Amy Baird with a 21-pound lower Columbia River Chinook caught on 8/10/16 with pro guide Bob Rees It’s smoldering hot in my hometown near Portland, OR right now. I’m chomping at the bit to head back to the coast, where cooler breezes and biting salmon are about to grace my vessel, to ply the lower […]
Photo by John McMurray From the outside looking in, fisheries management can appear complicated and frustrating. There are many sectors with different agendas. Each sector wants rules that are friendly to their position relative to the best available science and their opinions. I’ve sat in countless council meetings, commissions, and workgroups over the years. It […]
Photo: Atlantic Cod, by Joachim S. Mueller It’s the middle of summer. Forty years ago, I would have been fishing for cod southeast of Rhode Island. That might catch some people by surprise, because they think of cod as a cold-water species that only appears off New York and southern New England during the dead […]
Photo by John McMurray When fisheries close abruptly, the questions come a-lobbin’. Most of my fellow fishermen get rather anxious, questioning whether our fishery managers are accurate in their assessments of the harvest. Although I will claim a bias, since I worked for both state and federal fisheries agencies, I certainly subscribed to the statistical […]
Youth fishing camp participants caught on quickly. By day three, they were casting from shore like pros. “Catching fish is a blast… I caught eight fish today and four yesterday,” said Aiden Plante, a 10-year-old who attended the Rhode Island Saltwater Anglers Association’s (RISAA) Youth Fishing Camp last month. Aiden was one of fifty children […]
Some may be cheering the Secretary of Commerce’s decision to overrule ASMFC on summer flounder, but in the end, Jersey may have really screwed us If you are a regular reader, you likely know the controversy surrounding summer flounder (aka fluke). And I’m guessing you’re probably up to speed on the striped bass situation, too […]
Everglades photo via Wikipedia For many years, it was my job to figure out what anglers cared about and represent their concerns to various decision makers. We used internet polls, face to face meetings, and questionnaires to see what really mattered to recreational anglers in Maryland. In 2012, the main areas of concern for Chesapeake […]
Author Charles Witke will testify at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing on the Magnuson-Stevens Act on July 19th. In this post, he explains why the recent Commerce Department decision undermines ASFMC and the future of cooperative interstate fisheries management. Late in the afternoon of July 11, 2017, the United States Department of Commerce (Commerce) […]
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