Changes coming for cobia, shark rules; others stay the same

One day last week I received three different public notice email announcements from Maryland DNR about fishery regulation updates. Before opening any of them I could see from the subject matter that they were about striped bass, summer flounder and black sea bass.

With my interest immediately piqued by the prospect of new regulations for three very important species, I couldn’t wait to open them and see what local anglers had in store for the new season ahead.

I first opened the notice about striped bass which stated: “Effective 12:01 a.m. Jan. 1, 2018, a person may not take or possess more than two striped bass per day from Maryland waters of the Atlantic Ocean, its coastal bays and their tributaries. The striped bass must be between 28 and 38 inches, inclusive, or greater than or equal to 44 inches. All other rules remain the same.”

Reading that I thought, “OK, so where are the changes in the regulations? Am I missing something? Those regulations look to be exactly what anglers have been fishing under all year! And they are — apparently the email was just a notice that the 2019 regulations are the same as last year.

The email about flounder stated: “The season will be open Jan. 1, 2018, through Dec. 31, 2018. Recreational anglers may keep up to four (4) summer flounder per person per day. The recreational minimum size for summer flounder is 17 inches in all Maryland state waters. All other rules remain the same. The season, size limit and creel limit may be adjusted in 2018 pending Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission action.”

So again the notice isn’t providing any new information because the catch limits they listed are exactly the same as what we had in 2017. The only hint of possible “new” regulations is where they say that the size and creel limits may be adjusted, which is normal, because usually at some point in the winter DNR comes out with a suite of flounder options for anglers to consider.

So it could very well be that we end up seeing some kind of new flounder regulations before the fish start to bite in the spring, but nothing yet.

And finally I opened the email about black sea bass, which read that, “The recreational black sea bass fishery will be closed from 12:01 a.m. Jan. 1, 2018, through 11:59 p.m. Feb. 28, 2018.

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"In order to implement the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Black Sea Bass, the department will establish the season, catch limit and minimum size for the recreational black sea bass fishery for the remainder of 2018 in a later notice."

Which, again, doesn’t say a whole lot except that the sea bass will close for two months starting the first of the year and “if” there are going to be any changes made in the size or creel limits they will be made at a later date.

So none of those notices had any earth-shattering news about anything. At least our tax dollars didn’t go into printing and postage to get that news out!

One species that we know for sure is going to have some new regulations in 2018 is cobia.

In October, Maryland DNR announced that they were working on a plan for cobia that would be in effect by next season. We’re still waiting to hear what those new state regulations will be but there’s no mystery about what will be going on with cobia in federal waters in 2018.

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It was announced back in August that the cobia regulations in federal waters will open back up this Jan. 1 with a new “36-inch” fork length and limit of one per person but no more than six per boat.

Jan. 1,  2018, will also be the start of some pretty major changes for shark anglers who fish in federal waters.

New is the requirement that if a fisherman would like the opportunity to keep a shark they must request a “shark endorsement” on their annual HMS permit, and that anglers who are targeting sharks must use circle hooks.

Between now and whenever the new fishing season kicks in, we might very well see some tweaks to regulations on other fish as well, but for now it seems that the only changes anyone has really committed to are those for cobia and sharks.