Tawes State Office Building – 580 Taylor Avenue – Annapolis, Maryland 21401 410-260-8DNR or toll free in Maryland 877-620-8DNR – dnr.maryland.gov – TTY Users Call via the Maryland Relay
Meeting of the Sport Fisheries Advisory Commission April 17, 2018
C-1 Conference Room DNR Tawes Office Building
580 Taylor Ave Annapolis, MD 21403
Summary of Motions & Actions Commissioners in Attendance: Jim Gracie, Vice-Chair Phil Langley, Steve Lay, Micah Dammeyer, Chair John Neely, Dr. Ray Morgan, Val Lynch, Beverly Fleming, Ed O’Brien, Scott Lenox, David Sikorski, Charles Nemphos and David M. Sutherland Commissioners Absent and Not Represented: David J. Smith, James Wommack DNR Staff Attending: Dave Blazer, Michael Luisi, Paul Genovese, Sarah Widman, Lt. Timothy Grove, Lt. Brian Noon, Lynn Fegley, Bill Anderson, Harry Rickabough, Alan Heft, Chris Judy, George O’Donnell, Susan Rivers. Members of the Public Attending/Presenting: Larry Jennings, Rudy Lukacovic, John Page Williams, Lee Haile, many from Susquehanna River region. Action Items:
• Commission request the department give an in depth presentation on recreational license sales. • David J. Smith was told by the Secretary of Appointments he is no longer a member of the commission,
as of April 10, 2018. Motions:
• The commission will send a letter to the AELR supporting approval of the emergency regulation requiring circle hooks while using live bait and chumming and a 19-inch minimum length requirement when fishing for striped bass. Motion by David Sikorski, seconded by Val Lynch. Vote in favor: 13, against: 0, abstained: 0
• Commission request Secretary Mark Belton send a letter to the AELR which states the economic and ecological benefits of the emergency regulation requiring circle hooks while using live bait and chumming and a 19-inch minimum length requirement when fishing for striped bass. Motion by David Sikorski, seconded by Phil Langley. Vote for: 13, against: 0, abstained: 0
Next Meeting Date: July 24, 2018 To be held in the Conference Room C-1 of the Tawes Building from 3:00-6:00 p.m.
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Maryland DNR
Winter Meeting of the Sport Fisheries
Advisory Commission(SFAC)
Tuesday,
April 17, 2018
Held at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources
Tawes State Office Building
C-1 Conference Room
Annapolis, Maryland
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Maryland DNR
Spring Meeting of the Sport Fisheries Advisory Commission
April 17, 2018
SFAC Members Present:
John Neely, Chair
Micah Dammeyer
Beverly Fleming
Jim Gracie
Phil Langley
Steve Lay
Scott Lenox
Val Lynch
Dr. Ray P. Morgan II
Charles Nemphos
Ed O’Brien
David Sikorski
David Sutherland
Roger Trageser
SFAC Members Absent:
James Wommack
Maryland DNR Fisheries Service
David Blazer
Paul Genovese
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Maryland DNR
Spring Meeting of the Sport Fisheries Advisory Commission
April 17, 2018
I N D E X
Page
Welcome and Announcements/Updates by John Neely, Chair, SFAC
and Dave Blazer, Director
MD DNR Fishing and Boating Services 5
Public Comment 11
Questions and Answers 14
NRP Activity Report by Lt. Timothy Grove MD DNR NRP 19
Questions and Answers 22
Freshwater Fisheries by Susan Rivers MD DNR Fishing and Boating Services 24
Questions and Answers 25
Nontidal Angler Survey by Scott Knoche Morgan State University 26
Questions and Answers 38
Wild Trout Angler Survey by Alan Heft MD DNR Fishing and Boating Services 41
Questions and Answers 57
Work Group and Committee Reporting 59
Black Bass Subcommittee Report by Commissioner Roger Trageser 59
Cownose Ray Work Group by Sarah Widman MD DNR Fishing and Boating Services 67
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I N D E X (continued)
Page
Formation of Clamming Work Group by Dave Blazer, Director MD DNR Fishing and Boating Services 68
Questions and Answers 71
Striped Bass Work Group by Lynn Fegley
MD DNR Fishing and Boating Services 78
Policy Program by Sarah Widman MD DNR Fishing and Boating Services 81
Questions and Answers 88
Fishing Management Updates 89
Weakfish Presentation by Harry Rickabaugh MD DNR Fishing and Boating Services 89
Questions and Answers 96
ASMFC/MAFMC Highlights and Updates by Mike Luisi
MD DNR Fishing and Boating Services 102
Questions and Answers 107
MOTION 109
Commercial Black Drum by Lynn Fegley
MD DNR Fishing and Boating Services 116
Questions and Answers 117
KEYNOTE: “---” denotes inaudible in the transcript.
“ * ” indicates word is phonetically spelled.
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A F T E R N O O N S E S S I O N 1
(2:05 p.m.) 2
Welcome and Elections 3
by Chair John Neely, SFAC 4
and Dave Blazer, Director, MD DNR Fishing and Boating Services 5
MR. NEELY: Welcome to our quarterly Sport Fisheries 6
Advisory Commission meeting. The meeting will now begin. We 7
have a packed meeting today, a very full agenda. I am going 8
to ask that you keep your remarks direct and succinct and 9
speak just to the topic today. 10
Last month, we lost one of the giants of the 11
recreational fishing world. Bernard “Lefty” Kreh, born in 12
Frederick, a son of Maryland, a resident of suburban 13
Baltimore. He was known nationally and internationally, and 14
he did so much to promote our great sport. Please join me in 15
a moment of silence for Lefty Kreh. 16
(Moment of silence) 17
MR. NEELY: Thank you. One of the things that Lefty 18
told me when I first went on this commission was to focus on 19
the resource, on water quality. He said, everything else will 20
stem from that. You take care of the water quality, the 21
resource, all policy stems from that. 22
Here in Maryland, we are being watched by the entire 23
fishing community, and whether it is on the Fraser River out 24
in British Columbia where they are restoring steelhead, or 25
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they are trying to restore normal water flows in the 1
everglades, and here in Maryland on the Patapsco River in 2
July, we are removing the Bloede Dam, which should open up at 3
least 60 miles of fish habitat. And again, the entire country 4
is taking notice. 5
You received a budget. I am going to ask Dave to 6
speak about that in a minute but look at it. I don’t think 7
there are any skeletons but take a look at the budget. And 8
last, Commissioner David Smith has been removed by Secretary 9
Cavey, the appointment secretary, for the governor’s 10
administration, and he is no longer on the commission. Dave? 11
MR. BLAZER: Great. Just a couple of announcements. 12
In your packet and I think in the e-mail that went out, we 13
wanted you to know about the MORE Commission, M-O-R-E. I 14
think its Maryland Outdoor Recreation Economics or I forget 15
what exactly that stands for. 16
But basically they are going to look at outdoor 17
recreation business opportunities in the State of Maryland and 18
how can the State enhance that. The governor issued an 19
executive order for DNR, Department of Natural Resources and 20
the Department of Tourism to jointly chair this. 21
Those meetings are going to start up relatively 22
soon. In fact, I think they had one scheduled. It was 23
cancelled because of snow. They have rescheduled it for May 24
sometime. But we will let you know kind of the progress with 25
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that. They are just kind of kicking off. We sent you, I 1
believe, the executive order related to that, and as we hear 2
the discussions from that commission we will keep you 3
involved. 4
Obviously hunting, fishing, parks and boating are 5
all affiliated with that outdoor recreation initiative. So we 6
will keep you aware of what is going on. They also want to 7
have meetings across the State, something for you all to keep 8
in mind. 9
They want to go from Ocean City to Deep Creek to the 10
Yough and everywhere in between. They want to go and see a 11
lot of different locations and they have got membership across 12
the State as well. So we will be providing more information 13
about that as it progresses and keep you all up to date. 14
Also to let you know Fish and Hunt Maryland is kind 15
of re-energized, if you will, not only because of the MORE 16
Commission. They went to Harrisburg for the outdoor fishing 17
show. They have got an app that is available, and I have got 18
these nice little postcards -- take one and hand it down -- 19
with their Website. And they are trying to promote fishing 20
and hunting opportunities within the State. 21
This is really driven by the Department of Tourism 22
but we are working with them. We are looking for stories, 23
story lines. They put a blog out. So if there is some 24
interest here, if you are interested in, say, writing an 25
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article about some aspect that you are very familiar with, and 1
being an expert on, let us know and we can help you out with 2
that because they are looking at stories every two to three 3
weeks throughout the year. 4
Again, trying to promote the fishing and hunting 5
aspects of what is going on in the State and stay out of the 6
regulatory management side. This is more of a tourism piece. 7
We just wanted everybody to know that. 8
One other note. Charter boat folks, the prepaid 9
envelopes, there is no longer any funding available for those 10
so if you have a prepaid that says postage paid in the upper 11
right-hand corner, don’t use those envelopes because that 12
funding source has dried up. So the charter boats were using 13
those for years to send reports back to us. So if you can let 14
your folks know that. 15
