The goal of this post is to remove the politics of the fishery and “whose” fault it is and add a non-scientific but evidence based report from a lowly recreational fisherman who loves the bay and all it promises to us.
Current state of the bay. The water looks great to an untrained eye. I was out a couple of weeks ago now and it was just beautiful water. Even in the chop you could just look at the color and it looks great. Now visual observation is just one of many and maybe one of the least important factors but “I’m just saying”.
Well looks can be deceiving and based on every score card I can find online the health of the bay is a solid C. Now being a solid C student in grade school I can tell you that better is very possible. Only after I grew out of myself did I realize that I wasted a good portion of my life by not striving for greatness regardless of how many times I failed. The key to this obvious trouble, the answer is completely in our hands and our wheelhouse.
The answer to this and many other issues is to get people not the “other people” but simply you and I as individuals to take responsibility. Yes the government has a role to play but nothing significant in my life has ever happened because of a government mandate but rather me realizing that I, me, personally can have an impact. If you can get 300 million Americans really and truly caring about the environment in 300 million unique ways the impact is immediate. There is no government organization that can monitor the personal activities of that many people so this has to become core to you and not rely on the government to keep others in check.
The Chesapeake watershed, defined as the body of land that if a drop of water hits, will eventually find its way to the bay. How many people in the farm lands of NY, PA, MD, WV, DE, and VA realize how much effect they have on the bay. My guess tells me they do the best they can but the bay and the effects of farming has on the bay is 15th on their list of priorities. How can we help these farmers out and is it possible to help them financially in managing their effect vs. a penalty if they don’t conform. Can environmental cleanup become a source of income for these farmers? If yes then fantastic and it will certainly go to a better curator of money than a PAC. I personally think the carrot is more effective than the stick when there is not enough resources to monitor the stick method.
Second in negative effect on the bay is urban street runoff and water treatment issues. Well if the government has a play in this cleanup the very best place to start is to with themselves as an individual contributor. This could be the first, best, and easiest choice to fix a grand portion of the problem. I would say this because rather than 10s of thousands of farmers there are just hundreds of cities and they have better ways to improve their facilities so the benefit vs time is just better here. I know, pass the infrastructure bill…well I hope that when it does pass this may actually get fixed but based on the last hundred years I would expect more of the same. Just like all churches have a building fund but the same door squeaks for eternity. I would love to be wrong for a change so time will tell.
I’ll leave the Omega Protein company out of this post while only adding that politics always beats evidence. I could care less if you are for or against commercial fishing but what I think we have to live with is the limits our legal entities set on bag limits. So I follow the rules because regardless if I fully understand the limits it is the only measure we have. I want a standard for all of us to live by and encourage all to follow the rules as if they matter because they do in fact matter. If these agencies tell me one fish per day that is what I live by or less. If they want me to report all of my catches I am fully in on the requirement. My goal is not to fill my freezer with fish but to enjoy fishing. Besides, the most expensive fish you will ever eat is the one you catch.
Moving on to how the bay has changed. Shrimp and in great numbers are being seen for at least the first time for me. Never did I imagine that shrimp would be a food source from the bay and at least I am hoping that it will become a new food for stripers, they certainly seem to love them. We have seen species in the bay that I would never have expected like sturgeon as an example. This could be climate change, or maybe they were here but in small numbers, I just don’t know.
Change seems to be the only constant but regardless of if this change is natural or man-made it is my responsibility to have the least impact on the bay as possible. One day we will stand in judgment and I don’t want to try to explain that I was anything other than caring for our great world. Caring for people, caring for the environment is one in the same for me.
Well I certainly didn’t add anything new to this conversation but if I have a goal here it is to get you to think of a way to change from being be part of the problem to more about how to be part of the solution. We all have a part in the process so think before you act.
I guess you can see why I don’t allow every idiot on the internet to comment on my blog, I just send them out in a bottle and you can read or not, either way is just fine by me. Anyway hopefully my next post will be more about fishing. We are just a couple of weeks away from my time of the year.
