Easter weekend was cool here in the Northern Neck. The days before we had tempertures in the 70's but late Saturday night a front came through and bought the cooler tempertures.

Trees have started to bloom as well as some flowers. The water temperature has warmed so it won't be long before crabs start to run and the fish start biting.

Take a weekend and ride down to experience the beauty property owners have here in the Northern Neck and if you like what you see then give me a call and we'll see if we can't find you that perfect piece of Northern Neck Real Estate.

Tougher crabbing limits are set in Virginia

Harsher restraints may come in April if numbers worsen, say regulators

Copied from the Times Dispatch. These regs will make it much rougher on Northern Neck and Chesapeake Bay crabbers. 

By LAWRENCE LATANE III

TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

NEWPORT NEWS — State regulators passed new limits on the blue crab harvest and promised more to come after a bleak public hearing on the economically important species yesterday.

The measures enacted unanimously by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission are expected "to go a long way towards restoring this iconic resource for the commonwealth," commissioner Steve Bowman said.

Watermen packed the commission's meeting room and complained that water pollution — not harvest — has driven the crab population to its lowest point in decades.

"In this context of a declining ecosystem, today's fishing is tomorrow's overfishing," said Williamsburg waterman Kelly Place.

Many of the eight commissioners agreed but said the only tools immediately available to improve crab numbers are mandatory restrictions that will leave more crabs in the water to multiply.

Rules approved yesterday will go into effect on the March 17 opening of this year's crabbing season.

They include a requirement for watermen to leave two escape hatches open in all crab pots no matter where they are set. Previously, watermen crabbing in the mainstem of the bay and parts of the Eastern Shore had been able to crab legally with only one of the escape hatches open.

The hatches allow undersized crabs, especially small females, to avoid capture. Called cull rings, the hatches were mandated in 1996 when the commission enacted a series of 22 measures designed to reduce fishing pressure on blue crabs.

Last year, a commission study panel concluded the early restrictions had failed to buoy the crab population. It recommended that new conservation measures be implemented this spring.

The study panel said crab numbers have plunged 70 percent since 1991 and pointed out that the crab population is so low it has been overfished seven out of the past 10 years.

The commission said it needs to wait until its April 22 meeting to consider even harsher restraints on crab harvesting.

A Chesapeake Bay census of hibernating blue crabs is expected by April 1; scientists fear it may show the crab in even deeper trouble.

If the survey is as bad as expected, the commission will consider reducing by half the number of crab pots that watermen can fish for both hard crabs and "peelers," which produce high-priced soft crabs.

The commission also voted unanimously yesterday to advertise for public hearing at its April meeting a measure to curtail or close Virginia's historic winter crab dredge fishery. Totaling more than 300 boats a couple of decades ago, the fleet has shrunk to 55 this year because of declining catches, low prices and rising boat operating costs.

Watermen told the commission that they are as endangered as the crab seems to be.

"You're putting us out of business," said Tangier Island waterman Charles Pruitt.

But Bowman said doing nothing puts the crab population in danger of collapse. "If something is not done, I fear you won't have any crabs to deal with later on."
Contact Lawrence Latané III at (804) 333-3461 or llatane@timesdispatch.com.

Find out more about the Virginia Waterman 

The Virginian-Pilot
© February 27, 2008

NEWPORT NEWS

Virginia officials approved a spate of new rules Tuesday for harvesting blue crabs from the Chesapeake Bay, in the hope of restoring stocks of the seafood favorite, whose numbers have whittled to near-record lows in recent years.

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission voted unanimously for the changes at a tense, standing-room-only meeting in Newport News. Commission members also signaled that even more dramatic reforms are likely coming in the run-up to this year’s crabbing season , which begins March 17.

At the meeting packed with mostly angry commercial crabbers, critics denounced the new regulations as further examples of poor state management of the prized crab fishery, a staple in Virginia and Maryland for centuries. They predicted the rules will do little but cause

economic pain.

“We’re not going to survive this,” said Charles Pruitt, a waterman from Tangier Island, a commercial fishing hub in the middle of the Bay. “You might as well throw us out now; we’ve been regulated to death already.”

Beginning this season, the marine commission will require two escape hatches, or cull rings, to remain open on crab pots throughout the Bay – a move intended to give undersized female crabs a better chance to survive and spawn.

Commission members also increased the minimum size limit for peeler crabs, or those about to shed their shells and which are sold later as soft crabs, a delicacy to many seafood lovers.