On the agenda here, and maybe I will wait. The 16
formation of a planned work group. I will talk a little bit 17
more about that in kind of a different form so I may change 18
that later one but we are looking -- because there are some 19
issues with aquaculture and clamming and a couple other issues 20
associated with aquaculture. And we have had the aquaculture 21
laws on the books for eight, nine years now. 22
We are doing some activities to relook at some of 23
those issues as we go through so I will talk more about that 24
later on. 25
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Let me also welcome Roger Trageser back because he 1
has been reappointed officially. You are in. So that has 2
happened along with the Dave Smith news. 3
And then the last thing I wanted to mention was we 4
sent you copies of the budget report. Sorry this has taken us 5
quite some time to get to you because of our reorganization, 6
and now boating is a portion of us, a part of us. So we have 7
included some of the boating aspects of the funding and the 8
activities that go on there. 9
So please look it over. Provide comments to me. 10
Let me know what you think -- good, bad, indifferent. Bottom 11
line is our budgets are -- we have endured some budget cuts 12
since I have been here for almost three years now. And we 13
used to have leftover money every year. That money is kind of 14
dwindling down and we have been using that. 15
So basically our savings account is close to zero. 16
So you talk about our skeletons. We are trying to be as 17
efficient as we can. And you can see what we are spending our 18
money on with our priorities. We are going to take a good, 19
hard look at redoing this next year but please take a look at 20
it, and if you have any questions -- 21
We still have the four major -- well, five now -- 22
major funding. Fishing license revenue, which is the special 23
funds. We get some general funds. Those numbers are 24
dwindling a little bit. We get federal funds. We get some 25
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reimbursable funds like the MDOT money. And we also get some 1
of the boating money, which now includes in our special funds. 2
We cannot use the boating money for fisheries work. 3
Likewise we can’t use the fisheries money for boating work. 4
So we have to make sure they don’t get commingled in the 5
process. So we talk a little bit about that in here 6
throughout. And I think that is about all I really wanted to 7
cover with this. 8
But again it tells how many licenses we have been 9
selling the last couple years. Our license sales have gone 10
down. Our revenues are down in addition to our budget cuts. 11
So that is the aspect with the Department of Tourism, trying 12
to promote. 13
We have started a couple of initiatives that we will 14
provide more information on at future meetings working with 15
the recreational boating and fishing foundation for automatic 16
license renewal and other things to get anglers to renew their 17
licenses. The retention rate of people buying their fishing 18
licenses keeps going down. We want to try to encourage them 19
to keep buying their licenses year after year. 20
That helps us with our work, with our conservation 21
work, and looking at other things to try to recruit, retain 22
other anglers to get participation in the sport that we all 23
care about. 24
But we have got a couple initiatives going on in 25
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that front and we will bring that back to you all a little bit 1
later. And I think for now those are all the announcements I 2
have. 3
MR. NEELY: Paul, I think maybe at a future meeting 4
we might spend some time with the budget and talk about 5
license sales. And just talk a little bit more about the 6
numbers. All right? 7
Lt. Noon, can I ask a favor? These wonderful folks 8
from the northern part of the bay have asked to get on the 9
agenda. And they have come a long way. And they have asked 10
for just a few minutes. And so I am going to ask them to step 11
up, and their representative, Kayla, speaking on the 12
Susquehanna, has volunteered to speak. And Kayla, you don’t 13
have anybody else joining you? 14
MS. HALE: I may have my father, Lee. 15
MR. NEELY: Why don’t you all come out front here? 16
MR. BLAZER: Have them sit in front of a microphone. 17
Public Comment 18
MS. HALE: So hi, everyone. My name is Kayla Hale. 19
I am a recreational fisherman up in the Susquehanna River, and 20
I am here today, and I know you have heard me talk before 21
about -- I would like to see a change for the line for the 22
catch-and-release season up the Susquehanna to a straight 23
line. 24
And I know there were a few options thrown out at 25
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the last meeting, and I am pushing for Option 4, which is a 1
straight line from Harford County to the end of Spencer, the 2
southern end of Spencer Island over to the Cecil County side. 3
I just -- this year especially, I have seen a high 4
increase in NRP up there, and even there, rumor has it that 5
they are having a hard time defining this V shaped line that 6
we have currently. 7
So I am just pushing for the southern end of the 8
island, which is as soon as you put any boat out there on that 9
river, even from shore, everyone knows Spencer Island. 10
Everyone can see it. It never goes under water. And the 11
current tip of the line right now is Twin Rocks. And if there 12
is a southern wind, a high tide and the river, the water 13
holds, and these rocks are submerged. A lot of boaters don’t 14
know where these rocks are. 15
So they go above this line and they don’t even know 16
it. So that is why I kind of just want to have the end of 17
Spencer Island. It never goes under water. It never changes. 18
It has been there for years. And that is kind of all I have 19
to say about it right now. 20
And it also opens up a lot of shoreline access for 21
shoreline fisherman because right now there is nowhere for 22
these people to fish. The only spot they have is Lapidum and 23
it is about a 20-foot area. You know, all these guys trying 24
to get in there, it can be a little hectic. 25
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MR. HALE: Do you all have any thoughts, as far as 1
the commission, who are familiar with the river because where 2
Kayla is speaking of, where we are trying to get this line 3
moved to is smack dab in the center of the river. 4
Even in low light, being the center, you have got a 5
distinguished line that it is show you straight, you know, 6
from left to right. If these others proposals, two and three, 7
are implemented, if you are fishing the left side, the Cecil 8
Country and/or Harford County side, to distinguish the line 9
from that point on either side, it is very difficult. 10
And that is another reason that we oppose these 11
other options. 12
MS. HALE: I also feel like there has to be some 13
kind of middle point. And the current line we have now has 14
those three points to easily distinguish if you are on the 15
Harford County side or the Cecil County side. 16
But like I said, when these rocks are submerged and 17
there is high water, or flood gates, which we have had a lot 18
this year, these rocks are under water and we are lost. So if 19
we have a distinguished center point like Spencer Island, 20
don’t go above the end of the island. 21
It is easy. Everyone -- at least for everyone I 22
have spoken to. I am like, hey, do you know about Spencer 23
Island? Oh, yes, yes. It is the first island you come out on 24
the lower end of the Susquehanna River. 25
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MR. NEELY: Let’s gets some questions from the 1
commissioners, and then the fisheries folks are going to 2
speak. 3
Questions and Answers 4
MR. NEMPHOS: I can’t see the option but the bridge 5
is how far from the island? The bridge option? How many 6
yards, miles? 7
MS. HALE: Three miles? 8
MR. NEMPHOS: So the options up at the top are 9
pretty well-grouped, but you are three miles away with the 10
bridge. What happens to all the people who have docks or 11
homes along the shoreline as far as fishing? 12
MS. HALE: You lose it. You guys were talking about 13
your recreational licenses are down, if you move it down to 95 14
bridge you can kiss myself and all these guys behind and 15
hundreds of other people, you can kiss those licenses goodbye. 16
MR. NEMPHOS: Well, I understand that. I think 17
everybody understands that but, you know, we are talking about 18
boats most of the time or charters, recreational fishing. 19
And I think we have a gentleman here who has a piece 20
of property on the river, and he is above the bridge. You are 21
north of the bridge? 22
MR. MORSE: Really the issue I have, those options 23
are very well-grouped together. I have about 100 feet of 24
shoreline that I have access to legally catch and release 25
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fish, and that is Lapidum ramp. 1
MR. NEMPHOS: And that is north of the bridge? 2
MR. MORSE: Yes, the boat ramp, where everything 3
originates there, that is the only reasonable shoreline access 4
for someone who doesn’t have the means to afford a boat or a 5
charter. 6
MR. NEMPHOS: That was my question. 7
MR. MORSE: And so, anything below that will divest 8
me completely of this fishery. 9
MR. NEMPHOS: Okay. 10
MR. NEELY: Val? 11
MR. LYNCH: Is there any comment from enforcement in 12
terms of moving that to the north? I guess that is the north 13
to the proposed line? 14
LT. GROVE: My only concern with something that goes 15
across the tip is a straight line -- it is a straight line 16
