. LAY: And last year it was permanently put into

2 place as a permanent thing.


4 MR. LAY: And that’s when they got upset.


6 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Mack, real quick.

7 MR. WOMMACK: Okay. I mean not real quick but I’m

8 going to try my best.

9 (Laughter)

10 MR. WOMMACK: Anyhow, speaking of what he’s saying,

11 I heard the phones going off for the last month. In the Lower

12 Bay and Western Shore and Eastern Shore. And one of the

13 problems that we’re having is we have like a playground here.

14 The oyster beds --- when they come up.

15 People on the Lower Bay, Solomons, Point Lookout,

16 Crisfield, Deals Island on up the Bay, depend on the bottom

17 fishing --- and in the Upper Bay with the Rockfish. They make

18 their living on the bottom fish.

19 The problem I have is that --- sounds and

20 tributaries at the same time that the charter boat captains

21 and the regular sport fishermen are out there in the Summer

22 months. And the fish are not getting food. And it is

23 becoming to be where you don’t want a war between two entities

24 about sharing the playground.

25 So, I’m asking is there any way that this Commission

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1 could get together or form a committee to look in and see if

2 we can get equal playing time on the ballpark with each party

3 because charter boat captains are saying we’re not making any

4 money. We’re going downhill. The industry is getting worse

5 and worse and people are not coming anymore because there are

6 no fish.

7 Now, the netters are going to say, hey, well we net

8 and we doing this, and I don’t have a problem with them doing

9 what they do. But I’m just trying to see, can we come to a

10 common ground that will work for both teams. If you could get

11 a committee or something together to look into it.

12 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Would you like to put this into the

13 form of a motion?

14 MR. WOMMACK: Yes. Following motion.

15 MOTION

16 by James Wommack

17 MR. WOMMACK: Can I ask this Committee --

18 Commission, can we get a committee to look into the netting of

19 the oyster beds in the Sound and Tributaries during the peak

20 month for the sport fishermen and the charter boat captains

21 which make their living.

22 MR. SIKORSKI: Second.

23 CHAIRMAN NEELY: We have a second?

24 MR. SIKORSKI: Yes.

25 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Discussion? Because I don’t

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1 understand your motion. But that’s all right.


3 CHAIRMAN NEELY: So, Phil?

4 MR. LANGLEY: If I could offer some discussion on

5 that. Mack is absolutely right, some -- there’s a flare-up

6 probably three or four years ago in the Sound over the charter

7 boat captains and recreational anglers fishing the bars. They

8 felt that they were being pursued by the --- netters which

9 were watching where they fished. And then after they finished

10 up on the evening then the gill netters would move in and kind

11 of catch up the fish in that area. And then they would move

12 to another bar and they felt like they weren’t being followed

13 around. And there was not enough fish to go around for both

14 user groups.

15 And which kind of relates to the comment I made to

16 Secretary Belton that the problem is like this year over in

17 the Sound they waited forever in the Lower Bay, that the Spot

18 never showed up. And then when the Spot did show up the

19 charter boat fleet what’s left in the Sound start pursuing the

20 Spot but at the same time the gill netters were waiting for

21 the same thing and never showed up.

22 So, then you got user conflict because you have a

23 reduced resource, okay --


25 MR. LANGLEY: -- that you have different user groups

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1 trying to get access to.

2 And at one point in time Spot weren’t really a

3 sought after fish, commercially. And today they are about a

4 dollar a pound off the boat on a commercial market. So,

5 there’s a lot more focus being placed on currently today that

6 it wasn’t in the past.


8 MR. WOMMACK: Well, let me just say this about the -

9 --. The Sound is kind of designed like --

10 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Mack, are you amending your motion?

11 MR. WOMMACK: No, I ---.

12 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Okay. Dave.

13 MR. SIKORSKI: Yeah, I’m glad Mack brought this up.

14 It’s been a -- these are secondary fisheries all the time in

15 Maryland. We talk about Striped Bass. We talk about oysters,

16 crabs, we forget about this stuff. And it is all related, we

17 know that. You know, you all know I’m a --- nerd and I love

18 seeing Jim’s stuff. All the stuff related. And what directly

19 relates to it even further is economic benefit.

20 And so sometimes we have to make a tradeoff. And we

21 want these species to benefit one sector or another or how can

22 we work together to make benefit, you know, in a proper way.

23 Because I will tell you how, even at a dollar a pound, a Spot

24 is worth a whole heck of lot more than a dollar a pound on a

25 head boat, on a charter boat.

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2 MR. SIKORSKI: And, you know, coming home to feed a

3 family. It is a public resource that our public needs access

4 to in some way, shape or form. And it’s a difficult talks.

