By Angus Phillips
Thursday, October 25, 2007; E06

"There's nothing like catching a big striper," President Bush said last weekend as he headed off to the Eastern Shore for lunch at Vice President Cheney's weekend retreat and an hour of striped bass fishing on a charter boat.

He's certainly right about that, though for most Chesapeake anglers these days, opportunities to catch a big striper (rockfish) are scarce. Bush proved no exception. His outing with Capt. Ed O'Brien on the Semper Fidelis was pretty much a bust as the president caught nothing and only one member of his party boated a small, 18-inch rock, which was tossed back.

Don't blame O'Brien, one of the better skippers on the bay. He had a brief window, and everyone knows rockfish don't bite on demand. Even if he'd had all day, it's unlikely O'Brien or anyone else could have found the commander in chief a 20-pound rock. Those days are over, though not so long ago.

Bush's excursion was part of a day-long environmental outing. He stopped in Laurel to announce a program encouraging private land owners to protect a migratory bird habitat, then signed an executive order in St. Michaels protecting red drum and rockfish from commercial exploitation in federal waters three to 200 miles offshore.

Rock and red drum already are off limits to commercial fishing in offshore U.S. waters under National Marine Fisheries Service regulations. Bush's order gave the rules permanent status and should end efforts by the seafood industry to reopen the fisheries.

In a pleasant surprise, Bush's order also encouraged states to declare rock and red drum gamefish in local waters. That action has no official weight but is seen by conservationists as a powerful tool in the longstanding effort to end commercial rockfishing in the Chesapeake, where recreational anglers have watched the premier sport species decline over the last 15 years.

A prime mover behind the presidential order was the Coastal Conservation Association, a national outfit that started in the Gulf states in 1977 when redfish and speckled trout were overfished almost to extinction, then moved up the coast to help protect dwindling stocks of rockfish, among other species.

The executive director of CCA Maryland, Robert Glenn, conceded that the executive order changes nothing immediately but does boost CCA's aim of one day getting game-fish status in the bay for rockfish, a species it deems too valuable, for environmental, recreational and economic reasons, to be plundered for commercial sale.

"We are not planning to push for game-fish status for rockfish in the 2008 legislature," Glenn said. "We're not there yet, but we're a lot closer than we were six or seven years ago. It [the order] represents a sea change in the attitude about how we should manage our fish. The National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now recognize striped bass and redfish for what they should be -- recreational resources."

In Maryland, 1,200 commercial fishermen take over 2 million pounds of rockfish a year, about the same amount 137,000 sport anglers take. Bay anglers say pressure on the species has damaged the quality of fishing since the glory days after a five-year state moratorium on rockfishing ended in 1990. Rockfish remain relatively abundant in the bay, the anglers say, but the big ones are getting picked off.

"People spend all day catching little throwbacks now," Glenn said. "That's not quality fishing."

CCA believes closing commercial fishing would spark a surge in average rockfish size and numbers that would pay off in many ways. As it is, he said, saltwater fishing license sales in Maryland are in steep decline, down 39 percent since 2001. He blames the declining quality of rockfishing for much of the drop.

Officials from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources were invited to but did not attend the signing ceremony at Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. Deputy Secretary Eric Schwaab said later that Maryland's system of allocating rockfish was "fair and equitable."

Glenn, who does not agree, said that armed with Bush's order, CCA will spend the upcoming year "educating legislators, the media and the public about the merits of game-fish status for rockfish."

Here's hoping he finds a willing ear and CCA gets its way. The next time Bush comes to visit his old VP in St. Michaels, he'll doubtless be retired, with more time on his hands. Maybe then he'll get his big striper.