Bonefish on the Brain Bonefish and all that relates (maybe a bit about tarpon too).

Nassau Grouper

The awesomeness that is Flatswaker has some science to share around that oh-so-tasty and sadly over-exploited staple of the Caribbean, the Grouper.

Groupers aggregate to have sex spawn and they kind of need to be left alone to do that. If those gatherings are targeted for exploitation, well, the whole population can (and will) crash.

Seems like a given that this would be a bad, bad thing to do, but that sad fact doesn’t keep it from happening.

To put this in perspective there’s the story of a Caymanian fisherman who bragged about fishing the grouper holes to such an extent that after cleaning his catch he left over 100 pounds of grouper eggs (row) on the dock to rot. He was proud of his achievement and (so the story goes) did it again the following year.

Check out the grouper posts at Flatswalker here and here.

Of course, the Caymans aren’t the only places dealing with the challenges of grouper aggregations being targeted… here’s a story from Belize from 2009.

I’ve seen the pictures from my dad’s youth… the ones where he stands there with stringers full of steelhead from some Northern CA river. The past, they say, is a different country and they do things differently there. There was no concern that we’d over fish a run of fish. The idea seemed absurd. The oceans and rivers are timeless and massive and we are so fleeting and small.

And then we pretty much destroyed those things.

All those are steelhead trout.

This picture isn’t of my dad, as this was in 1916, but the theme is the same. Think they ate all those fish? They certainly didn’t have a fridge plugged in at home, so odds are that most of those fish didn’t feed anyone. Just wanton slaughter.

I should say that I’m not a party boat kind of guy. I don’t like that style of fishing, I don’t do it and I don’t know that much about it. So, maybe it is out of ignorance that I draw the parallel and I’ll be the first to admit there are plenty of things I don’t know enough about to have totally valid opinions.

In this day and age, is there really any species of fish that we should be really proud of catching and killing and stringing up by the dozens? In the modern era is this sort of thing still OK?

As seen over at The Saltwater Fly Journal… a bit about fish farms and conservation.

So, what can you eat?  Well… here’s the list of what is on the “good” list.

I don’t actually eat that much fish, but when I do I like it to not be a fish on the brink of extinction (doesn’t that sound like a decent goal to aim for?

Let’s try to be better stewards and advocates for the sea, mkay?

Now, I remember Mike Larkin from somewhere… where was it? Oh yeah… he’s awesome.

Now, I’m trying to keep Science Wednesday rolling. This time, a survey of Bonefish Boat Captains conducted by that very same Mike Larkin and Jerry Ault.

30,875 boat days in Florida… mostly in the Upper Keys. That is a LOT of boat days. And, as you might expect, respondents said that fishing is not getting better. Instead, it is doing that other thing… worsening.

So, here’s the study.

Bonefish are awesome.

Bonus:

http://youtu.be/TqV6I8TGeLQ

Did you know that Linnaeus (a Swede) first described the bonefish in 1758? Me either. Well, I mean, I know that now, but I didn’t know about it, ya know, before I leaned that. Nevermind.

Anyway, I thought I’d find some science to share with you good people and find it I did.

There is a 2009 study, conducted by Vanessa Haley, which put acoustic tags in bonefish on Andros and then sat back and waited to see (or hear) what happened.

An article about the paper said:

The conventional wisdom has always been that bonefish are homebodies. But until recently, this was never tested. What we have learned and continue to discover will surprise you.

The actual paper is here.

So… read some science people. I’m going to take my college studying approach and let you good people do the reading and then tell me about it so I get the benefit of the knowledge, without the time and effort of reading (worked once, figured I’d try it again).

Science is awesome.