5 There is no question that CCA has been involved in the gill

6 net --- throughout the country because at a certain point when

7 management fails, that’s a solution.

8 And that could be where we go if need be. But I am

9 fully supportive of a process to walk through this and talk --

10 try and get stakeholders to, you know, figure it out before it

11 comes to that. But if not, that ---.

12 These species really need to be paid attention to.

13 They are very habitat specific. And we can’t ignore one thing

14 and have policies go in one direction and ignore negative

15 impacts in the Bay and others.

16 And I’ll blow the oyster horn again. There are a

17 lot of oysters down there. But that problem of habitat and

18 how it effects all these other things continually plays out.

19 So, we can’t ignore that when shaping one policy next to the

20 other.

21 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Is there any public comment? Yes,

22 sir. Yes, sir.

23 MR. : You need to get to the microphone.

24 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Yes, sir. Thank you, Sarah.

25 Public Comments on Motion

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1 by Kirkland Hall

2 MR. HALL: Thank you so much. My name is Kirkland

3 Hall. And I am from Somerset County. And I certainly

4 appreciate the Chairman and all those that are here, just

5 giving me this opportunity.

6 I have been approached, I am not a fisherman, but I

7 love fish --- activist basically all my life. And whenever

8 someone comes and approaches me and asks for some assistance I

9 do the best I can to help them. Well, Captain Phil and Mr. --

10 - and the gentleman that spoke, you basically took my thunder.

11

12 (Laughter)

13 MR. HALL: But that’s okay because again this is an

14 education for me. Let me give you a little background about

15 Somerset Count, Worcester County, Somerset County.

16 Somerset County is basically called by historians

17 the land in which time has forgotten. We are the poorest

18 county in the State of Maryland. We have 60 percent of our

19 citizens are in poverty and 50 percent in deep poverty. We’ve

20 basically lost most of our small farms.

21 And now we are in the process of losing our seafood

22 industry, especially the charter boat captains. A number of

23 them are going under, if not already because of the

24 competition that they had with the gill netters. And if we

25 lose the seafood industry we’ll losing our small farms.

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1 And let me -- incidentally every child in Somerset

2 County is free. Free lunch. And free breakfast. Because the

3 economics in our county is at the bottom. So, we’ve got to do

4 what we can to help those individuals whose livelihood depends

5 on the productivity of the charter boat industry.

6 And we will beg -- and they’re pleading and I

7 appreciate you come saying, I’m happy that you are willing to

8 have commission. And we need to be able to come together so

9 that both parties can be comfortable.

10 But my plea again is to help these families.

11 Crisfield and --- they are the desperate. And they have

12 nowhere to turn. And you our last hope.

13 So, I just want to say that and since they already

14 said that information, I’ll leave you with that. Thank you so

15 much.

16 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thank you, sir.

17 MR. HALL: You’re welcome. You’re welcome.

18 MR. : Steve had a question, didn’t you,

19 Steve?

20 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Steve does and Larry does, also. I

21 hate to go back -- I’m going to give you the final comment.

22 Larry, did you have a question?

23 Public Comments on Motion

24 by Larry Jennings

25 MR. JENNINGS: It relates to all of these in that we

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1 are concerned about license fail -- license sales. Most

2 people fishing in the Summer with their family. It would be

3 going ground fish fishing. They’re really not concerned with

4 Striped Bass all that much. Yes, they would like to catch

5 them. But they want to catch something.

6 And when you have all of these different Panfish,

7 your Croakers, your Spots, White Perch aren’t even that easy

8 to catch or a big enough size, that’s what is driving license

9 sales down.

10 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Okay. Is there any other public

11 comment? Steven, you have the final --

12 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Dave, I just have one -- you

13 mentioned Spot and I just heard Larry mention some other fish,

14 what -- I want to know what fish you are actually talking

15 about. Something more than just Spot?

16 MR. SIKORSKI: Oh, I believe in Mack’s situation

17 it’s Spot and Croaker are probably the two most popular in

18 --- Sound. In other areas it is. It could be White Perch, it

19 could be Spot, it could be Croaker, could be some of the

20 panfish that are in more of the fresher areas, --- Yellow

21 Perch, Blue Gills in some places ---.

22 MR. LAY: Well, you are talking about the dill net

23 fishery getting in the way. I want to know what fish the gill

24 net fishery is putting the pressure on that may be --

25 MR. SIKORSKI: It’s the spool nets that we talked

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1 about in the past with conflict with mid-Bay charter boats and