They also moved to curb “agents” and “permit stacking,” in which watermen can let someone else catch crabs in their place – a loophole that state officials say has been exploited for years.

And the commission capped the number of watermen who can dredge crabs, almost all of them females, from the muddy bottom of the Bay as they hibernate during winter months.

Only about 55 license-holders will be able to continue this practice, though officials said they may ban winter dredging entirely when the commission meets again in April to discuss other conservation measures.

Also on tap for debate in April will be cutting the amount of crab pots and traps by between 10 and 30 percent, and perhaps as high as 50 percent; doing away with recreational crabbing licenses; and enforcing no-harvest sanctuaries for longer periods during the commercial season.

“Believe me, the commission gets no pleasure out of passing regulations that make things more difficult for watermen,” said Steve Bowman, who heads the marine commission. “But the numbers don’t lie. Things are bad. They’re really bad.”

For example, the average annual harvest in Virginia and Maryland from 1945 to 2006 was 72 million pounds. The harvest in 2007 was expected to be about 40 million pounds, the lowest on record.

Researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science have also documented a 70 percent decline in the abundance of adult crabs since 1991 – a time when the state enacted 22 regulations designed to enhance stocks.

Jack Travelstead, state director of fisheries, said Tuesday that the years of regulation may not have turned the population around, but they probably helped avoid a complete collapse of the species.

Watermen, though, said the experience proved what they have argued for years – that the biggest problem facing crabs is not overfishing, which the commission has tried to regulate. Instead, they argued, crabs are suffering from a combination of environmental degradation – pollution, lost habitat, little oxygen to breathe – along with increasing numbers of natural predators such as striped bass, croakers and blue catfish.

“Water quality is the key,” Kelly Price, an Eastern Shore crabber, told the commission. “Without that, you lose habitat. And without habitat, you’re done.”

The moves Tuesday come as Maryland is wrestling with new regulations as well. The two states have been discussing joint strategies for weeks, officials said, and will continue to coordinate efforts.

Maryland is eyeing a maximum size limit for female crabs, but only wants to proceed if Virginia agrees to do the same, Travelstead said. The maximum limit, of 6½ inches, will be discussed at the April commission meeting.

As stocks continued to struggle last year, Virginia assembled a team of scientists and government experts from various Atlantic states. The team spent a year studying Virginia’s plight and concluded, among other things, that too many pots are being used to catch too few crabs, and that environmental woes are plaguing any revival.

The actions approved Tuesday stem from that scientific review. Virginia also is studying long-term management changes that would fundamentally shift how crabbing is governed.

That study is continuing but could include a days-on-the-

water system, in which crabbers would be granted specific times when they could go fishing, and could buy, sell or trade those rights as they please. The method has helped turn around the once-troubled sea scallop fishery off the Atlantic coast.

Copied from the Daily Press - Please note that overfishing is mentioned but what is not mentioned is that the commission publicly announced that the water quality is what has caused these conditions. KS

Crabbing limits are approved

Blue crab fishermen say the policies hurt them.

By PATRICK LYNCH | 247-4534

February 27, 2008

NEWPORT NEWS - Virginia officials took a step Tuesday toward reining in commercial fishing pressure on a blue crab population scientists say is vulnerable to collapse.

Despite repeated claims from watermen that poor water quality and an increase in natural predators are driving down blue crab numbers more than overfishing, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission voted unanimously to adopt new crabbing regulations. And likely on the way in March and April are even more regulations.

"Things are bad. They're really bad," said Commissioner Steven G. Bowman, referring to a population trend that has seen the Chesapeake Bay's crabs decline to less than a third of the early-1990s numbers.

The blue crab remains the bedrock of one of Virginia's most lucrative commercial fisheries. But a panel of crab biologists concluded months ago that years of overfishing was cutting too far into the blue crab stock and its ability to reproduce.

Watermen, scientists and regulators have disagreed on how much to blame unhealthy waters versus overfishing. During a three-hour public hearing, people from all three groups repeatedly made the point that a degraded Chesapeake Bay is not an abstract problem, but a stark reality that hampers commercial industry and tears at working-the-water traditions of Virginia's bay communities.

Bowman answered concerns from watermen that tougher regulations will cause them hardship by saying the commission was acting in the best long-term interest of the crabs and therefore the crab industry.

"You'd be just as right to come back here in five years (if the crab population collapsed), and say, 'Why didn't you do anything? It was your job to protect the crabs?' " Bowman said.

