Weakfish?? --stripers are not the only fish in decline

[jigfreak]

Looking at the this chart from the ASMFC Weakfish is one of fish which is on the decline.

Weakfish Biomass at All-Time Low Along the East Coast
By ASMFC
Published: August 21, 2009

9261

In its report to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's Weakfish Management Board, an independent panel of scientists endorsed the 2009 weakfish stock assessment for management use. The Review Panel confirmed that stocks are at an all time low and current fishery removals are unsustainable under existing stock conditions. It agreed with the stock assessment’s conclusions that weakfish abundance has declined markedly, total mortality is high, non-fishing mortality has recently increased, and the stock is currently in a depleted state. Given these findings, the Board initiated the development of Draft Addendum IV which will propose a range of options to reduce fishing mortality, including complete harvest moratoria and limited bycatch only fisheries.

"While the Board has been aware of the decline in weakfish landings over the past ten years, conflicting signals in the stock assessment models employed in the past confounded decision making. This peer review panel found the methodology acceptable and agreed that the stock is in dire condition," stated Board Chair Roy Miller. "Given the condition of the stock, the Board has decided to accelerate its management process and prepare a draft addendum for public comment in early fall. Upon considering public comment and final action on the addendum, the Board will have the option to implement the addendum’s measures through emergency action this November."

The weakfish stock is depleted at an all-time low of 2.9 million pounds (1,333 metric tons), far below the proposed biomass threshold of 22.4 million pounds (10,179 metric tons). At this stock size, recent fishery removals (landings and dead discards combined), estimated at 1.9 and 1.8 million pounds in 2007 and 2008, respectively, represent a significant proportion of the remaining biomass. While the decline in the stock primarily results from a change in the natural mortality of weakfish in recent years, it is further exacerbated by continued removals by the commercial and recreational fisheries.

Natural mortality has risen substantially since 1995, with factors such as predation, competition, and changes in the environment having a stronger influence on recent weakfish stock dynamics than fishing mortality. Given current high natural mortality levels, stock projections indicate that the stock is unlikely to recover rapidly, even under a harvest moratorium. In order to rebuild the stock, total mortality will need to be reduced, although this is unlikely to occur until natural mortality decreases to previous levels. On a positive note, juvenile abundance surveys indicate that young-of-the-year weakfish continued to be present in numbers similar to previous years, suggesting that recruitment at this point has not been severely limited in spite of low stock size.


The Board has placed the Draft Addendum on a faster timeline than standard addenda. Staff and the Plan Development Team will prepare a draft for Board review and consideration in mid-September. If approved, the draft will then be made available for public review and comment. It is anticipated that the majority of states will be conducting public hearings of Draft Addendum IV in October; a press release will be issued on those hearings once the information is available. The Board will meet again in November to consider public comment and take final action on the Draft Addendum. Under Commission procedures, the Board may opt to implement the Addendum under emergency action, with approved measures taking effect immediately upon Board action.

[rip316]

I may not have the best information or be the smartest guy in the room and may not have been fishing for stripers as long as some but, I can say that the last three years the spring run has been out of control. I have never seen so many 30 to 40 lb bass ever. Seems to be doing pretty good to me but I could be wrong.

[finchaser]

I may not have the best information or be the smartest guy in the room and may not have been fishing for stripers as long as some but, I can say that the last three years the spring run has been out of control. I have never seen so many 30 to 40 lb bass ever. Seems to be doing pretty good to me but I could be wrong.

weakfish are now 1 per angler

These big bass are fish that were born during the moratorium and took 20 years to grow.
At the present rate you will never see them again with out new regulations which aren't coming any time soon.

[DarkSkies]

I may not have the best information or be the smartest guy in the room and may not have been fishing for stripers as long as some but, I can say that the last three years the spring run has been out of control. I have never seen so many 30 to 40 lb bass ever. Seems to be doing pretty good to me but I could be wrong.


Rip, you're right, on the point I highlighted.