2 White Perch and Spot. And now it is conflict with Tangier

3 Sound charter boats with I would assume Spot and maybe some

4 Croaker.

5 MR. LAY: Spot and Croakers basically --

6 MR. WOMMACK: Spot and Croakers, we don’t want to

7 situation where it gets too light to --- but we have one --

8 MR. LAY: Right. But it is not Crappies and Yellow

9 Perch, they don’t yield that them in the Summertime.

10 MR. SIKORSKI: Not in Tangier Sound. No.

11 MR. LAY: Okay. Spot and Croakers.

12 MR. WOMMACK: And like I was going to explain to you

13 earlier, and this is just going to take a minute, that Sound

14 is like an artery on the side of the heart. And when that

15 tide flows and when fish coming up through Tangier get sucked

16 through there on up to --- Straits, on up through the

17 migratory rivers and on out to Hooper Strait and on up to the

18 Bay.

19 So, when you’re talking about the problem up of the

20 Bay where there is no fish for the Rockfish, well, that is one

21 of the problems starting right there, because if you close off

22 the coral can’t nothing get through.

23 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Captain Ed.

24 MR. O’BRIEN: Yeah, we’ve brought before this

25 Commission in the past a very difficult subject. And that is

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1 summertime gill netting. Now, the solution has got to be some

2 kind of a formula that is fair to the watermen in Somerset

3 County and the charter boats and recreational fishermen. It’s

4 a huge problem that we can’t seem to face.

5 We’ve had a situation where charter boat captains,

6 head boat operators, sit down with the watermen. And when you

7 get local like that you can come up to a certain agreement.

8 But the agreement you might come up with in Eastern Bay won’t

9 work down there in Somerset County.

10 So, it’s just something that for the last ten years

11 whatever, it’s something that has not been able to solved by

12 these Commissions.

13 CHAIRMAN NEELY: All right.

14 MR. O’BRIEN: And I certainly, obviously appreciate

15 the charter boat satiation. But there is Somerset County

16 watermen too, that make some money doing this. So, it has got

17 to be -- this is going to really take some work. So, far DNR

18 has tried to pull it together. It’s very difficult.

19 Certainly -- the gentlemen in the back, you are very

20 public speaker. And it seemed to me that your tone was to be

21 favorable to both commercial and recreational. And that means

22 that maybe it’s something that has to fluctuate each year

23 based on the fishery. Based on upon, what, where and when. I

24 mean it’s a -- Summertime gill netting is a tough subject.

25 Summertime charter boat fishing right now is a very tough

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1 subject, too. That’s --


3 MR. O’BRIEN: That’s it.

4 CHAIRMAN NEELY: We have a motion the floor. And

5 Dave has got to ask a couple of questions.

6 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Yes, so I want to make sure --

7 because I was trying to write down the motion as

8 comprehensively as I could. But I have a couple of questions.

9

10 The gist of the motion was to form a committee to

11 look into the Summer gill net charter boat user conflict

12 issues that occur during the Summer season, you know,

13 throughout the Bay but especially in the Sound.

14 I had the motion by Mack and the second by Dave

15 Sikorski. Do we want a joint committee of SFAC and TFAC, do

16 we take this to TFAC on Thursday and ask for volunteers. If

17 that is the intent, you know, I can put that in. Mack, are

18 you okay with that?

19 MR. WOMMACK: Yeah, I don’t have a problem with

20 that. We all have to come together sooner or later.

21 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Right. It will eventually come

22 back to everybody. So, is every -- you guys are okay with

23 that? So, I will make the committee of SFAC and TFAC members?

24 And I think that’s it. Again, is that -- describe -- we’ve

25 done some of this before but we are willing to give it a shot

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1 again, so we will go through this process. And then after the

2 vote I will ask for volunteers.

3 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Well, Mack is probably going to

4 chair it.

5 (Laughter)

6 CHAIRMAN NEELY: But, Mack, we have a motion on the

7 floor. And would you be kind enough one more time to restate

8 your motion so that we can then vote on it.

9 MR. WOMMACK: Okay. The motion would be that we are

10 going to form a committee to look at the process of netting

11 during the Summer months in the Sounds and Tributaries to try

12 to come to a common goal where the netters and the charter

13 boat captains and the recreational fishermen can share these

14 oyster beds to be fished on, as well as netting on.

15 I guess that is kind of -- well, maybe Ed might be

16 better in putting that together because he’s pretty good at

17 that.

18 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: We’re good.

19 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Yeah, will do. And then I need a

20 motion to approve, right? Or do I just call for a vote?

21 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Call for a vote.

22 MR. WOMMACK: So, we are going to put a motion

23 together, and do a study on this, on these nets crossed the

24 oyster beds at peak time in the Summer.

25 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thank you. Let’s call the question

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1 and call for a vote. All in favor say aye.

