Article by Marty Gary
Fishing License Sales Update
Great news for fishermen and bait and tackle stores in the Ocean City area. As promised in last week’s update, several local bait & tackle stores are now selling fishing licenses. Here is the complete list with locations and phone numbers:
•Frontier Town, 8430 Stephen Decatur Hwy - (410) 641-0880
•John Henry’s Bait & Tackle, 12507 Sunset Ave #15 - (410) 213-9378
•AllTackle Ocean City, 12826 Ocean Gateway - (410) 571-1111
•Sharkey’s Market, 8315 Stephen Decatur Hwy - (410) 641-0537
•Oceanic Pier, 710 S Philadelphia Ave # 1 - (410) 289-2602
•Skip’s Bait & Tackle, 210 Talbot St - (410) 430-5436
•Oyster Bay Tackle, 11615A Coastal Hwy - (410) 524-3433
•Fenwick Island Tackle, 101 Coastal Hwy Unit 4 - (302) 539-7766
•Captain Mac’s Bait & Tackle, 37320 Lighthouse Rd - (302) 436-2445
•Walmart, Rt. 50 in Berlin - (410) 221-0292
These stores have all of the necessary supplies to sell you a State of Maryland fishing license, including the boat decals that cover everyone on board the vessels. Please remember that all anglers 16 years of age or older need a Maryland fishing license to fish in Maryland’s coastal waters, including the back bays, inlet, surf and out 3 miles into the ocean. Exempted are those anglers under the age of 16, owners of private property and their guests fishing from their property, and passengers on vessels with a pleasure boat license decal.
If readers of this column have a business that would see a benefit in selling fishing licenses and are interested in becoming an official DNR agent, please contact me via email: [email protected]
National Saltwater Angler Registry
We’ll continue to keep reminding sportfishermen that in addition to the new Maryland fishing license requirements, all anglers 16 years of age or older fishing in coastal waters of the United States need to be registered in the National Saltwater Angler Registry. If a fisherman purchases an individual Maryland Saltwater license online or at one of the locations we listed previously, they are automatically entered into the National Saltwater Angler Registry. That will accommodate most of the anglers fishing in Maryland, but there are others that will still need to register. The lions share of those fishermen that need to register are the guests that are fishing on boats that have a Chesapeake & Coastal Sport Decal, and waterfront property owners and their guests that are fishing from their property. Those anglers should register through Maryland DNR’s FREE registration located on our website at: http://dnr.maryland.gov/swregistry.asp
If the readers of the Coastal Fisherman have any questions on license requirements or the National Saltwater Angler Registry, they can call 410-656-9526.
Bluefin Tuna
As I write this column, NOAA Fisheries just completed a National stakeholder conference call to discuss a ruling on bluefin tuna. With the annual Tuna Tournament just a few weeks away, certainly the implications of NOAA’s decision had the eyes and ears of many fishermen and businesses in the Town of Ocean City. The good news for anglers (and presumably and more importantly, the fish) is that NOAA found that bluefin tuna did not warrant an endangered species status listing. They have instead formally designated the western Atlantic, eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean stocks of bluefin tuna as “species of concern”. This places the species on a watch list for concerns about its status and threats to the species under the Endangered Species Act. NOAA will revisit this decision by early 2013 after more information becomes available from the next stock assessment from ICCAT and more is known regarding the impact of the oil spill from the Deep Water Horizon to larval and juvenile bluefin in the Gulf.
For now the daily bluefin tuna retention limit for private vessels is one school or large school BFT (measuring 27 to less than 59 inches) per vessel per day/trip and for charter/headboat vessels to one school BFT (measuring 27 to less than 47 inches) and one large school BFT (measuring 47 to less than 59 inches) per vessel per day/trip; and (2) closure of the southern area large medium/giant “trophy” BFT fishery (for BFT measuring 73 inches and greater). The Angling category North/South line is at 39°18’ N. lat. (off Great Egg Inlet, NJ).
The Case of Atlantic Cod
The catches of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) by headboats, and some private boats, have really caught my eye. I’m sure many of the old timers recall instances in the past where cod were being caught off Maryland’s coast, but the latest reports prompted me to pull an old Maryland Tidewater Fisheries publication, dated 1960, off my office shelf in Annapolis. I’ll leave you this week with the following excerpted quote as it appeared in 1960 from this publication:
“Codfishing is New to Offshore Anglers” – Codfish, bottom feeders of the Atlantic, are something new to both Maryland’s recreational and commercial fishermen. Little attention was paid to the cod until the fall of 1959 when commercial netters found them in appreciable numbers off Ocean City’s Fenwick Wrecks. Then Captain Ward Brex decided they might be worth a try with hook and line, so he took his big headboat out of winter mothballs and gave them a try. The results were fabulous for the few hardy anglers that braved the chilled ocean winds to work clam baits on the bottom. Oftentimes, each fisherman could claim 100 to 250 pounds of these delicious steak fish, some of them going 20 pounds each. Bigger ones are out there in the wintertime, and probably, they’ll be caught as soon as better codfishing techniques are learned. A stout boat rod, with heavy line and sufficient lead to keep big hooks baited with large globs of clams right on the bottom, is needed for ‘em.”
Until next week… good fishing!
Marty Gary is Assistant Director/Fisheries Ecologist at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Fisheries Service.