across the tip but I am looking at what angle, what degree. 17
So unless we put two markers on either end, to truly 18
delineate that line, it beats saying that it is easily 19
definable. I have been there, done that. If someone is 20
looking across -- I am across the tip, but they are not 100 21
percent perpendicular to the river’s flow itself. 22
I would like to see -- and I have worked that area 23
my whole career. I can say -- I will totally support Twin 24
Rocks being hard to delineate. Are we really impacting the 25
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fishery to move it that far north? Not really. But I would 1
like to see some significant delineation on the shoreline, 2
whether it is fisheries putting out signs that say -- 3
MR. HALE: Signs I think are a great idea. They 4
have signage up at Conowingo Dam for 400 yards and that works 5
really well for you guys as far as enforcement. We could put 6
a sign on Harford County/Cecil County side to implement this 7
reg. 8
LT. GROVE: From an enforcement standpoint, it 9
doesn’t matter, truly it doesn’t matter where the line is from 10
an enforcement standpoint, as long as it is definable. As 11
long as that officer can go in and go, yes, you are across the 12
line and you should have known you were across the line 13
because of this, this, this and this. 14
MS. HALE: And that is what we want. 15
LT. GROVE: And enforcement efforts are sometimes 16
gray in that area because you can’t see Twin Rocks. 17
MR. NEELY: We are going to have one final comment 18
from the commission, and Dave, and then we are going to ask 19
Dave Blazer to speak. 20
MR. SIKORSKI: I just want to provide some 21
clarification. So in the report that was sent out for this 22
meeting, the reason that this topic was in that report was 23
because at the last meeting, this commission unanimously 24
supported moving this toward scoping. 25
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And I think clarification with the department on the 1
next steps are important because scoping provides a lot of 2
private comment. It is a not a decision that will be made 3
here today. 4
I appreciate the input, and I have some thoughts, 5
but that will all occur during the scoping period. 6
MR. BLAZER: So basically that is what I was going 7
to add, Dave. If you remember, at the last meeting, the 8
recommendation from the Sport Fish Advisory Commission was to 9
take all four options out to public comment. And then come 10
back through the scoping process and then go through the 11
regulatory process at that time. 12
So there were advantages and disadvantages of each. 13
The reason the bridge was on there was because that is 14
enforceable, you know. You know where that line is. The 15
other two were, you know -- and then the fourth one really 16
followed your recommendation from the meeting when you all 17
were here before. 18
So those four options are going to be scoped. I 19
think they are in the packet today or -- 20
MR. GRACIE: Dave, could you briefly summarize the 21
process with scoping and then regulatory promulgation for 22
people who may not understand it? It is gobbledygook to some 23
people. 24
MR. BLAZER: Sarah is not here. 25
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MR. GRACIE: You can do it. 1
MR. BLAZER: I may get the timeframes wrong. 2
Usually we get regulatory ideas for changes in our 3
regulations, either from sport fish, tidal fish, advisory 4
committees, the public, like you all brought this. 5
We bring them to sport fish. Ask them for comments 6
and thoughts. We did that a meeting or two ago. Then we do 7
what we call scoping. So it is a step where we publish and 8
put out on social media and our Website and say, we are 9
thinking about changing this regulation. And here are some of 10
the options that we have heard. What do people think? 11
Would they support? Are they opposed? Blah, blah, 12
blah, whatever it is. That scoping process can take anywhere 13
from a week to two weeks to four generally. Once we get that 14
scoping information, then we determine whether we are going to 15
go forward with a regulation on one of those options or 16
whatever. 17
We bring it back to sport fish and say this is what 18
we heard in scoping. Come back with a regulatory proposal. 19
Everybody okay with going forward? And then we would propose 20
a regulation and that would be a 90- to 120-day process and 21
there could be a public comment period. There is a public 22
comment period but there could be a hearing associated with 23
that as well. 24
We take public comments, and at the end of that 90 25
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days then we can adopt or modify -- if we modify it, if it is 1
not substantially changed, we can go forward with it. If it 2
is a substantial change, then we have to repropose it. 3
So the whole idea of scoping is, like in this case, 4
if we have four, five or six different options, we are not 5
sure what the best one is, we get to get some previous 6
information. 7
If we go and make a regulatory proposal and say go 8
with Option 1, and people object to that, then we have got to 9
go back and start all over and add that other 90 days for that 10
regulatory process. So does that cover everything? 11
MR. NEELY: I really want to bring this to a close, 12
so what do you have to say? 13
MR. SIKORSKI: I will just say so there will be 14
another opportunity at a Sport Fisheries Commission meeting 15
for us to make a motion or some sort of advice to the 16
department on the options. 17
MR. BLAZER: Yes. 18
MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you. 19
MR. NEELY: Thank you very much for coming. 20
NRP Activity Report 21
by Lt. Brian Noon and Lt. Tim Grove 22
MD DNR NRP 23
LT. GROVE: Lt. Tim Grove. I just wanted to come in 24
one last time. We are kind of handing off the baton. I have 25
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been here for probably about the last year and half maybe. 1
Six meetings or so. Lt. Noon, who is the commander of Area 2
Five, which is Baltimore City Marine, Howard and Carroll and 3
Montgomery counties, is going to take over for me. 4
Activity -- I think it came out in your, some of the 5
top cases that have popped up in the last quarter are in your 6
chart. The listing of citations and warnings, which again is 7
incomplete. Just a brief update on that. 8
Hopefully our E-tickets program will go into play we 9
are hoping by July 1 for our citations. We have been doing 10
the warnings but that will be hopefully in play by July 1, and 11
that will give us a lot more hands-on, real-time data at any 12
given time because everything is electronically -- 13
There are no tickets in process. There are no 14
tickets being sent through the chain of command down to our 15
records section and being hand-imbedded into the system. 16
So it will be a lot quicker. 17
So what you see as far as some of the citations and 18
warnings is not probably quite up to date. I can tell you 19
that we did, up in the Susquehanna, even issue I think -- the 20
one there is 10. We issued 10 citations for the striped bass 21
in a closed season on the Susquehanna. 22
I know in our area we got quite a few more people. 23
Since then some of that, until the end of the March quarter 24
but even -- this past weekend 14 people were charged with 25
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anything from disobeying a lawful order, which is an 1
arrestable offense because they dumped their catch. They 2
wouldn’t hold it for us. To possession, actual possession, of 3
striped bass during the closure. 4
Targeting of striped bass: Numerous targeting 5
tickets were issued. And also possession of herring was also 6
issued over this past weekend. A lot of -- like I said, a lot 7
of late night activity in those areas that the big fish are 8
coming into. And a considerable number of out-of-state people 9
coming in just for that purpose: Delaware, New Jersey, that 10
kind of thing. 11
MR. NEELY: Commissioners, are there questions? 12
(No response) 13
MR. NEELY: How many of these offenders are repeat 14
offenders? 15
LT. GROVE: Quite a few of them actually. You know, 16
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard guys just tell me 17
flat out, that is the cost of doing business. 18
And one of the problems with that, I will tell you, 19
is that, to be a repeat offender, the timeframe is like, one 20
year. So because it is a seasonal thing -- I would recommend 21
some consideration be given to expand that repeat offender 22
timeframe out to incorporate maybe another season and make it 23
two or three years, where -- 24
And that is the way it is pretty much across the 25
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board in all the fish and game stuff, and it is hard to get a 1
repeat offender. 2
We have done it. One guy we caught two years ago 3
early in the season and then late in the season again doing 4
the same thing. So he got an escalated fine because it is 5
$250 for a first offense, $500 for a second. 6
MR. NEELY: And how many of these repeat offender 7
actually receive punishment greater than a modest fine? 8
LT. GROVE: Again, it depends. A lot of these guys, 9
they are paying out. It is a prepaid amount. They can pay 10
the ticket. It is adjudicated at that point. They have a 11
guilty conviction but if it is adjudicated as a natural 12
resource charge, it doesn’t really go on any criminal records, 13
anything like that. 14
And they know that. They pay the $250 and they are 15
done. If it does go to court, that is a crap shoot. It 16