2 ALL: Aye.

3 CHAIRMAN NEELY: All opposed?

4 (No response)

5 CHAIRMAN NEELY: There being no opposition, the

6 motion carries. Thank you. And Reverend, thank you very much

7 for your --

8 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Can we ask for volunteers?

9 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Oh, yeah.

10 (Laughter)

11 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Sorry.

12 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: I want to get them now while

13 they’re thinking about it.

14 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Who would be willing to serve on

15 this committee, working with TFAC, also? We probably need

16 three people from this -- so, Captain Phil, Dave Sikorski and

17 Mack Wommack will be the three representatives from the

18 Commission.

19 MR. SIKORSKI: And because it is such a localized

20 type of situation, at least in Tangier Sound, I think it would

21 make sense to have non-commissioners participate, as well.

22 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Yes, thank you.

23 MR. SIKORSKI: And I would like to have a proxy if

24 possible, you know, for CCA or from, you know, somebody from

25 that region that represents recreational anglers. Whatever,

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1 you know, would make us, lead us towards success in the best

2 way.

3 CHAIRMAN NEELY: How do you feel about that, Toby?

4 (Laughter)

5 MR. : Looks like a deer in the headlights.

6 (Laughter)

7 CHAIRMAN NEELY: We need somebody from that region.

8 I know you are from the mid-Shore.

9 MR. FREY: All right.

10 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thank you for volunteering.

11 (Laughter)

12 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Toby Frey is going to serve on this

13 committee. And also I think Larry Jennings will probably, he

14 would like to pitch in, also. And perhaps he could be your --

15 MR. FREY: Thanks, Larry.

16 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Didn’t you say that. I -- oh, you

17 were raising your hand.

18 (All in discussion off microphone.)

19 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thank you. I think that --

20 MR. GRACIE: You are going assign a staff person to

21 take the lead on this --

22 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Yes. Thanks, Jim. Guys, we are

23 recalling running light on time, and I am going to ask Lynn to

24 provide her updates on an expeditious manner.

25 Policy Program

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1 by Lynn Fegley

2 MS. FEGLEY: Yes, I’m Lynn Fegley. For those of you

3 who haven’t met yet, I’m the Director of the Stock Health Data

4 Management and Analysis Division. Mike and I work together to

5 help Dave out at the Atlantic States and Mike represents Dave

6 in the State of Maryland on the Mid-Atlantic Council.

7 So, here we go. In your --- books, tab 8, we are

8 going to heretofore provide you with meeting summaries and

9 agendas for both the Commission and the Council meetings just

10 so that you have a mechanism for really keeping track of what

11 is going on at those meetings. Those are all also available

12 on the respective website, but it is just a tool to help you

13 understand what is going on and bring questions to us if you

14 have them. The next --

15 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: I am sorry, if I can just -- you

16 know, there is a lot of material here. And again, you know,

17 we meet four times a year. But we are always available by

18 phone. So, if you see something in these ASMFC or Mid-

19 Atlantic Council meeting minutes call Lynn, Mike or myself or,

20 you know -- we are more than willing to talk to you outside of

21 this meeting about some specifics here.

22 MS. FEGLEY: Absolutely, always available. So, the

23 next meeting is going to be, I believe it begins Oust 5th. It

24 is that first full week of August. There are a couple of

25 things that are happening.

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1 I did want to back up for a moment and remind

2 everybody here that the Cobia history is open. It is open

3 until September 30th, and we have the same regulations as

4 Virginia. You can have one fish per person, not to exceed

5 three per vessel per day, with a 40 inch total length maximum

6 size. So, just be aware. That’s open. It’s happening. It’s

7 done.

8 So, moving forward to Menhaden, at this upcoming

9 meeting the Menhaden board will consider whether the

10 Commonwealth of Virginia is out of compliance. If it is they

11 will be a process where the Secretary of Commerce is notified.

12 The Commonwealth of Virginia manages their Menhaden fishery by

13 legislation. And they were not successful with getting a Bill

14 through their General Assembly to comply with the ASMFC

15 amendment that went through in November. So, that is going to

16 be an interesting discussion.

17 It has been mentioned here tonight a few times the

18 South Atlantic Board does Spot and Croaker. I never want to

19 be accused of soft-balling, so I won’t. This is going to get

20 -- this is going to get sticky. Both of those species, we

21 will be receiving twenty-eight -- 2017 numbers, so numbers for

22 the 2017 year for both Spot and Croaker. The management

23 benchmarks they are using now would trip management action for

24 both of those species.

25 We are one of the few states that has regulations in

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1 place for Croaker. We, along with everybody else, don’t have

2 much at all for Spot. So, there will likely be an addendum

3 initiated in August to start to talk about management action

4 for both of these species. So, we’re talking suddenly for

5 Spot. We are going to have something like size limits, creel

6 limits, seasons. We are going to have to have that

7 conversation.