Some guys are seeing a notable increase of big bass in certain areas. If you talk to guys who only fish IBSP during the last week of May and all of June, and that's the only time of the year they fish, they would tell you they've never seen so many big bass in the Spring. Anyone who would try to insinuate that the fishing is other than amazing at IBSP during that time period would have to be delusional.

Why is this fishing so amazing? Most guys who have been around for a few decades will tell you big fish follow bunker schools as a preferred meal. They will eat other bait, but nothing helps a bass pack on the girth like fat oily bunker. You tend to see the biggest bass where the largest schools of bunker are.

The increase in bunker and big bass is directly related to the restricting of the bunker boats off the coast of NJ beginning in 1999. This has propelled NJ to one of the top coastal spots for Trophy Spring striped bass fishing. A good read on that is here:
JCAA and the bunker boats
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=5151



Up N in places like Mass and Rhode Island, and Maine, they haven't consistently had the massive schools of bunker we're fortunate to see. Up there bass feed on:
squid, scup/porgies, herring, sandeels, big eels,
smaller seabass, blackfish, weakfish, cod, bergalls, whiting, and others
lobsters, shrimp, mantis shrimp, crabs, small marine invertebrates, marine worms, etc..
and the spearing, anchovies, and other varieties known as whitebait.

None of this is as nutritionally rich or as easy for bass to catch as the oily, fat bunker that the biggest bass need to grow and stay at trophy size. There's a great book on bunker, "the most important fish in the sea" by H Bruce Franklin. You can learn more about that here:
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=3240

http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=5535

[DarkSkies]

Rip, for you and others who don't feel like wading through posts, I took the liberty of laying some of it out for ya here. The thread is called "Where are the Striped bass?" and was started by Joe. I have tried to do the best I could to get guys to add to it.

Why?

Because I'm just a goog with a white bucket. :bucktooth: Maybe I even have some mental problems. Maybe I'm delusional. :ROFLMAO ;)

And exactly who am I to present these ideas to people? What are my qualifications? :kooky: I don't have 50 or 60 years in the salt like some of the guys I meet out there, so how can I reasonably expect people to believe in any story I put out there?

Instead, what I try to do is present the stories and experiences of others. Somehow, I'm lucky enough to meet people out there, many whom have fished the salt consistently for over 40 years.

Guys who fish all the time, for whom fishing is more than a hobby, it's a passion. :fishing:

My passion is to try to bring these stories to anyone who willl look at them with an open mind. To anyone who doubts my words, I say don't listen to me, listen to what the guys below are saying.

Even if one or 2 of them was a nutcase, it doesn't follow rationally that all of them would have to be lying, or part of a great conspiracy. :rolleyes: :don't know why:

These guys really know their stuff. They have paid their dues on the water, and have learned what it's like to have fish, and not have them. Their passion rings true to me for some reason. Reading the sum total of the articles gives me a clear picture of how things used to be, and how they are now.

It's clear as day to me, but others are skeptical. :kooky: That's fine. My words here and at the meetings I go to to keep people informed aren't that important in the great scheme of things.

If I can get one more person to honestly consider what's been written, and is now echoed by Charter Captains and many old-time anglers with a half-century in the salt, that would be progress. :learn:

[DarkSkies]

It's called "Where are the striped bass?" and you can find it here:


http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=760

Some key posts....

post#6...Bill Donovan, publisher of NJ Angler Magazine, 3-08 issue
Bill's livelihood depends on people catching bass and buying his magazine. It doesn't seem too smart for a businessman like him to speak out and raise the possibilities he does. Why then does he do it? :don't know why: I can't answer for him, but can make an assumption that he really has a passion for fishing beyond just making money. :clapping:
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=760



post #17...capt John McMurray 11-3-08
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=760&page=2




post #20-27...Ted Williams 2008
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=760&page=2




post # 30 Finchaser 7-13-09. Finchaser has been fishing for 50 years.
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=760&page=3
post # 51
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=760&page=6




post # 42 a marine biologist talks about fecundity (bass fertility)
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=760&page=5




