Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
For the next few weeks, a lot of local anglers will be spending time spreading chum across the offshore waters in hopes of getting a hook into some of the ocean's top predators. From the smallest to the largest, when it comes to sharks, the waters off Delmarva are not lacking in variety. There are about 14 species of sharks that are relatively common catches off our coast and most of them can be caught during the entire fishing season from spring through the fall.
Of all the different species, the mako's longtime reputation of being a strong, fast, high jumping and good eating game fish has kept them at the top of the list for most area fishermen looking to do battle with one of the most exciting fish in the ocean. Unfortunately, like many fish, the popularity of makos both on the hook and on the plate has proven to be their downfall as around the world too many of them have been plucked from the ocean to sustain what is considered to be a healthy global population.
Last year, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) initiated an emergency regulation for mako sharks that increased the recreational size limit from 54 to 83-inches. The change was made in response to a 2017 stock assessment of mako sharks that showed the species was overfished and overfishing was still occurring. Rarely do size limits on any fish change so dramatically, but in this case NMFS was tasked with the obligation to reduce the take of makos by a whopping 80%.
Since Maryland's DNR has a catch-card system that requires anglers to report and tag every shark landed, they have excellent records of how many makos have been brought in over the last few years. That number has traditionally been around 50 to 60 a year, but by the end of the 2018 season it had only reached three. I'm no mathematical genius, but I'm pretty sure that represents a much bigger reduction than 80%! So if 2018 landings in Maryland are any indicator of how things went in all the other coastal states, NMFS did a lot more than just hit their target - they blew it away!
Anytime a species they manage is determined to be overfished, NMFS is required by law to do something to correct the problem. In a lot of fisheries, the correction can be as simple as reducing the daily catch or "creel" limit. But as it is, anglers are only allowed one shark per day anyway, so reducing creel limit from "one" would bring it to "zero" and I don't think that would sit well with most anglers. So in this case, the reduction was achieved by increasing the size limit, and what an increase it was! From 54-inches, which is roughly a 60-pound mako, to 83-inches which is closer to 200 lbs.
The increased mako size limit was initiated by NMFS as a 6-month "emergency rule" which allowed them to put it into effect much more quickly than doing it as an amendment to the current shark management plan. But since an emergency plan is only temporary, NMFS then went through the amendment process to make the new conservation measures permanent.
Along the way, however, the folks at NMFS decided to tweak the size limits to provide a little more opportunity for recreational anglers to catch legal size mako sharks. When they first started talking about the emergency rule it was suggested that they might have an 83-inch size limit for female makos and a 71-inch limit for males. Hearing this, a lot of anglers voiced their opposition claiming that it would be too difficult for them to determine the sex of a mako shark at boatside. So NMFS dropped the idea of separate size limits for male and female makos, and just went with 83-inches for either sex. A decision that had more than just a few fishermen regretting and rethinking their complaints.
As noted, the 83-inch size limit provided a lot more conservation for mako sharks than NMFS was trying to achieve. I guess you could say that, at least for the makos, it was too much of a good thing! Therefore, after seeing how the catch numbers went last season and taking public comments into consideration, NMFS prepared a final amendment that went with the 71" male and 83" female limits.
My own catch records show that the average size makos caught off Delmarva are typically less than 130 lbs. and are pretty evenly split 50/50 males and female, while most of the big makos (+200 lbs.) are females. Since a mako with a 71-inch fork length is larger than the average mako hooked by fishermen, and since at least half of them caught will likely be females, the chances of getting a legal size male is still going to be pretty slim. So I don't think there will be a drastic increase in the number of makos brought back to the dock under the new amendment, but it still gives anglers a little better chance of bringing a fish home than what the regulations allowed for last year.
So from now on, anglers who wish to boat a mako shark will be tasked with the requirement of closely estimating the size and determining the sex of their catch. The good news is that unlike most fish, it's easy to tell a male shark from a female. Males have two "claspers" projecting from their pelvic fins and since a mako with a 71-inch fork length will be sexually mature, it’s claspers will have grown long enough to be easily observed from the deck of a boat even when the fish is upright in the water.
Despite some of the grumbling I've heard from fishermen about this new regulation being "unreasonable" and that "it's going to put anglers in danger of being hurt while trying to determine the sex of a shark alongside of the boat", I can say from more than just a few years of experience handling these fish that sexing a mako of that size is no more dangerous than leadering up a white marlin for a photo or lining up a tuna for a gaff-shot. I can understand why some angers were not happy with last year's mako size limits, but this year those limits have been relaxed "a little," and while I know the that the 71 and 83-inch limits are not what many anglers wish they had to fish under, they're at least a slight improvement over what we had last season. And there's a simple solution for anyone who feels strongly that their safety will be at risk trying to distinguish a male from a female mako - stay in the bay and fish for flounder!
Capt. Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat, “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center. During the winter months, Capt. Mark runs charters in the Lower Keys.
