Wino, Thanks for the thread. Not a bad topic to discuss if people dont get overly emotional and upset. FLA and other states have their issues too. Though i am not a FLA fisherman and dont know their regulations, I am sure I could easily find mis-steps in management of the state. I do know FLA is having many issues regarding fishermans rights currently.
A couple of things I do want to point out about the perception about Maryland though is that yes, during our trophy season, a percentage of fish are said to be "prespawn". However a percentage in the fall are prespawn as well a percentage along the coast year long are prespawn. I say this because once a spawning-stock female is removed from the population, she will not spawn again. I believe Maryland can and should have its opportunity to harvest the migratory fish just as any other state does. What the managers of the species need to do is control that harvest everwhere along the migratory run so that the population can sustain itself. The finger pointing at Maryland is easy to do emotionally due to the fact that we are the primary nursery of the species. However, we are speaking about at species that travels from NC to Maine and there are much greater recreational harvests of the spawning-stock fish
per angler outside of the Chesapeake Bay. I say this because the common creel limits allow recreational anglers along the coast to take twice as many fish per trip per angler of that of Maryland anglers. Maryland anglers are only allowed to harvest one spawning stock fish per trip when the season is open. Personally
I would like to see other states be held to the Maryland standard should we need to reduce the recreational impact on the spawning stock.
If Maryland was in need of changes to help the population of the species, I would hope that they would consider looking at the summer harvest first. As stated before, the Chesapeake Bay is the nursery of the stock where the junenile fish reside until they reach maturity (scientifically said to occur when the fish reaches around 28"). Given that Maryland has argueably the toughest regulations (aside from Maine) on the spawning stock fish, I would hope that if concessions were to be made by Maryland anglers that they would come in this area. I also state this due to science around myco and knowing that we are able to harvest two young fish per angler per trip much of the year. I fear that between the disease and our harvest that Maryland may not be allowing enough fish to enter the spawning stock given the concerns over sustainability that seem to be arising by some of the regulators of the species. My personal belief is that the best solution to ensure a more sustainable population would be to ask Maryland to go to a two fish per person limit of one fish 18-28" and one fish 28" and over per angler per trip. This would reduce the harvest of juveniles in the bay by half, allowing more fish to enter the spawning stock, and reduce the harvest of spawners along our coast by half. This would also create a better fishery along the coastal bays where 28" fish are more rare. I would hope that these type of regulations would pressed for others to follow as well. I already know that NJ is considering similar regulations.
I do know that there was a lot of discussion revolving around "prespawn" catch and release this past fall as well. I dont want to get much into that topic and conversation here but did want to point to a FLA study on Snook since you brought it up. You can see a thread I created on TF here regarding snook and prespawn C&R:
http://www.tidalfish.com/forums/ches...c-r-study.html