8 So, look for hearings and conversations about that

9 coming up in -- I would like to say September/October time

10 frame. This one is a big deal. So, just heads up, it’s

11 coming.

12 Striped Bass, they are going to review compliance

13 reports in the Striped Bass coordinating. Mike has gotten a

14 heads up from the Commission that there is going to be some

15 comment that we are -- we were not consistent in our circle

16 hook regulations with what we said we were going to do to get

17 that 19 inch fish. So, there is going to be a little bit of

18 conversation going on there.

19 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: J-hook.

20 MS. FEGLEY: That’s the J-hook provision, right.

21 American Eels, there will be an approval of an addendum for

22 American Eels, this is primarily concerns the commercial side.

23 It will re -- it will basically reset eel management. It will

24 look at the coast-wide cap for managing, too. The management

25 trigger. And if that management trigger is fired, what do we

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1 do. That is an allocation question.

2 So, all those questions are on the table for eels,

3 that is a big one for the commercial guys.

4 There is also, we got a notice from the Commission

5 every species board at the Commission has an advisory panel.

6 We have some panels where there are not populated with our

7 people. So, we need to have a little look at that internally.

8 We haven’t had time to digest it. But look to us to come back

9 to you in the Fall and go over that and think about it, if you

10 have interest in any of these species.

11 Those lists should also be on the ASMFC website, if

12 you want to check them out in the interim before the fall.

13 Moving on to the council, this is Mike’s -- Mike’s

14 land. They are going to be reviewing and establishing quotas

15 for Summer Flounder, Black Sea Bass, Scup and Bluefish. And

16 those are going to be reviewed and established for 2019 and

17 beyond. So, there is going to be a lot moving and shaking.

18 Again, Summer Flounder, Black Sea Bass, Scup and Bluefish.

19 And speaking of Bluefish, early 2019 look for

20 management coming out of the Commission. There is going to be

21 a management plan. That is going to look at State quotas and

22 allocation for Bluefish. Heads up. That one is coming at us,

23 too.

24 So, that’s it, so that is the management update.

25 There are two more things to go over. Should we take

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1 questions on that before I blaze on.

2 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Yeah. Yeah, that’s appropriate.

3 Jim, you want to --

4 MR. GRACIE: Well, yeah. I don’t know what all this

5 means. What’s next about our use of the J-hooks that is

6 inconsistent with what they’re prosing. What do they do? I

7 mean -- we can’t change it in the middle of the season. We

8 are going to be penalized or --

9 MS. FEGLEY: No --

10 MR. GRACIE: -- somebody going to -- what do you

11 think is next --

12 MS. FEGLEY: It would be a compliance issue, so I

13 don’t know --

14 MR. GRACIE: What does that mean?

15 MS. FEGLEY: Well, it mean that they would ask us to

16 change it.

17 MR. GRACIE: Oh, so we could come into compliance.

18 MS. FEGLEY: Yes, they would ask us to --

19 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Give us an opportunity.

20 MR. GRACIE: Okay.

21 MS. FEGLEY: They would give us an opportunity to

22 change it or they -- call in Commerce. And whether or not

23 they decide to do that, I don’t know. Mike is getting --

24 MR. GRACIE: So, we are not sure, in other words,

25 right now? We are going to wait and see.

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1 MS. FEGLEY: No. We’ll see.

2 MR. GRACIE: Okay.

3 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: We have been talking to a lot of

4 the other states and they understand the predicament because

5 we called them and talked to them about it before.

6 MR. GRACIE: Before you actually implement it --

7 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Before we actually implemented it.

8 MR. GRACIE: If we change it, on the proposal.

9 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: And we knew the risks.

10 MR. GRACIE: --- a revision and the proposal at the

11 last meeting.

12 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Right. Right.

13 CHAIRMAN NEELY: David.

14 MR. SIKORSKI: Can you give us a little more detail

15 on the Bluefish situation, because I know there is a public

16 comment period out right nor for reallocation from

17 recreational to commercial. And is that what you are

18 mentioning for management changes and --

19 MS. FEGLEY: Yes, it is recreational and I honestly

20 don’t know the details on this one. It don’t. It’s Mike’s

21 ball game. But I do believe that that’s what it is. And I

22 don’t have any more details for you.

23 MR. SIKORSKI: And I used to spend a lot more time

24 tracking council stuff but don’t have it anymore. So, from

25 what I understand --

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1 MS. FEGLEY: I think this is Commission though.

2 MR. SIKORSKI: What is that?

3 MS. FEGLEY: I believe that this is going to be a

4 Commission --

5 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: It’s a joint.