depends. Are we talking Cecil County? Are we talking Harford 17
County? Are we talking what judge in on the bench? Do they 18
have a knowledge of what is going on? 19
It could be anywhere from a probation before 20
judgment or they could slammed for the $250. 21
MR. NEELY: Thank you. Beverly? 22
Questions and Answers 23
MS. FLEMING: Are they boat fishing or are they land 24
fishing? 25
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LT. GROVE: Both. We have been targeting 1
here -- this past weekend was a lot of the shore-based 2
fishermen just because it is easier to surveil them, to be 3
honest. You can see them from a reasonable distance. When 4
they are on a boat -- 5
MS. FLEMING: Maybe the law should be rewritten that 6
you can confiscate their car because they are going to have to 7
take the illegal fish in their car. If they are fishing by 8
boat, confiscate the boat. Make it hard. 9
LT. GROVE: The confiscation laws get into a -- that 10
is a deep area. 11
MS. FLEMING: Of course, of course but you have to 12
make the law hard enough that they are not going to go back. 13
MR. BATTISTA: I don’t know if I can add anything 14
but I talked to some gentlemen who were from out of town. 15
They weren’t familiar. They were actually fishing at 16
Conowingo Dam. 17
So they fish and troll in illegal areas. And they 18
said, well, what happens if we go above the line? I said, 19
well, you will get a fine. I said it probably $200, $300. 20
They said, that is okay, I can pay that. Will they take my 21
gear? That is what they were concerned about because the rods 22
are very expensive. 23
LT. GROVE: And that does get done sometimes. 24
MR. SIKORSKI: For the record, that is Alan 25
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Battista. 1
MR. NEELY: I think we all hear, over and over, why 2
don’t these offenders get punished. I hear it over and over. 3
Susan Rivers, speaking on fresh water. 4
Freshwater Fisheries 5
by Susan Rivers, MD DNR 6
MS. RIVERS: As John said, I am Susan Rivers. I am 7
with the freshwater program with Fishing and Boating Services. 8
Just to let you know a little bit about my program, it is 9
officially called planning but in freshwater we refer to 10
ourselves as statewide operations. 11
We have another unit that actually does regional 12
operations, so they manage local fisheries. The people in my 13
unit actually manage statewide programs, so things that affect 14
all the regions. 15
And some of the functions that are in my unit 16
include brook trout, tidal bass, regulations. We do some fish 17
health work. We sample invertebrate populations. We have 18
members on an education and invasive species matrix teams with 19
the department. 20
We manage the fish management areas for the state, 21
and unfortunately I am heavily involved in budget so that is 22
something I am not really proud of. I have biology degrees. 23
It is like, okay. 24
Tony Prochaska was going to be here today but the 25
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Northeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies is meeting 1
this week in Vermont, and he was elected as the chair of the 2
Fish Administrators Association, a portion of that meeting. 3
So he apologized that he could not be here so he asked me to 4
take his place for him today. 5
Now I know that you guys have received the monthly 6
report. And he asked me to check to see if anybody had any 7
questions or any concerns regarding that report. 8
Questions and Answers 9
MR. NEELY: What is going on in Western Maryland in 10
terms of stream remediation for acid drainage is nothing short 11
of incredible. Our wild trout streams, our brook trout, 12
native brook trout streams, are stronger today than they were 13
30 years ago. It is incredible. 14
MS. RIVERS: And we have to credit both -- well, 15
number one, a lot of the volunteers, especially in Western 16
Maryland. They are very active. They are very involved. We 17
have been very fortunate to get liming projects and 18
restoration of the riparian buffer, reclamation and 19
reforestation on stripped lands certainly have been a big 20
impact. 21
We also have been able to get good liming projects 22
going on that will help improve the ph on those areas and to 23
prevent further erosion and degradation. 24
MR. NEELY: Thank you. 25
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MS. RIVERS: With that, if nobody has any questions 1
about the monthly report, two years ago in 2016, the 2
commission received preliminary information on two surveys 3
that we had been doing. It was actually two angler surveys. 4
The first one was our Statewide Angler Preference 5
Survey. And it was conducted for us by Dr. Scott Knoche, with 6
PEARL with Morgan State. And I am happy to report that he is 7
now the director of PEARL. And PEARL is the Patuxent 8
Environmental and Aquaculture Research Laboratory. 9
And then the other report was on wild trout 10
management preferences of anglers in the State of Maryland. 11
We have completed those reports and so today what we would 12
like to do is have both Dr. Knoche and Alan Heft, who is with 13
our brook trout program, who administers the Wild Trout 14
Preference Survey, to give you a brief presentation of some of 15
those results. 16
MR. NEELY: Great. Thank you Susan. 17
Nontidal Angler Survey 18
by Dr. Scott Knoche, Morgan State University 19
DR. KNOCHE: Thank you, Susan, for the introduction. 20
And I for one am glad you are in charge of budgets because you 21
made this survey happen, and I appreciate that. 22
This survey began as series of discussions that I 23
had with the former nontidal inland chief Don Cosden, and 24
ultimately got it going after his retirement, and Tony came 25
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into the position, Tony Prochaska. 1
So I was a postdoc at Maryland DNR Fisheries 2
Service, now Fishing and Boating Services, so many things are 3
changing here. I have since moved to Morgan State. Now I am 4
the director of the Morgan State University Patuxent 5
Environmental and Aquatic Research Laboratory. 6
I am somewhat of a unique position there obviously 7
as director but also I have a strong social scientist 8
background. I am trained as an economist. So I am going to 9
make that a big part of what we are doing at the PEARL moving 10
forward. 11
I left some cards here, by the way, right on the 12
table. I am going to take off right after, but if you are 13
interested in what I am talking about or if you have some 14
further questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. 15
So without further ado, I will get going here and 16
describe this survey. 17
(Slide) 18
So first off, why a survey. Why not just hold a 19
town hall to find out what people are thinking or do something 20
online, something more informal. Well, we want to do a survey 21
so we can understand what the population, writ large, is 22
thinking about any given issue, any given topic. 23
Businesses spend of hundreds of millions, billions 24
of dollars, on surveys. I am sure many of you are bombarded 25
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with surveys. You call Comcast, you call Verizon afterward, 1
they want you to do a three-minute questionnaire, answer a 2
couple questions. 3
So businesses do surveys to better understand their 4
customer case. And think of the angler, the recreational 5
angler as the customer of the Maryland DNR Fishing and Boating 6
Services. 7
So the data collected help the DNR improve the 8
quality of products it is offering, find out what people want 9
out of their fishing experience, right? So again, the 10
nontidal angler, this is a nontidal survey, as a customer of 11
the Maryland DNR. 12
(Slide) 13
So we know a little bit about what these customers 14
are fishing for -- very, very roughly. We know who has bought 15
a trout stamp. We know how many people bought a senior 16
license, which of course permits you to fish for nontidal fish 17
and also fish in the bay coast areas and also trout. 18
Some people have short-term licenses. They are here 19
for a short period of time and they are not going to commit to 20
that full license. But we have limited knowledge. There is 21
this USDOI, Department of Interior survey. It is every five 22
years. It captures information at a pretty rough level. 23
So Maryland DNR has done surveys intermittently. 24
The last major effort was by Susan Rivers in 2002. So we 25
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thought we needed to do a new survey to really understand what 1
this customer base is looking for out of their fishing 2
experience. 3
(Slide) 4
So here is the objective, and it is a mouthful, 5
but it is to cost-effectively, cheaply -- we don’t have an 6
unlimited budget of course -- to collect management relevant 7
information on Maryland nontidal anglers, with the objective 8
of drawing scientifically defensible population conclusions. 9
So again, not the town-hall style where people are 10
maybe a little more passionate than your average person. 11
Maybe they are little more angry than your average person. 12
This is to understand what the average angler, the population 13
of anglers is thinking about a host of issues. We can get a 14
distorted view when we dig down and just look at folks at a 15
town hall, what they are excited about. 16
Not that those aren’t important opinions because 17
they are. But what is the population in general for and what 18
do they want out of their fishing experience. 19
(Slide) 20
So to do this scientifically defensible study, we 21
surveyed 4,300 individuals. We sent those individuals up to 4 22
