DELAWARE

With regulations hampering anglers, kings rule the waters

CAPT. JACK RODGERS

DELMARVANOW CORRESPONDENT

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” — John Lubbock

“Typical summer fishin' for these days, Capt. Jack,” says Dan of Dan’s Tackle Box near Milton. “Mostly just a lot of small stuff.”

The small stuff he was referring to were primarily kingfish, a species that was, heretofore, far, far down on the list of local anglers. I can well remember people didn’t even know what a kingfish was in the not-so-distant-past of our region.

Who needed kingfish? We had trout and flounder galore!

Well right now we do need them, at least if you are angling near Shark Bay (Delaware). Restricted by a sociologically-based virtual closure on sea trout and an annual dearth of flounder in an estuary depleted of much of its live bottom by dredging, anglers are left to fish for what is there. And that, it appears, is the kingfish.

Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty good to say about the kings. Use a small, light spinning rod and they are scrappy fighters. They dive and pull, and usually really wallop a bait when they hit it.

They are “thick,” meaning there isn’t much waste during the filleting process and the fish are a delight to eat, with a real buttery taste.

Many of the kings in Shark Bay are huddled around the artificial reef sites as dredgers have proven incapable of being able to uproot concrete. Using small pieces of clam or squid gets you in the game, as well as either bloodworm or squid.

Surf anglers along the ocean beaches are also starting to connect with the kings in the wash. Old Inlet notes that there is some colder, murkier water close to shore (where the kings normally hang) so you have to cast a little further than the norm to stay on the fish.

Speaking of colder water, the hard southerly winds of last week have helped to usher in a lot of cold water down on the bottom on the new flounder grounds of the Atlantic.

Capt. Rick Yakimowicz said that when you pull a flattie out of the depths the fish feel like you just removed them from a refrigerator.

Cold water isn’t the only problem hampering local flounder fishermen. Wind directions directly against the tide for much of the week have slowed drift speeds to a literal standstill.

Compounding the problem is human management. The fish are just under the now increased 17-inch minimum size (last year was 16) and are being released.

The onerous regulations don’t stop with the sociological virtual closure of the sea trout, the protection of sharks and the increased minimum sizes on summer flounder.

Local recreational anglers are staring another piece of regulation in the face with potential increases in minimum size for tautog, with a reduction of days that they can be retained. The proposal has the potential to close tog fishing in May in our region.

Anyone who has read this column knows that I have long been sounding the call that tog have been getting pounded. Some of the cause is the real dearth of other species to fish for. Some of it, though, is the fact that what IS around, we can’t fish for due to regulations that are increasingly difficult to countenance.

Perhaps, then, in that light, it might be wise to stay with the “status quo” option for tog even for someone who believes they are getting pounded, like me, at least for now.

Should this regulation pass, local anglers would be looking at the following situation next May: sea trout, one fish. One. Flounder (as far as we know now) four fish but an increased size of 17 inches (and, frankly, there is a reason they call them “summer” flounder and good old May is firmly in the spring), croakers (seemingly gone), black sea bass closed until the third week of the month and now, what, 12.5 inches to keep, bluefish limited to one small portion of Shark Bay in the Harbor of Refuge, the Atlantic shore beaches and Broadkill River.

This spring bluefish fling isn’t, one remembers, something that used to occur on this level and certainly can’t be counted on. Even white perch populations in local tidal rivers have been getting walloped over the past five years.

Sorta brings us back to the kingfish, doesn’t it?

Enacting such a tautog regulation means that if local anglers want to fish they will be joining the increasing ranks of anglers, both commercial and recreational, targeting the black drum and striped bass. The vicious cycle of taking the pressure off one species and shifting it on to another, an age old fisheries merry-go-round, continues.

As that fellow at the dock told me last week, it’s harder and harder to make the case that 20 years of increasingly stringent regulation have helped not only the fisherman, but the fish themselves.

You can comment on the proposed tautog regulations until July 14. Email Ashton Harp at aharp@asmfc.org with Tautog Draft Amendment 1 in the subject line. You can also call 703-842-0740.

Comments, questions or reports to captjackrodgers@comcast.net