6 MS. FEGLEY: Is a joint? Okay.

7 MR. SIKORSKI: I think the Council is on the lead on

8 Bluefish right now. So, I know that the comment period ends

9 July 30th. This was something that -- some of our regional

10 fisheries consultants from CCA handled so, again, I don’t know

11 that much about it. But from what I understand there is a

12 consideration of a reallocation from the recreational side to

13 the commercial side for what is stated as -- fish that are not

14 caught by the recreational side.

15 And that speaks to some -- just basic differences

16 between recreational versus commercial, which generally with

17 commercial there is obviously an incentive to catch your

18 quota. But with recreational we have ---, we have challenges

19 with understanding exactly what our catch is. And so there

20 are different methodologies in the two different fisheries.

21 You know, the idea being that quite often

22 recreational anglers don’t always keep what they catch. And

23 so it is not as easy to count as a hard quota where there is a

24 lot more regulation, quite often on a commercial fisher.

25 And so many -- and we believe that using historical

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1 catch data to reallocate a fishery, noting that recreational

2 fishing isn’t the same as commercial fishing, is a bad idea.

3 And we do have a position, you know, in opposition of

4 reallocation using that. And recommend something more of an

5 economic analysis.

6 Bluefish are the third highest harvested

7 recreational species based on --- numbers, so they are

8 extremely important. And so we are in opposition of that. I

9 would -- was planning on trying to make a motion but without

10 Mike here to provide a little more thorough on it --

11 MS. FEGLEY: Do you want him to come back in the

12 Fall meeting, because this is it, you know, it is happening

13 for the Fall meeting with more detail on it?

14 MR. SIKORSKI: Yeah, I think it would be important

15 that this Commission understands what our State’s

16 representatives are being face with decision-wise, because it

17 is an allocation issue, it is recreational to commercial and

18 we need to understand it better before our State just goes

19 ahead and does something.

20 And we have great representatives there. Mike being

21 one of them. And I think it is really important that this

22 body as a recreational fishing advisory commission knows that

23 issue inside and out.

24 CHAIRMAN NEELY: And if -- would changes be made

25 prior to the Fall meeting?

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1 MS. FEGLEY: I do not believe so although it sounds

2 like there is a public comment period that may end before

3 that.

4 MR. SIKORSKI: Yes, that ends July 30th.


6 MS. FEGLEY: Yeah.

7 MR. SIKORSKI: And I can follow-up with some more

8 information for the Commission, as well. I mean I would have

9 no issues asking the Commissioners via e-mail or on a phone

10 call, you know, for some sort of support.

11 CHAIRMAN NEELY: If it would please the Commission I

12 would be willing to draft a letter stating the position of, in

13 general terms, of our Commission, without -- without your

14 input.

15 (Laughter)

16 MR. GRACIE: I guess -- I’m not the -- cast

17 dispersions on your --


19 MR. GRACIE: -- integrity, but I’m not sure you are

20 in a position to know the feelings of the Commission, to be

21 honest --

22 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Well, I was going to poll the

23 Commission and then perhaps draft a letter.

24 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: If I can --

25 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Yeah, I agree with you, though.

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1 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Yes. Mr. Chairman, if I can

2 propose a --


4 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Maybe what I will do is, we will

5 get with Mike tomorrow morning and we will craft an e-mail,

6 giving you the details about the Bluefish allocation and time

7 line and we will try and get that out tomorrow or Thursday so

8 you all know. And then if you want to do something, have a

9 letter, make a position known to submit to --


11 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: -- ASMFC or Mid-Atlantic Council,

12 you know, by all means we can do that. But I also again, as

13 my little speech before, talk to you folks, get some feedback,

14 you know, Lynn, Mike and I will always take your calls, even

15 after July 30th because ASMFC doesn’t meet until August 8th.

16 And the Mid-Atlantic Council is the next week. We’ll take

17 comments all the way up until, you know, a vote is cast.

18 So, July 30th, if that’s the time line, that’s for

19 official comments to be sent to Mid-Atlantic Council or ASMFC.

20 So, we can still, you know -- but let’s -- Mike, Lynn and I

21 will get together and we’ll craft something and will try to

22 get that out to you all to clarify the details what that

23 Bluefish amendment is.

24 MR. SIKORSKI: I appreciate that, Dave. And I think

25 -- I don’t think the thirtieth is the deadline hearing what

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1 you just said. No?


3 MR. SIKORSKI: I’m comfortable with that. This body

4 can have some time to figure it out, if you want to make a

5 position known to the Department, you can.


7 MR. SIKORSKI: From what you just described.

8 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Right. Ed. Captain Ed.

9 MR. O’BRIEN: I think it has been covered.

10 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Okay. Thank you.

