President's Message
by Stephen Shechtel
 

Since the start of this year, we have been fortunate to have one great guest speaker after another. Your Board has worked hard to present you with exciting speakers so that the meetings are fun and informative. If you missed the August meeting, you missed another great guest speaker, Lenny Rudow. But its not about Mr. Rudow that I write about this month. It's something that Mr. Rudow said, coupled with recent news about the environment.

Mr. Rudow remarked that before he goes fishing in the Chesapeake Bay, he researches on a website where to locate the oxygen depleted areas of the Bay. This is sick. How complacent have we become that we perform research before going fishing where the Bay cannot support life? All of us should be outraged by this condition, not adapting to it.

On August 18th the Washington Post reported that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted to set a 105,800 metric ton cap (the alleged average of the last five harvests) on Omega's commercial harvest of menhaden from the Bay. The US Government had a chance to limit of the wholesale slaughter of the Menhaden, and blew it. Maryland outlawed purse seine reduction fishing, not Virginia. Each of us knows first hand that the habitat is in distress. For the past five (5) years Menhaden have been fished without limits, and the best ASMFC can do is to recommend that the limit of over fishing to be the previous volume of over fishing. What a joke. The recommendation is an insult to our intelligence. ASMFC's recommendation rings loud that Omega's money is more important than the environment.

Just last week, DNR was considering opening up reserved oyster fields to harvest because economically strapped watermen needed income. Forget that the Chesapeake Bay native oyster is almost extinct.

( Continued on page 04 - col 01 )

Next Meeting

September 14th 2005:
Food service starts at 6:00
Meeting starts at 7:00

Speaker:
We will have a King Mackerel Bonanza, from rigging seminars to catching bait to all the locations. There will be various people so you can see all the different ways people rig and the equipment they use.

Vendor:
none

Updates from Rob

Upcoming Events

King Mackerel Trip - NC

The tournament will run from 10/10-10/14. Sign up will be at the September Meeting and you must pay by October 1. The Daily is $50 and the weekly is $100. There will also be a Calcutta for $100 - winner take all on the largest king mackerel. See Gordon at the meeting to pay for the Calcutta. Make sure you attend the meeting or send someone with your money.

Offshore Update

Crabby won the MSSA Offshore Calcuttas and claimed 2nd place in the Tournament with a 48 lber. The real surprise is he won the Calcutta which allowed 4 fish with only 2. He won over $6,000 which is not bad for such a small tournament. Tony Tolbard finished 2nd in the dolphin division so the Frederick chapter again was well represented. Even though the larger bluefin were not there there were plenty of yellowfin tuna both trolling and chunking. Hopefully the fall will continue to produce as September is a great month for offshore.

( continued on page 02 )

Newsletter & Notices Online The MSSA Frederick Chapter Newsletter is available online at: http://www.mssafrederick.com Hard copys are available by special request. To get on the "mail to only list", contact the MSSA Secretary.
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Newsletter Items: for September are due Serptember 22, 2005
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