Black Sea Bass fishing return

Feb. 24—Locally caught black sea bass may be back on the menu in the Golden Isles from November through April during calving season for North Atlantic right whales.

The Georgia Conservancy has spent the past two years in a research project funded by UGA Marine Extension Service and Georgia Sea Grant to study the innovation of on-demand traps in an effort to eliminate the threat of fishing gear entanglement of the whales.

Black sea bass fishing off the Georgia coast has been banned during calving season for more than a decade to help protect the whales.

Officials demonstrated the new fishing gear technology Thursday to show how the traps are lowered into the water with a buoy attached to a rope. The traps stay submerged on the ocean bottom typically six to eight hours and as long as 24 hours.

The traps are retrieved by activating an electronic switch that releases the buoy, which floats to the surface, and are retrieved by hand. The goal is to retrieve the traps, capable of holding as many as 150 pounds of fish, as quickly as possible to minimize the time lines stretching from the traps to the surface are in the water.

Michael Cowdey, a fisherman from Sneads Ferry, N.C., has been fishing off the coast using the new equipment with a special permit issued by the state. He said 100 pounds of fish caught in a trap is "not too rare" and believes they will reduce the risk of fishing line entanglements with whales.

Kim Sawicki, one of the project demonstrators, said Coastal Georgia is an important area where black sea bass were historically an important part of the local fishery economy. Shrimp fishermen used to fish for the bass during the off season, she said.

"They used to call it Christmas fishing because it put Christmas gifts under the trees," she said. "We're trying to give back something that was taken away."

Sawicki said she expects a "huge demand" for the new equipment.

"They're in use right now in other fisheries," she said.