Subject:  FYI About Rockfish in VA.

Some OF THESE FISH MAY BE FOUND IN MD WATERS ALSO! THS IS ONE OF THE CHARTER ASSOCIATIONS I BELONG TO.
MINUTES OF THE OCTOBER VCBA GENERAL MEETING

The VCBA general meeting was held October 15, 2007. 23 members were in attendance in addition to several guests.

President Bob Hewlett opened the meeting at 7:15 p.m. and asked Joe Shelton to introduce his guest speaker, Wolfgang Vogelbein from VIMS.

Presentation by Dr. Vogelbein
Dr. Vegelbein discussed the new VIMS program for studying the mycobacterium disease in rockfish. He stated that this wasting disease in fish is widespread - worldwide. Greater than 50% of our native fish are infected. Natural mortality has gone up since the early '90s but the overall impact on the rockfish population in the Bay is unknown at this time. The new program involves trawl surveys for the entire Bay and tributary investigation in the Rappahannock River. The objective is to find out the impact of the disease on the fish population. Fish must be killed to determine if it has the disease. It has been found that there are fish with the disease in their spleen but do not have signs on the outside. The program involves tagging both healthy-appearing and diseased fish and releasing them. The tag return rates for each group will be used to estimate relative mortality. This fall VIMS will tag over 3000 rockfish in the Rappahannock.

The recreational fishermen are being asked to report to VIMS when they catch a green- tagged fish (reporting information is on the tag) or you can put the fish on ice and VIMS will pick it up. If you clip off the tag close to the body and call VIMS you receive $5 reward for each fish. If you hold the fish for VIMS to pick up you will receive $20 reward. (If you catch a rockfish carrying a pink streamer tag they were tagged under a different program and you will not receive a reward for their return. At this time, VIMS is seeking an exemption from VMRC so that any held tagged fish will not count against your daily limit.

Preliminary studies have shown that diseased fish show little progress of disease over the winter months but significant deterioration during the summer months including loss of weight and increase of lesions.

Information was passed out on how to participate in the program. Please call 1-866-845-3379 to participate in this extremely important program.