THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 11, 1994 TAG: 9409110139
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C15 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BOB HUTCHINSON
LENGTH: Long : 124 lines
The most controversial fish in the Chesapeake Bay weighs less than a pound, isn't edible and isn't sought by recreational fishermen.
It's the lowly menhaden, prized by a specialized commercial industry because of its abundance, protein and high oil content.
Hundreds of Virginians are employed by two Northern Neck firms that catch and process the fish by the millions.
Scientists have long considered the bunker, as it also is known, extremely valuable as a forage fish, the source of three meals a day for everything from small spot to big striped bass and red drum.
But many recreational fishermen are convinced that the menhaden industry is detrimental, accusing it, sometimes with reason, of everything from polluting the Bay to catching excessive amounts of game fish to chasing rod-and-reelers away with their huge boats.
Now, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation has gotten into the controversy by asking a very pertinent question: Just how important is the menhaden as a source of food for the myriad game fish that inhabit the Bay?
Put another way, the conservation organization wants to know if there's a correlation between the shortage of some game fish, such as bluefish and gray trout, and menhaden fishing.
The foundation believes that Virginia's licensed saltwater anglers are willing to pay for such a study, estimated to cost $60,000. So it is asking the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, which administers the $2 million annual license fund, to consider, through the agency's recreational fishing-license advisory board, funding the study.
The feeling here is that this is exactly the type of project the license should finance, exactly the kind of question the money should be used to answer.
Some politicians aren't going to like the idea, just as they want to keep regulation of the industry in the hands of the General Assembly, instead of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, where it should be. The commission regulates every other species of fish and shellfish in state waters.
The industry has pretty well exonerated itself of charges of catching too many food fish. Yet private and scientific observations consistently show otherwise.
The feeling here is that it is time to find out just how important the bunker is to other species of fish, and to the Bay's well-being.
Spending $60,000, or even $260,000, of the license money to answer this vital question makes a lot more sense than spending $50,000 to improve a boat ramp, as the advisory board already has recommended.
DUCK DATES: North Carolina duck hunters, like their counterparts in Virginia, will have a longer season in 1994-95 and, for the first time since 1986, will be allowed to kill canvasbacks.
A 40-day duck season, split into three segments, has been approved by the state's Wildlife Resources Commission. That's 10 days longer than the 1993-94 season.
The increase was approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after surveys showed a significant increase in waterfowl numbers following decades of declines. Federal estimates are that 71 million ducks will migrate south this fall and winter, compared with 59 million a year ago.
Duck dates in North Carolina will be: Oct. 6-8, Nov. 23-26 and Dec. 19-Jan. 20. Coots and mergansers will be legal on the same dates.
Black ducks will be illegal during the early season. Otherwise, the daily bag limit of three ducks may not include more than one hen mallard, two wood ducks, two redheads, one canvasback, one black, one pintail, one mottled duck or one fulvus tree duck.
The daily limit on coots will be 15; the daily limit on mergansers will be five, but no more than one hooded merganser.
The Canada goose season will be Sept. 16-30, although hunting will be banned in the counties of Bertie, Beaufort, Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Hertford, Hyde, Pamlico, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Tyrrell and Washington, and in Northampton County east of Interstate 95. A special permit will be required.
Snow geese and blue geese may be hunted Oct. 27-Feb. 10, with a daily limit of five, combined. The brant season will be Nov. 23-26 and Dec. 19-Jan. 20, with a daily limit of two. Tundra swan may be hunted by permit only from Nov. 3 through Jan. 19, with a bag limit of one bird per season. Only 6,000 permits will be issued.
Sea ducks may be hunted Oct. 6-Jan. 20, with a daily bag of seven. Only ocean waters, plus coastal waters south of U.S. 64, will be open.
EASTERN INVITATIONAL: Eight Hampton Roads anglers will be among 329 professionals competing in the $190,000 Bassmaster Maryland Eastern Invitational bass tournament Thursday through Saturday.
The contest will be held on the Potomac River and headquartered at Waldorf, Md. First place is expected to pay more than $40,000.
Hampton Roads contestants include: Jerry Evans, Jeffrey A. Mitchell, Ivan Morris, Rick Morris, Roland ``Les'' Ore Jr. and Jim Sumrell, all of Virginia Beach; Keith Jennings of Chesapeake; Phil Parker of Suffolk; and Ron Stallings of Franklin.
Morris will travel to Hartford, Conn., the following week to compete in the $271,200 Bassmaster Top 100 tournament on the Connecticut River. Dates are Sept. 21-24.
BAY CHALLENGE: Several fishing tournaments are on the agenda for next weekend, including the Virginia Beach Anglers' annual king mackerel tournament and the Hatteras Village surf-fishing tournament.
Details about the Virginia Beach tournament can be obtained by calling Randy Morton at 420-5170; information on the Hatteras tourney are available from Burrus' Red & White supermarket in Hatteras village.
Also, the Bay Challenge Tournament will be held Saturday out of the Onancock town dock. It's being staged by Eastern Shore Chapter of the Atlantic Coast Conservation Association and the Eastern Shore Anglers. The tournament will reward first and second places for adults and juniors for eight species, plus a special prize for the largest Eastern Shore brown trout (oyster toad). For details, call Jack Adams, 1-787-7206.
SCHOOL BELLS: Bells will ring in Nags Head Oct. 13-16 for a most unusual institute of higher education: a surf-fishing school to be conducted by Joe Malat and Mac Currin.
Malat is an outdoor writer and former surf-fishing guide; Currin conducted the Hatteras Sportfishing School for nine years.
The school will be headquartered at the Comfort Inn Oceanfront and will include a day and a half of on-the-beach classes, with sessions on beach driving, fish identification, bait and rig preparation, cast-netting for bait, and how to select fishing spots. The $140 registration will include lunch each day. For details, contact Malat at 1-919-441-4767 or Currin at 1-919-881-0049.
SHORT CASTS: Sussex Sporting Clays of Wakefield, Va., will hold the Firetower Open, a 100-target tournament, Sept. 18. The fee will be $60, with details available by calling Mike Jeter at 1-986-2950. . . . Paul Marzovilla of Virginia Beach caught an albino grindle on the Yeopim River in northeastern North Carolina. It weighed 10 pounds and was white, with pink eyes and a pink tail. . . . Did you know that scientists estimate it would take 16 years of a total ban on bluefin tuna fishing to rebuild stocks in the Western Atlantic? by CNB