Hello - I think I speak for many anglers and voters when I petition you to limit menhaden and bycatch pound limits in the Chesapeake bay and surrounding waters.  This is for several reasons. As a fisherman who is on the water, all over VA, virtually daily, I think I am expert on this subject matter and have a current pulse on the situation.

Please consider the following state of affairs, and mind you what follows is not really my opinion:

1) rockfish population with vintage less than 6 years is in critical shape due to a five fold increase in menhaden take from companies like Omega.  Your solution to this is to limit rockfish catches and slots but not seriously limit the supply of what they eat.  Its a stupid policy, and who suffers this outcome?: recreational and commercial anglers up and down the east coast who have to abide by other onerous regulations that are barely harmonized with other states (and their head boats), as well as the ridiculous stipulations of the all encompassing Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act. If nothing is going to be done about the bottom of the food chain, repeal the Act; for without a stable menhaden population, there.....is....no......bay.....to......preserve!

2) The seatrout and red drum population has been, in a word, nonexistent, for at least 2 years.  I don't know a single person, myself included, that has taken ANY upper slot (meaning ZERO) of either species in two years (in bay adjacent and not brackish tributaries)!  I target these species, and I know I haven't caught them all, so where the heck are they?  I know; they starved, and the current ecosystem cannot support more.

3) The current rule makers and lobbyists have convinced voters that saving a few jobs in Reedville, on behalf of a Canadian company, is a wise decision.  I smell a rotten fish (pun intended) and I for one would be in full support of the money trail between Omega and the politicians in favor of the ongoing menhaden policy be investigated.

4) Seasoned watermen seem to be public enemy number one in this debate.  Its atrocious, and I am skeptical that disadvantaging people who live off the land and who are self sufficient (and are largely male, and vote the majority republican) isn't a large part of this. Spoiler alert, it is.  And the sooner the fishery policy is stabilized by people who know this situation like the back of their hands (through good old time on the water) as opposed to some bureaucrat who may never have even seen the Chesapeake Bay, nothing is going to change.  Sadly.

Thus I welcome the opportunity to weigh in, and vent my own frustrations, regarding too few productive days at the expense of people that govern things like the health of the Bay in general and the menhaden fishery in particular and the rest of us have to suffer the consequences.