Extractions could lower boom on perch
I took long, purposeful strides past Canada geese lazily sunbathing on an exposed mud flat.
River birch, as proud as sentinels, lined the creek’s bank as I scanned half-submerged branches for the gelatinous, ribbonlike egg sacks that are telltale signs of the yellow perch spawn. Nothing. I kept walking.
It was brilliantly warm end-of-winter day, the kind of day that jumps out at you in energetic bursts, rejuvenating your very being. For more than a mile I paralleled Mill Stream as it coursed its way upstream from the Corsica, which in turn had water pushing it inward from the Chester.
No doubt similar scenes were playing out across the Chesapeake’s upper reaches as both white and yellow perch spawning runs herald in the traditional start of a new fishing season. On the Choptank, the run of neds (a local name for yellow perch) peaked earlier this week, but fishing should be good for a bit longer. More white perch have schooled up at the headwaters of rivers and creeks daily, ready to do their thing.
The ways to catch these panfish are numerous. You can’t go wrong with pinning a lively grass shrimp or minnow to lightweight, marabou feathered jig head. I’m partial to glow chartreuse, white and on occasion purple. Shad darts under bobbers is another.
Before we know it, hickory shad will have shown up if the vanguard hasn’t already. My scout on the Gunpowder River near Route 40 remains mum. Deer Creek or Octoraro Creek yet, or off Fletchers are silent still, but I imagine not for long.
Catfish, carp and crappie can round out your angling options. Crappie will hit small skirted tube jigs and spinners in green and black, and the cats prefer cut bait. Carp are a whole other column.
State bill seeks to allow netting in local creeks
If you haven’t heard about a bill winding its way through Maryland’s House of Delegates that would allow commercial netting in three local waterways, join the club.
I was among those caught flat-footed that lawmakers, with apparently the support of the Department of Natural Resources, are considering a measure (HB 843) to allow watermen to set haul seines for gizzard shad in Meredith and Whitehall creeks off Whitehall Bay and Lake Ogleton off the Severn
River.
What’s a gizzard shad, you ask? Also called “mud shad,” American gizzard shad are found throughout the Chesapeake’s tidal waters. They’re dark-colored, smelly and slimy. No one eats these fish, not even on a dare. Some local watermen target them primarily in the winter months with fyke nets and haul seines, the latter of which can be several hundred feet long.
They’re sold to gulf states, primarily Louisiana and Mississippi, to be used as crawfish bait. It’s a low-value, high-volume fishery, worth just pennies a pound, which means you need to catch thousands of pounds to make the juice worth the squeeze.
I became familiar with this relatively new commercial fishery a few years ago by accident. I saw watermen unloading copious amounts of fish — easily several thousand pounds — onto a flatbed tractor-trailer with water tanks at the public landing at the head of the Corsica River, where I run a seasonal kayak shop. Although most of their haul was mud shad, but I also saw other species in the mix.
Currently, there are no state limits on how many pounds of mud shad can be harvested, nor is reliable data available on the impact to a tributary’s ecosystem when such huge amounts of biomass are removed. Importantly, we do not have an accurate accounting of the by-catch — white and yellow perch and other panfish primarily.
Are they released alive or just thrown in with the gizzard shad and sold as bait? It is basically a de facto unregulated fishery, and from where I sit that could pose a real challenge for Natural Resource Police in terms of enforcing regulations or keeping annual records of enforcement actions on regulated species that might get hauled in with the mud shad.
Longtime Annapolitan and accomplished angler Joe Evans is spot on when he says that perch are the quintessential Chesapeake panfish, a “gateway fish to young anglers and home cooks.” If these three waterways have finite numbers of white perch and/ or remnant stocks of yellow perch, mass extractions from haul seines could lower the boom on their numbers and significantly curtailing recreational fishing.
Watermen and their supporters counter this targeted fishery is necessary to help them pay bills, exacerbated by COVID19. Well, isn’t that what the CARES Act is intended to help with? They also claim the headwaters where they’ll lay their haul seines — possible 750 feet long — can support a commercial operation of this size.
Negative. Too small. I cut my teeth in the outdoor profession 25 years ago on Meredith and Whitehall creeks, as a captain-educator on the Bay Foundation’s work boat Lady D. Lake Ogleton is where we skied, fished and crabbed as kids.
It took many years and a lot of work by a lot of people to rejiggered yellow perch regulations to strike a more equitable balance between the recreational and commercial sectors. Fifteen years ago, I called the DNR’s decision to support an increase in the commercial yellow perch quota a headscratcher and urged it to put the fish first. It seems once again past is prologue, unfortunately. Let’s hope legislators listen to their constituents and vote down this measure.
Outdoors calendar
March 15: Potomac River Fisheries Commission’s online public meeting to discuss ASMFC’s Public Information Document on Amendment 7 for striped bass from 6-8 p.m. Visit prfc.us.
March 22: Maryland Department of Natural Resources online public meeting to discuss ASMFC’s Public Information Document on Amendment 7 for striped bass from 6-8 p.m.
April 9: Deadline for comments for ASMFC’s Public Information Document on striped bass. Email your to comments@ asmfc.org, with “Striped Bass PID” in the subject line.
April 17-18: Junior turkey hunting days, ages 16 or younger only.
April 19-May 24: Maryland spring turkey season. Includes Sundays in certain counties, see DNR online chart.