survey contacts. The first 3 contacts were mail invitations 23
to participate in an online survey. There was the website 24
link that they could type in, and then they would take the 25
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survey and we would get that information through the computer, 1
of course. 2
And then if folks did not respond to either of those 3
three mailings -- the first one was an envelope with a 4
document explaining the survey. The next two were follow-up 5
postcards. The fourth was a 12-page hard copy survey booklet 6
with a business reply mail envelope for them to fill out the 7
survey and send it back. 8
The response rate was 25 percent, which is in line 9
with many surveys nowadays. Unfortunately response rates are 10
declining. For my master’s thesis, I worked with a survey 11
that had 67 percent. For my dissertation, one had 45 percent. 12
Now we are down to 25 percent. It is survey overload possibly 13
in combination with distrust in government maybe a little bit 14
too. Just a suspicion. 15
(Slide) 16
So the survey asked anglers about a host of their 17
behaviors, their preferences for regulations, where they go 18
fishing, how often they go fishing. What they fish for. 19
Whether they go fishing more often if certain things change. 20
So we looked at effort and trip-specific 21
information. I will highlight that. That is what I am going 22
to speak about today primarily. I am going to focus on the 23
species targeted and key locations visited with three primary 24
metrics: participation, what proportion of the population of 25
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anglers fished for a certain species or went fishing at a 1
certain location. 2
And then effort: How many trips at that location 3
were for that species? And then finally expenditure at the 4
locations for those different species. 5
(Slide) 6
It is not all about money. You see a lot of smiling 7
faces here. People fish for a variety of different types of 8
fish in nontidal waterways, from large muskies in the nontidal 9
Potomac to carp and perch and panfish, catfish at the bottom. 10
So lots of different species of fish. 11
(Slide) 12
Many of you probably won’t be shocked that for nontidal 13
fishing, bass was the most popular species to fish for. 14
For anglers, it took at least one fishing trip to a 15
nontidal waterway 77 percent of those anglers reported that 16
they fish for bass at least once during that year. That bass 17
could be largemouth bass or smallmouth bass. 18
Now as far as effort goes, 41 percent of all 19
nontidal fishing trips, the angler reported fishing for bass, 20
could it have been largemouth or smallmouth or just bass 21
generically. Many folks responded bass generically to the 22
survey. 41 percent of trips had bass as one of those species 23
targeted. 24
And you can see expenditures there. The mean trip 25
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expenditure for fishing for bass, largemouth or smallmouth, 1
was $140 per trip. And the median was $38. 2
So basically what that is saying is there are some 3
are trips on that bar, I guess you call them outliers -- well, 4
you would call them outliers -- on the right end of the 5
distribution, where people are spending $300, $400 for a trip. 6
But the median, right in the middle there, is about $38 a 7
trip. 8
The bottom line is that the survey estimated, we 9
estimated through the survey, that bass anglers spent about 10
$150 million in 2015 fishing for largemouth bass or smallmouth 11
bass in nontidal waterways. That is not including the tidal 12
Potomac. 13
You see it is broken down by largemouth bass and 14
smallmouth bass on the left and the right there. They are 15
somewhat comparable. Slightly more effort with largemouth but 16
slightly higher expenditures for the smallmouth bass fishing. 17
(Slide) 18
Now trout is also an important type of fishing for 19
Maryland anglers. 44 percent of all anglers that fished 20
nontidal waterways reported fishing for trout in 2015. 27 21
percent of trips were for trout. The trip expenditure is a 22
little bit lower. And I suspect that is a couple things. 23
There are the put-and-take fisheries that are pretty easy to 24
access and low cost. And also the trout fishing is not always 25
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part of a summer vacation. And bass fishing is more likely 1
part of a summer vacation. 2
So you have a high -- and I will talk about this in 3
a moment. The expensive trips are to places like Deep Creek 4
Lake where you fish for bass and spend a week out there and 5
spend thousands of dollars. Maybe they are not fishing for 6
trout when they are on that lakefront condo in Deep Creek 7
Lake. 8
You can see it broken down here by different types 9
of trout. So we looked at stock trout. More money is spent 10
on stock trout than either brown or brook. If you combine 11
brown or brook today, wild brown and wild brook, it 12
approximates what is spent by anglers on stock trout. 13
So these are popular types of fish. And a brook 14
trout, we had mentioned that earlier, about $10 million spent 15
annually on fishing for brook trout. And when you think about 16
how niche of a species that is and out on the Savage River, 17
maybe in a couple other places, it is a pretty impressive 18
figure. 19
(Slide) 20
Panfish is also popular. About two-thirds of 21
anglers reported fishing for panfish. About $80 million spent 22
total on panfish, and that is defined as either blue gill, 23
sunfish, a perch or crappie. 24
And you can see the figures down there too. So 25
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getting maybe a little redundant with a lot of these figures, 1
there is a lot here. The point is people spend a lot of time 2
fishing and they spend a lot of money fishing in this state. 3
And this is again nontidal. 4
(Slide) 5
And catfish was something that -- I was impressed 6
with the amount of people fishing for catfish and the amount 7
spent on catfish fishing: about $19 million total. 8
Not all folks identified particular species of 9
catfish. That is why channel plus flathead doesn’t equal the 10
total expenditures of $19 million right there. Some people 11
were just generic and said, I fish for catfish, right? So 12
catfish is an important species as well. 13
(Slide) 14
So moving on from the species to the wonderful 15
fishing locations, nontidal locations, in the state of 16
Maryland, there were three locations that really stood out. I 17
should say that people fish all over the state. There are 18
hundreds of places listed but these were the three that really 19
stood out and were kind of really key for managers, I feel 20
too. 21
The first is the nontidal Potomac. You probably 22
won’t be surprised. The length of that waterway, the 23
diversity of fishing opportunities out there. 22 percent 24
people, of anglers who fish in a nontidal waterway, fish, 25
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reported fishing, at least once in the nontidal Potomac. 1
Estimated about 240,000 trips, fishing trips to the 2
nontidal Potomac, and $23 million in annual expenditures. If 3
you look at the bottom left blurb here, just kind of break it 4
down about how long that trip was, what the purpose of the 5
trip was, was fishing the primary purpose or wasn’t it, right? 6
So about 20 percent, just less than 20 percent were 7
overnights. There were some overnight trips. Mostly day 8
trips. Most people who went fishing there said, yes, fishing 9
was my primary purpose, 85 percent. 10
And again, a diversity of species targeted. 63 11
percent of trips, people targeted bass. 49 percent of trips 12
was smallmouth bass. We have got catfish right there, 1/3 of 13
trips. I guess higher than I expected so that was very 14
interesting. 15
We have got walleye down there. It is lower but it 16
is kind of a more specialized, unique fishery. 17
(Slide) 18
Gunpowder Falls: Very important trout fishery. 19
About 12,400 anglers. They took an estimated 55,000 trips to 20
fish in Gunpowder Falls, spending $4.1 million. These trips 21
were predominantly single-day trips. And all of the 27 trips 22
reported in the survey, there was a special page that 23
discussed in detail the nature of a recent fishing trip. All 24
27 of those trips were reported as being primary purpose. If 25
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people were going there, they were going there to fish. 1
Trout was the most popular, not surprisingly. Brown 2
trout at 44 percent of folks, stock trout at 33 percent. Some 3
people did report fishing for smallmouth bass or bass but -- 4
(Slide) 5
And then finally, one of the most impressive things 6
that I uncovered in this survey -- again, it probably won’t be 7
as impressive to some of you folk, especially if you are 8
familiar with Western Maryland, but Deep Creek Lake is really 9
an economic powerhouse out there for fishing. 10
Over $60 million is our estimate for how much was 11
spent on fishing trips to Deep Creek Lake in 2015. Really 12
impressive. Look at the trip duration there too. It is 13
completely different than those other two areas. 62 percent 14
of trips were reported to be overnight. 31 percent, almost 1 15
out of 3, was 4 nights or more. People are going out there, 16
they are spending lots of time and they are spending lots of 17
money. 18
The mean trip, the mean expenditure amount per trip 19
was over $700, and the median, the middle one, was $300 so it 20
suggests that, yes, there are some outliers, but most of these 21
anglers who reported these trips, they are spending a lot of 22