Doug Jenkins, president of the Twin Rivers Watermen's Association, said previous studies were too quick to single out overfishing. He questioned why researchers haven't looked more closely at the behavior and numbers of the crabs' natural predators — particularly croaker, rockfish and blue catfish.

Charles Pruitt, a Tangier Island waterman, asked why, if overfishing is the primary cause of the blue crab decline, does he also find far fewer starfish and spider crabs when he fishes? These species are not commercially fished, but their numbers seem to have declined just as fast, Pruitt said.

"We're not going to survive," Pruitt said. "We're gone. If you issue all these regulations, you might as well throw us out."

VMRC board member Rick Robins said the dire crab situation left the commission no choice.

He also said that the panel of scientists that targeted overfishing did not neglect to take the bay's ecological fragility into account.

"Our purpose is not to burn down the village to prove we can save it," he said. "This is not something we can shirk from."

Copied from The Baltimore Sun 

Measures to preserve crab population proposed

Plans offered by Md. biologists include licensing recreational crabbers

By Candus Thomson | Sun reporter

7:46 AM EST, February 26, 2008

State fisheries biologists are preparing a menu of options to reduce this season's harvest of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay, including licensing all recreational crabbers and curtailing the commercial harvest of female crabs until they reach spawning age.

A population survey is about a month from completion, but few scientists believe it will indicate that the number of crabs exceeds the 200 million target needed to sustain a robust rebuilding program. A drop below 86 million crabs might leave too few crabs to restock the population, said Lynn Fegley, a biologist with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

"The best-case scenario — over 200 million crabs — will not happen this year; I can almost guarantee it," Fegley told recreational anglers last night. "If the 2008 survey indicates over fishing, DNR will be obligated to act in 2008."

The agency will meet with commercial crabbers Thursday night in Annapolis.

Last year, Maryland's commercial crabbers caught slightly less than 22 million pounds, the second-lowest level in three decades. Virginia crabbers caught about the same amount.

Restrictions by Maryland and Virginia over the last seven years "seemed to have stopped the skid, but we haven't gotten where we need to go," Fegley said.

The most drastic measure would be closing the commercial season for up to two weeks. But Fegley said regulators would prefer setting size limits to protect female crabs until they can spawn. On the recreational side, proposals include requiring a license, setting catch limits and reducing the length of "trotlines" used to catch crabs.

The biggest question mark is whether Virginia will agree to restrictions. Virginia crabbers catch 70 percent of the female blue crabs in the bay, and watermen are allowed to harvest pregnant female crabs. Virginia also allows commercial dredging for crabs in the winter, an activity Maryland prohibits.

"We cannot do this alone," said Fegley, who has been working with Virginia officials. "If Virginia adopts [size limits], that's our biggest bang for the buck. … Virginia has said it will seriously consider this."

After meeting with commercial and recreational crabbers, DNR officials will brief state lawmakers on the best options by mid-March. Survey results are expected about April 1, and Fegley expects to have regulations in place by mid-April.

The stock of crabs is low in the Chesapeake Bay. This is not the first time it has been low. It has been going on for years.

Restrictions are continually being placed on the crabber. But putting more restrictions on the crabber is not going to solve the problem, it is only going to slow the decline until the resource is eliminated. 

"The Virginia Marine Resource Commission Management Plan for Blue Crab" states that:

Ongoing losses in submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) that serves as primary nursery areas for juvenile crabs and reduction of oyster reefs that provide food and refuge for age 1+ crabs evidently impede the growth of this stock.  VIMS indicates there is evidence of high mortality rates of juvenile crabs tied to the loss of SAV, and this loss has a direct impact on recruitment to age 1+ .  The extent of predation on blue crabs by predators such as striped bass, red drum, and Atlantic croaker is unknown.

The report goes on to further say, "Despite evidence that the blue crab stock faces many environmental challenges, the management plan must continue to promote measures that can lead to annual exploitation rates that are near the target level exploitation rate (u = 0.46)."

Great Management!

Don't fix the problem.

It takes more than a bumper sticker that says, "Save the Bay" 

I've received several e-mails from my blog post about peelers.  When peelers hit it's not just in the Northern Neck but it's all up and down the Chesapeake Bay.  The pictures for this blog post are of the male crab carrying the female crab.  This is what is called a "Doubler".

I try to have some crab pots over board while crabs are running. Since I use to crab commercially I have a license that allows me to put over more than the 2 crab pots anyone is allowed.