Fish News

By Lenny Rudow, FishTalk editor

Picture This

Images will help train the new VIMS RecFish app to identify your catch and decide if it’s a keeper.

Researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) are building a free, user-friendly app called RecFish that will help anglers identify, measure, and record their catch while providing accurate, up-to-date information on regulations and advisories. But first, they need your help. Because RecFish gets better at identifying fish with every photo submitted, the researchers are asking anglers to download a limited-feature version of the app and use it to share fish pictures from their cellphone camera or camera roll. The app is available at no cost from both the Apple App Store and Google Play.

“We’re really excited about building out our app,” says RecFish founder Lisa Kellogg, a senior research scientist at VIMS. “Once finished, all you’ll need to do is open the app and point your cell-phone camera at a fish, and it will instantly tell you the species and size, and let you record that info along with the date and location to your logbook with the touch of a button.” Users will also have a choice to contribute catch data to improve fisheries science.

But before all that can happen, the app’s machine-learning software must be trained to recognize different fish species, a process that requires lots and lots of photos. “Right now,” says Kellogg, “we’re working on training models to identify fish and that requires at least 5000 photos per species. The more photos we have, the more accurate the models will be.”

The team is particularly interested in photos of less common species and species that people rarely photograph. “More than 200 species of fish are known to occur in the Chesapeake Bay,” says VIMS fisheries professor and RecFish team member Dr. Eric Hilton, “from common fishing targets such as striped bass, croakers, and flounder, to less familiar species such as stargazers and sea robins.”

“In reviewing the photos we’ve collected so far,” says Kellogg, “we’ve found that everyone takes photos of that huge striped bass but far fewer take photos of their toadfish.” Particularly surprising has been the difficulty in getting photos of even some of the Bay’s most caught species. “Spot are the most commonly caught species in Maryland and Virginia but we still don’t have enough photos to fully model them,” says Kellogg. To join the RecFish community, first scan the QR code to download the appropriate app; then upload existing photos from your phone or take new ones. “Every photo you upload gets us one step closer to providing you with the full-featured app,” says Kellogg.

Whopper of a Walleye

Pennsylvania has a new record fish! Connellsville resident Richard Nicholson was fishing from the bank of the Youghiogheny River late this past fall when an 18-pound, one-ounce monster ‘eye ate his live creek chub. Since the angler was using just six-pound test on a small spinning rod, it took a solid 25 minutes to play the fish in. It stretched the tape at 34 inches, broke his landing net, and beat the old state record by eight ounces. Prior to catching the record-setting walleye Nicholson had already caught a nine-pounder plus a nice sauger, culminating in what the angler called the “best day ever.”

Dead Zone Dilemma

According to the joint Maryland DNR/Old Dominion University Chesapeake Bay Hypoxia Report, 2021 was a year of mixed results when it comes to Chesapeake Bay water quality. Hypoxic areas, commonly called “dead zones,” have two mg/l or less dissolved oxygen and are unable to support life. In 2021 the year started off well with below average dead zones up to July. However, from August through October hypoxic areas grew to above average levels and in October hit the third largest volume ever recorded during the month. According to the report, high temperatures, low windspeeds, and high precipitation all contributed to the spike in dead zones during the second half of the year.

Stopping the Stop Nets

After CCA Virginia sent a letter to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) protesting the use of haul seines as “stop nets” (in which large quantities of speckled trout are kept alive in the net’s pocket to be harvested multiple times over several days, accomplishing an end-run around recent bycatch regulation limiting the take of speckled trout to 50 pounds per license/100 pounds per vessel per day), the VMRC quickly took action. All state haul seine license holders were notified that penning fish is unlawful under Virginia law, and the VMRC committed to CCA Virginia to resolve the issue through additional regulation changes in early 2022. The Commission also instructed commercial fishermen to immediately remove stop nets from the Commonwealth’s waters.

“Although we are frustrated that a loophole in new regulation resulted in the additional, and in our view completely unnecessary, harvest of such an important gamefish, we’re encouraged that the VMRC is committed to ending this troublesome netting practice as soon as possible,” said Rob Allen, president of CCA Virginia. “CCA Virginia will actively participate in the process to permanently prohibit stop netting when the VMRC’s Finfish Management Advisory Committee and the full Commission take up the issue in 2022.”

# Kevin Thomas managed to land this 37-incher to win the Evan Foundation tournament.

Tournament News

Fishing tournaments, in February? Hum… not so much. We do, however, have a couple of wrap-ups from the fall to take note of. The first is a big congratulations to Kevin Thomas, winner of The Evan Foundation Tournament, who managed to catch a 37inch rockfish to take top honors. This was no normal catch, however. Thomas was fishing for speckled trout with 15-pound leader when the rockfish struck. With the huge fish on the light spinning gear, he then discovered there was no landing net aboard. Thomas said it took three tries and multiple drag-stripping runs before getting a thumb inside the fish’s mouth and lipping it, to pull it over the side of the boat.

Also in the winner’s circle recently was team iFishMD.com, taking charge in the CCAMD Winter Classic and winning multiple categories including largest fish, largest three-fish stringer, woman’s division (congrats to Jessica Saum!), and first fish caught. Whew — talk about racking up the wins — nice job, team iFishMD.com.

And don’t forget folks, there’s still time to join in the CCA Winter Pickerel Championship. The tournament runs through the end of this month; there are multiple prizes up for grabs, and as we went to press, no angler had really run up an insurmountable lead, so visit CCAMD.org or go to iAngler.com for the details.