money out there, and you can see how easily a night or two out 23
there and some other expenses would easily add up to $300. 24
There were a number of folks who reported $2,000, 25
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$3,000, $4,000 fishing trips in the survey. I wanted to weed 1
out anything that really looked fishy, no pun intended but 2
mostly I couldn’t. They said they stayed eight nights, and 3
they were there in the summer so you really got a sense that, 4
yes, this is a legitimate response here. 5
I know in the U.S. DOI survey that they do every 6
five years, they do a lot of outlier analysis and weeding 7
out. You have got to be careful when you do stuff like that. 8
There are a lot of people who spend a lot of money out there 9
in places like this, and if we don’t account for them we are 10
not getting a true picture of what is happening in that 11
economy. 12
MR. NEELY: Dr. Knoche? 13
DR. KNOCHE: Yes? Am I going too slow? 14
MR. NEELY: I just want to respect your time. You 15
have got four more minutes. 16
DR. KNOCHE: Great, I am moving through. Thank you 17
very much. 18
MR. NEELY: And I was hoping to leave some time 19
questions. 20
DR. KNOCHE: Well, I will continue to wrap it up 21
here. That was -- we have hit the species. We have hit the 22
key locations. What is the total? 23
(Slide) 24
Nontidal fishing effort in Maryland, 2.6 million 25
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trips is the estimate. More in rivers and streams: 1.6 1
million versus about a million in lakes, ponds and reservoirs. 2
$400 million in expenditures. 3
(Slide) 4
So what are the key findings in summary here? I 5
want you all to remember that these are just estimates. They 6
are best estimate. We have done our due diligence with the 7
repeat contacts to try to resolve the nonresponse bias issues. 8
We tested different demographic characteristics for response 9
bias. 10
Older anglers were more likely to respond slightly. 11
It doesn’t really affect the estimates in any fundamental way. 12
People fished for lots of different fish. 13
Stock trout: I want to highlight that. Spending for 14
stock trout, $27 million. Stocking ponds, about $1.5 million, 15
according Susan Rivers more recent estimates. Pretty good 16
return on investment when you are talking of a Maryland 17
Outdoor Recreation Economics Commission. 18
Deep Creek Lake is a key fishery. So I hope I can 19
take some of your questions. Thank you. 20
MR. NEELY: Great talk. Commissioners, are there 21
any questions? 22
Questions and Answers 23
MR. GRACIE: Is there a handout of these slides? 24
DR. KNOCHE: I can send you -- 25
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MR. NEELY: Please. This is really good stuff, and 1
I am hoping you might come back another time with a follow up. 2
DR. KNOCHE: Absolutely. I would love to. I am 3
actually using data collected in this survey to -- I have a 4
paper in development on acid mine drainage and the economic 5
benefits of trout angling from acid mine drainage. 6
I recently wrote a proposal to NSF to look further 7
into acid mine drainage as it pertains to recreational fishing 8
economics. So that is on my agenda too. I was excited to 9
know that was brought up here just a moment ago. 10
MR. GRACIE: Have you seen the survey that was done 11
on that seven or eight years ago? 12
DR. KNOCHE: The north branch downstream strategies? 13
MR. GRACIE: Right. 14
DR. KNOCHE: Yes, I have seen it. A good step. 15
What I have broached is going to go further, and what I have 16
done so far is a little bit different. 17
MR. GRACIE: Well, I would like to see more than 18
that. 19
MR. : (Away from microphone) I am a 20
stakeholder as well in that western fishery as far as what has 21
been done with the brook trout and what has been going on out 22
there has just been exceptional. I spend a lot of time and a 23
lot of money out there as well. 24
MR. NEELY: Are there any other comments from the 25
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commissioners? 1
MR. SUTHERLAND: So a lot of this presentation, is 2
the report available as well? 3
DR. KNOCHE: Yes. So Susan the report, the federal 4
aid report? 5
MS. RIVERS: What I have done is I have gone and 6
excerpted out -- our report is like 500 pages. I have 7
excerpted out Scott’s portion and Alan’s portion and I can 8
make them available to the commission. 9
MR. SUTHERLAND: Electronically. 10
MS. RIVERS: Yes. 11
DR. KNOCHE: So the next step, I would love to do a 12
similar survey for the tidal fishing, the bay fishing the 13
ocean fishing so let’s try to find a way to make that happen. 14
As you can see, this is valuable. 15
MR. SUTHERLAND: So what did this cost? 16
DR. KNOCHE: The survey cost -- I gave the Maryland 17
DNR a discount. So I would like to charge a little more next 18
time. I think it cost $42,000 when it was all said and done. 19
A lot of time, a ton of my time was a match. I justified it 20
because I am going to write some interesting research papers 21
on it. 22
MR. NEELY: Are there any other comments from the 23
commission? 24
(No response) 25
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MR. NEELY: Is there any public comment? 1
(No response) 2
MR. NEELY: Thank you, Dr. Knoche. We will receive 3
handouts and a copy of the report. Alan drove through a 4
blinding snowstorm this morning to get here on a great spring 5
day. 6
Wild Trout Angler Preference Survey 7
by Alan Heft, MD DNR Fishing and Boating Services 8
MR. HEFT: This survey was done for a more specific 9
purpose than what Scott had worked on. His was a big 10
statewide all-species. This was generated for -- it started 11
out specifically going toward brook trout. We ended up 12
expanding it to make it more of a little bit statewide wild 13
trout survey basically because we were trying to answer some 14
questions about brook trout. 15
When we got our survey put together. We realized we 16
had some more time, some more ability to ask a few more 17
questions because we were so focused on some specific 18
questions. We expanded it a little bit but overall it is 19
pretty small survey compared to what Scott says but with $10 20
million going toward brook trout, that just blew us all away. 21
Pretty neat to see that we are getting that kind of 22
economic return on a small resource like that. 23
(Slide) 24
So the first thing, to make sure we are all aware of 25
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what we are talking about, Scott had mentioned some stock 1
trout stuff, some wild brown trout, some wild brook trout. 2
Basically there are two types of trout populations 3
we manage in Maryland. We have got our stock trout 4
populations. That can be a special management, a put and 5
grow, catch-and-release type thing or a put and take where we 6
harvest the fish specifically or we put the fish out 7
specifically to be harvested. 8
So those populations, those stock populations, are 9
not maintained by natural reproduction. They are controlled 10
and managed by us putting the fish in on an annual, monthly, 11
whatever, basis that we are stocking them at. 12
What we are going to focus on with this survey, what 13
we were interested in, was out wild trout populations. These 14
are the trout populations that are self-sustaining. We don’t 15
stock them. They naturally reproduce in the streams. They 16
support their populations on their own. 17
We have two types of wild trout populations. We 18
have our introduced populations, which include brown trout and 19
rainbow trout, which are non-native species. Brown trout came 20
from Europe hundreds of years ago. They were introduced into 21
the state. And the rainbows came from the western U.S., 22
brought, and they are also an introduced species. 23
The native trout we have, the wild trout we have, is 24
our -- our native wild trout is brook trout. That is the one 25
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that has been here, evolved here. That is the one that my 1
program focuses on managing, working with the brook trout 2
population. So I just want to make sure we are clear on what 3
we are talking about. For the purpose of the survey, it is 4
all about wild trout, not anything to do with the stock trout. 5
(Slide) 6
So the reason we really got going with this survey, 7
it comes from Susan’s work, but we had met with Secretary 8
Belton. Back in 2007, we had implemented a special regulation 9
on the Upper Savage River out in Western Maryland, kind of our 10
premier brook trout fishery. And it had gone on, we had that 11
regulation in place when Secretary Belton came out and met 12
with us in 2015. 13
There was still a little bit of controversy. Not a 14
lot but some. We were still getting some concerns from 15
anglers and some local writers who weren’t pleased with what 16
we had done. Overall we had good support for it but not 17
universal. We still got some questions so Secretary Belton 18
came out and met with us. We explained to him what we had 19
done. 20
And the freshwater fishery is a little different 21
than commercial because of the different aspects. You are not 22
selling the fish. Not using big, wide open fisheries out in 23
the bay or the ocean. It is a little bit different 24
management strategy when we look at freshwater, especially in 25
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cold water. 1
So there is something we call the fisheries 2
management triumvirate. Three-legged stool, basically. You 3
have got to have your biology. You have got to understand 4
what is going on there. You have got to have your 5
conservation aspect, especially with wild trout. And 6