11 MR. O’BRIEN: I would like to get a compliment in,

12 but Lynn, though, she’s involved with the South Atlantic more

13 than anybody. And she does it very, very well. And

14 establishes a good rapture, but there is going to be a lot of

15 tough decisions on some of these species.

16 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Right. Ed.

17 MS. FEGLEY: Okay. So, the next thing on the list,

18 Mike owes me for this one, is the circle hook update. We

19 heard a lot of feedback about circle hooks being part of lot

20 of about -- a lot of dead fish floating.

21 So, a couple of things are happening. We’ve done a

22 significant amount of outreach. In terms of compliance, which

23 we will need to know for ASMFC. We have our access point

24 interview crew, the --- crew interviewing anglers, that they

25 meet about circle hook compliance. They have interviewed over

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1 400 people. So, we will putting those numbers together.

2 It seems as though right now the idea we are getting

3 is that people who are chumming and --- compliance is very

4 high. But it’s not as high for people using chums of bait.

5 More of those people are intending to stick with J-hooks.

6 We have released, Paul and Karen’s group, some

7 additional messaging to remind people that even though they

8 are using a circle hook, it is still a good time to be gentle

9 with the fish. It’s hot. Dissolved oxygen levels are low.

10 So, we are working to get as much education out as we can.

11 That’s circle hooks. Any questions on circle hooks?

12 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Are there any questions? Any

13 discussion? No. Okay.

14 MS. FEGLEY: Okay. Yellow Perch is the last one.

15 We were asked to look at three aspects of the commercially

16 Yellow Perch fishery. We have scooped these, we have received

17 comments. And so there are a couple of things that we are

18 going to move forward to propose.

19 One is that we are going to propose to open

20 commercial Yellow Perch fishery in December. Because this is

21 a highly accountable fisheries with tags, they have a quota.

22 We --that they will try that December opening.

23 The other one is that there is a requirement that

24 Yellow Perch fishermen who are harvesting for the live market

25 have to have a DNR staff member arrive to witness the pass off

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1 between the fishermen and the dealer’s truck. We are going to

2 remove that mandate. Basically the commercial fishermen will

3 still have to let us know when they are making that

4 transaction. And the Department may very well show up. But

5 we do have a high percentage of our Yellow Perch commercial

6 fishermen on our ---, electronic hailing system. So, we feel

7 the accountability there is pretty high.

8 If the commercial fishermen is not on --- it will be

9 a higher likelihood they will get that visit from the

10 Department.

11 There was also a request to open the Choptank and

12 Nanticoke Rivers to commercial Yellow Perch fishing. We need

13 to do some more research on that, to understand what our data

14 looks like and how we would establish those quotas. So that

15 is not something we are going to pursue immediately. We are

16 going to dive deeper into that issue.

17 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thank you. That was a suburb

18 report. Are there any questions? Dave had his hand up first.

19 MR. SIKORSKI: I was going to -- when the Secretary

20 was here I was going to mention enforcement because

21 enforcement is something that we have challenges with

22 throughout the State. And I think having, you know, we know

23 there are a lot of retirements happening within NRP and it’s

24 hard to keep up and there is no money available.

25 But without enforcement, when you change things like

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1 opening the Yellow Perch season in December, you have ---

2 season, you have oysters, you have I believe wintertime gill

3 nets, you know, you have all these things and one more strain

4 on that, on the Agency. And while I want to live life

5 trusting my neighbor, you know, it is tough sometimes.

6 So, it remains a concern that a season opening in

7 December, even though it is a well-managed fishery under

8 attack, could open up some issues with loopholes. So, I think

9 that -- you know -- we can just wave a magic wand and multiply

10 game warders, we would be better off, but we can’t.

11 But from whatever the Department can do to kind of

12 provide over --- and that kind of thing, it’s important to us,

13 to recreational anglers. Make sure that that Yellow Perch

14 fishery is managed well.

15 MS. FEGLEY: Yes, thanks, Dave. And I just do want

16 to reiterate that I don’t have the exact number but we have a

17 very high percentage of our Yellow Perch fishermen, most of

18 them are on that --- system so it is pretty -- we got a -- of

19 all fisheries, that one we have a handle on.

20 MR. SIKORSKI: Yes. And I know it’s not -- mostly

21 catch happens later in the year, later in that season, that

22 just provides a little flexibility to the commercial guys. We

23 understand that.


25 MR. GRACIE: Yeah, a question for Lynn. The

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1 Choptank and the Nanticoke, have you developed a plan and do

2 you have a time line for what, how you are going to collect

3 that information that you need?

4 MS. FEGLEY: Oh, I think for the Nanticoke, I really

5 think that it would involve additional data collection. We

6 have a substantial amount of data in the Choptank River. But

7 we are not sure -- we are not sure exactly what it is going to

8 give us in terms of quota settings. So, no time line as yet.