especially with the native brook trout. 7
And then you have got your social aspect, which 8
includes, you know, your fishing pressure, what the anglers 9
desire. You know, what they want to see from the resource. 10
So we met with Secretary Belton. We talked to him about what 11
we had. 12
(Slide) 13
We explained to him, hey, we have got the biology 14
down. We have been working on these brook trout for a long 15
time now. We have got a good feel for what is going on. The 16
management strategy we had implemented in the upper Savage had 17
worked really well. These are some of the pictures of some of 18
the bigger fish that were collected in our surveys since we 19
implemented the management strategy. 20
This is on par with anywhere in the eastern United 21
States outside of Maine basically. You can’t catch fish like 22
this in but a few places, and you go to a resource that is so 23
much public land and easily accessible hardly anywhere. This 24
is kind of the premier fishery for brook trout in the mid-25
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Atlantic. 1
So we had that box checked off. We got our biology 2
covered. 3
(Slide) 4
Conservation, we have been doing a lot of different 5
things. Here are some of the logos from some our partners 6
that we have worked with over the past 10-15 years on these 7
projects. You can see we have managed to leverage a lot of 8
money for brook trout projects in the state. Working with 9
Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture, lots of different things. 10
So we have got the conservation leg of the stool 11
covered also. 12
(Slide) 13
Once we sat and talked to Secretary Belton though, 14
we realized, and we knew this, that we could use some more 15
information on the social aspect. That is a challenge within 16
our agency to get social information, creel survey 17
information, things such as that nature. 18
So we knew we needed some more information so we 19
talked to him and we all agreed that we needed to get that 20
information. The other thing, and that is a side that I will 21
hit very quickly at the end and kind of a little advertisement 22
for what we do with that is get some more outreach to the 23
communities that were directly affected by the regulation, 24
where we were getting some of the kickback. 25
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(Slide) 1
So we decided to do this survey. Like I said, it 2
started out for the upper Savage River but we had about half 3
dozen questions. And putting all this effort and energy into 4
doing a survey and only asking a half dozen questions, we 5
said, let’s see if we can expand it a little bit. 6
So we expanded it to try to get some more 7
information on other wild trout, lake brown trout and other 8
wild trout resources. But basically this whole thing was 9
geared toward brook trout. 10
(Slide) 11
So I am not going to get into the -- Scott got into 12
the nuts and bolts a little bit of how this was designed. 13
Scott helped us design this. We are biologists. We didn’t 14
know how to do a survey. We went and worked with Scott. 15
We had $4,000 I think for our budget. I don’t know 16
what you guys have. That is not a lot of money. It is very 17
difficult. A lot of challenges doing that but it worked. 18
So we basically followed Scott’s design. He helped 19
us. We did all the same things Scott did. We sent mailings 20
out. We asked for responses, and we ended up getting a 26 21
percent response rate, which was just a little bit more than 22
we needed to meet our statistical needs so this survey would 23
have the validity we needed. So that worked well. 24
(Slide) 25
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Survey question design, kind of the same thing. 1
Scott said, hey, you need to go out. We met with groups. We 2
discussed them. We revised them. We had some test groups 3
where we went out and tested the questions to make sure they 4
were working. 5
We incorporated those changes, and we ended up with 6
basically 11 questions for our survey. 7
(Slide) 8
So what I am going to do is go through the questions 9
really quickly, get the responses. And then at the end there 10
is a nice summary that really kind of tells what the value of 11
this is from a management perspective because for my group 12
and our agency’s purposes, we are managers. And so we want 13
this information to help us direct what we do in the future 14
and what regulations and what the public wants from the 15
resource. 16
So the first question, first we had to see what kind 17
of trout fishing the anglers that we contacted do. And it 18
ended up being 61 percent of the anglers fish for both wild 19
and stock trout. So they fish for put-and-take trout and they 20
fish for wild trout. 21
Thirty percent of the anglers only fish for put and 22
take. They didn’t fool with wild trout at all. And eight 23
percent fish strictly for wild trout. They didn’t fish any 24
kind of stock trout. They were purely wild trout. 25
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So basically 70 percent either fish for wild and/or 1
stock trout. 2
(Slide) 3
As a manager -- I have been doing this for 30 years 4
in another month -- that was a pretty high number. That 5
surprised me. There are groups, there are camps of anglers 6
out there that believe in their method or their style, or they 7
only want wild trout or they only want put-and-take. It was 8
eye-opening to see how many fish for both. That says they 9
have a lot of use for the resource. 10
(Slide) 11
Another question we asked was what type of method do 12
they use because there are camps. There are worm dunkers 13
versus fly fishermen. That is kind of the colloquial way of 14
putting it but it is also the reality of it. 15
We were surprised again. Once we combined some of 16
the numbers, because these things were all over the place, 17
basically what we found was that our anglers in Maryland are 18
generalists. They fish for trout with bait, they fish for 19
trout fly fishing. Some are exclusive but most are a mix. 20
Most use more than one method. 21
And again that was kind of an eye-opener because the 22
individual groups can be pretty loud when they want something 23
their way but overall there are a whole lot of different 24
methods being used and a lot of people are using those 25
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methods. 1
(Slide) 2
So we got into the questions on the upper Savage, 3
and again that was the focus of the survey. The question we 4
asked was, you know, have you fished in the upper Savage River 5
since we put those new regulations in effect? 6
And the answer was basically 14 percent of our 7
anglers who trout fish said they had fished from the Savage 8
River. You might initially go, well, that is not very much. 9
But you have got to realize that is in Garrett County and this 10
is a statewide survey. 11
This is anglers from all over the state answering 12
this question, and 14 percent of these people travel all the 13
way out to the Savage to fish. That is a long way to go. 14
That is a couple hundred miles. So what it really tells me as 15
a manager is that a lot of people are using this small 16
resource way out in the middle of nowhere and isolated. So 17
that again, another eye-opener. 18
(Slide) 19
Then we asked them, you know, what did they think 20
about the Savage fishing since we put that regulation in 21
effect? And overall, 78 percent basically said it had 22
improved. So they were pleased with the fact that 23
regulation -- they thought fishing had improved. 24
We don’t have creel survey data to go along with 25
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that but at least that is their opinion. And again this is 1
the social aspect of the fisheries work we were doing. 2
(Slide) 3
Another question about the Savage we wanted to get 4
an answer on was, you know, we put the regulations in. Did 5
the people -- not only, you know, they thought the fishing had 6
improved but did they approve of the regulations? We had had 7
some public meetings, and we had asked at those public 8
meetings but all we were getting an answer from was the people 9
who attended the meeting, and typically those are people who 10
either support it or are strongly against it. 11
And so this was important question for us, and what 12
we wound was 93 percent basically, 92 1/2 percent of the 13
anglers out there statewide, thought this was a great 14
regulation. They were very pleased with what we had done with 15
that. 16
(Slide) 17
Now we also have -- this is a special regulation in 18
the upper Savage River. We stock harvest up there, restricted 19
the methods that we use. We also have a statewide regulation 20
that a lot of our wild trout streams fall under and a lot of 21
our brook trout streams scattered around the state fall under. 22
That is open year round. No minimum size. You can keep two 23
fish per day. 24
So that is kind of our standard fall-back regulation 25
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for wild trout. And we asked the anglers if they thought that 1
regulation was okay. And, you know, their options were it was 2
okay or it wasn’t restrictive enough or too restrictive. 3
And what we found with this was that over half felt 4
that the regulation was fine. Another 36.8 percent felt that 5
it was actually not restrictive enough, and only 7 1/2 percent 6
thought the regulation was too restrictive. 7
So in general, almost 92 percent of the anglers 8
either thought the statewide reg was good that we had or could 9
even be more restrictive. And again, this is for waters 10
outside the Savage. 11
(Slide) 12
So that kind of led into a question for statewide 13
regulations that focused on the brook trout. We asked them, 14
should we enact some regulations statewide that would be more 15
conservative? You know, trying to focus on conservation of 16
this brook trout resource. And it ends up being that 85 1/2 17
percent felt that, yes, that is a good idea. 18
So we are finding we have a strong conservation 19
ethic among our wild trout anglers, especially if they are 20
brook trout anglers. 21
(Slide) 22
And along with that, we asked them, you know, what 23
would they like? You know, as an angler, what kind of 24
regulations would you like to see? If we are going to do 25
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something, how would you like us to implement this? 1
Interestingly, the top two choices by far were catch and 2
release only, which is what we did in the Savage, and tackle 3
restrictions, which is what we also did in the Savage. 4
So the anglers like this, those kind of regulations. 5
They like to see, if we are going to do a conservation 6
regulation, that is how they would prefer for it to be done. 7
(Slide) 8
And also we wanted to get a feel for, you know, what 9
makes brook trout angling so valuable to these anglers? If 10
you are familiar with brook trout at all, they are typically 11
up in the headwaters. They are in forested lands. A lot of 12
aesthetics. A lot of neat stuff. 13
So that was one of the things we asked. One of the 14
options we gave them, they could pick from one to ten, to put 15
a score on it, and then we took an average of that. 16
So it ends ups being natural surroundings. People 17
like to fish for brook trout because of where they are at. 18
You know, you are back in nature. It is quiet. It is away 19
from other people. You don’t typically have brook trout if 20
there are people around. 21
So you can see less crowded, a unique resource, the 22
conservation of the resource appealed to the anglers. And the 23
least important value that people chose was harvest. So we 24
were pretty much right on track with the regulation we had 25
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done in the Savage. We were finding that the people kind of 1
preferred, our anglers preferred what we were doing. So that 2
was good to see that. 3
(Slide) 4
Now there are places in the state -- we have a 5
policy, we typically don’t stock hatchery trout on top of wild 6
trout. There could be competitive effects. You could also 7
increase the pressure on the wild trout. 8
But it still happens at some places in the state, 9
places that we have been stocking for hundreds of years. It 10
would be difficult to change that strategy but we wanted to 11
see what the anglers thought of that. 12
So we asked them if we do have wild trout in the 13
system, should we stop stocking trout if we are doing that? 14
And a slight majority said, yes, we should do that. But a 15
strong contingent also said, no. They didn’t want us to fool 16
with changing a fisheries resource even though there could be 17
harm being done to the wild trout population. So that was 18
kind of interesting. 19
(Slide) 20
And of course for brook trout, it was much stronger 21
though. If it was a wild trout resource, in general wild 22
trout, rainbows, they kind of felt, you know, we should stop 23
there. But brook trout specifically, they really felt that 24
get the stock trout out of any wild brook trout streams we 25
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have. So again more support for brook trout in general. 1
Really eye-opening on how strong the support for protecting, 2
conserving brook trout was. 3
(Slide) 4
So a quick summary of this. Seventy percent fish 5
for stock in wild -- vast majority, this includes the 30 6
percent that fish only for put-and-take. We included this 7
because as you will see down in another bullet, there is a 8
value to having stock trout out there also for wild trout 9
also. 10
But overall in general, the anglers are generalists. 11
Their method is -- they like lots of different methods. Not 12
one restrictive to where they won’t fish any other way. They 13
use -- if they can catch fish, they are going to use it. 14
Also the species -- they want to catch fish. 15
We found overall the upper Savage River regulation 16
was strongly supported both from the quality of the resource 17
and, you know, the concept to protect that resource. We also 18
found that not only worked for the Savage but statewide. Our 19
anglers really support the fact that they want to protect our 20
brook trout. Very strongly supported catch and release and 21
tackle restrictions for doing so. 22
The majority supported not stocking hatchery trout 23
on wild trout but not a strong majority. That is a question I 24
think we need to further explore. We are fortunate we don’t 25
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have a lot of places where that occurs but it is happening, 1
and it is a conservation question in general not just a 2
resource question. 3
If we are doing some, having some impact on the wild 4
trout, we really have to explore that issue. Again, harvest 5
was the least important aspect of the value of brook trout. 6
People don’t fish for brook trout in general because they want 7
to harvest a bunch of brook trout and go home and show their 8
stringer off, which you might do with put-and-take trout, 9
which is fine. 10
But it just kind of emphasizes the fact that it is 11
nonconsumptive resource. Wild trout in general are a 12
nonconsumptive resource. People don’t fish for wild trout, 13
brook trout mainly to fill a stringer. It is a lot of the 14
other aspects of why they are out there. 15
And this goes back to where it is important to note 16
that so many people fish, 91 percent, for wild trout and stock 17
trout is that in a wild trout fishery, having hatchery trout 18
in other streams to pull some of the pressure off those wild 19
trout has a lot of value. 20
Wild trout are more susceptible to harvest and, you 21
know, effects on the population. The hatchery trout are put 22
out there to be harvested. We want them caught. We are 23
raising them to be harvested. 24
It is an opportunity, having our hatchery trout out 25
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there, to protect our wild trout at the same time just to pull 1
some of the pressure off. Like we saw, 50 percent of these 2
guys, they are fishing for wild and stock trout. 3
MR. NEELY: You have got about two minutes for 4
questions. I want to make sure you -- 5
MR. HEFT: Perfect. One more slide and we are good. 6
So that is kind of the management implications of the work we 7
did with this survey. Answered the questions we were looking 8
for, answers to, so it came out well. 9
(Slide) 10
And the last thing was, the other thing we had 11
talked to Secretary Belton about was having a youth fishing 12
event, trying to teach local youth especially because where 13
this happened in Garrett County, is where we got most of the 14
kickback. We wanted to give them an opportunity to learn how 15
to fish for brook trout not using bait. 16
So we have been sponsoring the last two years, and 17
these will be online, these presentations, so people can see 18
more of the specifics. We have been sponsoring this event 19
where we bring local youth in. We give them rods and reels, 20
tackle, and we teach them how to fish for brook trout using, 21
you know, artificial bait rather than live bait, and it has 22
been a huge success. 23
It is a challenge because we are doing all this with 24
donations mostly. Money from local businesses and all that 25
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but it has been incredibly well received. 1
MR. NEELY: Thank you, Alan. I know there are going 2
to be questions. Commissioner Jim? 3
Questions and Answers 4
MR. GRACIE: I have two questions. First of all, 5
will we get a copy of this in that? 6
MR. HEFT: Yes, Susan will -- 7
MR. GRACIE: You threw a lot at us. 8
MR. HEFT: Yes. There was just not enough time -- 9
MR. GRACIE: And the last few slides where you 10
talked about the preference for not stocking the wild trout 11
populations, the two sides seem to be in conflict. You have 12
got a small majority that favor not stocking, and then when 13
you named the species, you had much higher percentages for 14
every single one than you had for the total. 15
MR. HEFT: Those were for the people who wanted to 16
stop stocking. And that is spelled out in the report more. 17
It was hard to get to it. So basically for the people who 18
wanted to stop stocking on top of wild trout, brook trout were 19
the strongest support. 20
MR. GRACIE: Where did we get all that concern for 21
wild rainbow populations? 22
MR. HEFT: That is a good question? We have about 23
three of them. We even had some -- it was interesting. We 24
had some information in the survey, I think you had seen it 25
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when we did the thing trying to explain to people. And they 1
still didn’t seem to understand it. 2
MR. NEELY: Ray Morgan is a geneticist and I am 3
curious about the upper Savage specifically, about stocking 4
rainbow hatchery trout over wild trout. If you have any 5
thoughts about that. 6
DR. MORGAN: Well, I have always been pro-habitat, 7
anti-stocking. I think a lot of people realize that. Rainbow 8
stocking over brook trout probably would be okay but there 9
would be the potential for competition of the rainbow trout 10
with the young brook trout, which I would not want to see 11
because the rainbow trout --