9 We are going to need to look into that as time allows and try

10 and figure it out.

11 MR. GRACIE: Well, you said you two different things

12 now. And I think I understand what you are going to do in the

13 Choptank.

14 MS. FEGLEY: Right.

15 MR. GRACIE: Do you have a data collection plan for

16 the Nanticoke and --

17 MS. FEGLEY: We do not. And we may not have one if

18 we -- you know, if we don’t have the resources to get in there

19 and do it, we’re not going to do it. And it likely won’t go

20 forward. So, it is tiered, right.

21 MR. GRACIE: Okay.

22 MS. FEGLEY: The Choptank is a higher possibility

23 than the Nanticoke and we will just need to see what we got.

24 MR. GRACIE: Thank you. I understand now.

25 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Is there any other discussion from

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1 the Commissions?

2 (No response)

3 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Larry. You have been very vocal

4 about Yellow Perch. You and Ken, Doctor Ken. Is there

5 anything here that you would like offer during public comment?

6 MR. JENNINGS: No.


8 MR. JENNINGS: And --- change and the stock

9 assessments were important to be able to determine and catch

10 and ---.

11 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Great. Thank you. We are now at -

12 - we have a quick comment.

13 MR. LAY: Quick comment. On Yellow Perch, the

14 commercial fishery last winter only caught half the quota.

15 So, we’ve got plenty extra.

16 MR. : Can you speak to --- experience on

17 that.

18 (Laughter)

19 CHAIRMAN NEELY: We are going to explore that

20 further in the Fall.

21 (Laughter)

22 CHAIRMAN NEELY: So, thank you.

23 MR. : On that note.

24 (Laughter)

25 CHAIRMAN NEELY: We now have our -- we now have a

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1 session devoted to public comment. Is there anything that you

2 all would like to offer? You have all been very patient

3 sitting here for over three hours. Yes, sir.

4 MR. CAMPBELL: I have a question to ask about the

5 Cobia. Did I hear that was a 40 inch maximum size?

6 MS. FEGLEY: Minimum.

7 MR. CAMPBELL: I thought you said maximum.

8 MS. FEGLEY: Did I say maximum?

9 (Laughter)

10 MS. FEGLEY: Correction. for the record, that is a

11 minimum size. I am so sorry.

12 (Laughter)

13 CHAIRMAN NEELY: And would you please identify

14 yourself?

15 MR. CAMPBELL: My name is Tim Campbell and I’m a CCA

16 member.

17 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Great. Thank you, sir. Is there

18 any other public comment?

19 (No response)

20 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Dave Blazer has a few closing

21 comments and then we will bring it to a conclusion. Thank

22 you. Few announcements.

23 Final Comments

24 by Chairman Dave Blazer

25 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Two real quick things. I think in

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1 your folders under tab one is the oysters future report. I

2 think we have talked a little bit about that. Dave Sikorski

3 and I were on that group. And Allison and the -- so, please

4 read through that. A lot of good consensus building and

5 discussion and a lot of different ideas that the University of

6 Maryland did through a facilitated process. And I think the

7 results are pretty interesting and pretty good. So, that is

8 the final report.

9 That has been presented to the Secretary for the

10 Department to consider moving forward with some of those

11 recommendations there. So, please look that over. If you got

12 any questions about that I am sure Dave, Allison or myself

13 would be more than happen to answer those or you can call

14 Doctor North at University of Maryland.

15 The last comment that I have is we will be looking

16 for an appointee for the Potomac River Fisheries Commission.

17 Dennis Fleming, who has been a long member there for about the

18 last 11 years is moving to Florida. So, he has resigned his

19 position on the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, which Phil

20 and I sit on. So, we will be looking for a new Commissioner

21 for the Potomac River Fisheries Commission.

22 If you know someone or that might be interested

23 please let us know so that we can get a pool of candidates to

24 be considered for the appointment as we go forward.

25 I believe Dennis moving to Florida for warmer

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1 climates and he has got a job. He was the Director of Public

2 Works for Charles County. And I think he has got a similar

3 position down in Pensacola, Florida. So, he is pretty excited

4 about that.

5 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Are there any other announcement?

6 (No response)

7 CHAIRMAN NEELY: Thank you so much. Great meeting.

8 CHAIRMAN BLAZER: Yes, well done.

9 (Whereupon, the meeting adjourned at 6:20 p.m.)

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Documents

Maryland DNR Summer Meeting of the Sport Fisheries ... · Ed O’Brien David Sikorski David Sutherland Roger Trageser James Wommack Maryland DNR Fisheries Service: Dave Blazer, Co-Chair