posts 50, 57, 59 Gunny/aka Stripercoast1, with over 45 years saltwater experience, both as a commercial AND recreational fisherman, talks about some of his experiences
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=760&page=5

http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=760&page=6

***********************************



There ya have some of the experts. You also have a few others talking about some ideas and developments:



post #45, 69 M&M Theory - where I explain a simple theory (not originally mine) that seems to fit current conditions. Bass fishing now is like a bowl of M&Ms. Those who grab from the middle never know how much is being taken. Those who grab from the sides notice the bowl getting smaller much quicker.
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=760&page=5

http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=760&page=7







post # 46, Bababooey posted the Chesapeake YOY studies for 2009
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=760&page=5



post # 74, some more fecundity studies...
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=760&page=8


************************************************** ***

Some stuff by **** Russell, author of Striper Wars:
Saving stripers will require tighter net of regulations 2-6-09
http://www.dickrussell.org/articles/savingstripers.htm (http://www.dickrussell.org/articles/savingstripers.htm)


Striped bass in trouble again? 12-13-08
http://www.dickrussell.org/articles/trouble.htm (http://www.dickrussell.org/articles/trouble.htm)



All I ask is that people read these with an open mind. If you can manage to get through them and still feel that all the people there with decades of experience are lying, then we'll agree to disagree. ;) :HappyWave:

[rip316]

Like I said. I may not be the smartest guy or have the best information or the most experience out of anyone. I was just stating on what I have experienced personally. Didn't mean to offend anyone. sorry guy.

[DarkSkies]

Hey Rip, there's no need to apologize. :cool:

You're entitled to your opinion. That opinion is based on your experience, so it's uniquely different from someone else's. No one can fault, or should criticize you for expressing your opinion.

We all see things differently, and are motivated to learn things at our own pace.

The only reason I put that data out there was I felt that if you had those questions in your head, maybe some others would have them as well.

That's why I invite you and others to read some of those articles. I laid it out there to make it easier for you and others to access.

If you can get through those articles and still feel your your opinion is unchanged in any way, I have to respect that.

It's all good, bro. :HappyWave:

[rip316]

Hey, Were you at the Raritan Fishing Show on Saturday? I could swear i saw you in the seminar on beach fishing.

[DarkSkies]

I couldn't make that one RIP. If you had any thoughts about the show, good or bad, maybe you could post them up in the thread below? Thanks :thumbsup:

http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=5705


*******************
Here's some more weakfish data:

might be interested in this data from the NOAA/ASMFC showing that the commercial landings for weakfish pushed through the stratosphere from 1975 to 1980. Commercial landings went from approx 15 million lbs/yr to 36 million lbs/yr, in a 5 year period.

Unprecedented landings, it was a true bonanza for the Comms. According to the chart, 2 years later the bottom dropped out of the weakfish market. People say weakfish are cyclical. I wonder if that extreme down cycle from 1980-82 and later in the graph had anything at all to do with the relentless pounding with the record commercial catches from 1975-80.

http://www.asmfc.org/speciesDocument...Landings09.pdf (http://www.asmfc.org/speciesDocuments/weakfish/landings/weakfishLandings09.pdf)

Where are the weakfish now?


Following the trendline, even if you add 25% more to the Recreational catch numbers, the weakfish data shows that Comms far outfished Recs in this fishery. The states of VA, NC, and NJ seem to have the biggest historical landings in the charts.

What's a rational explanation of this? The Comms, seeing an abundance, figured the stocks would last forever and hammered them. They hammered them to the point where the fishery was no longer sustainable, and numbers continued to go down after that point.

Again, their catches increased over 100% over a 5 year period 1975-1980. And yes, they were being managed by the ASFMC during that time.
It's all about the money.

9697

[plugginpete]

Guys used to catch weakfish by the garbage can full 25 years ago. I heard that everyone did it back then. I wonder if it will ever be rebuilt to the amount that existed during those days.

[baitstealer]

It's called conservation. Unless everyone jumps on board it will never get back to the way it was.

Here is an older article from the app and possible 2010 regulations on weakfish.

By KIRK MOORE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU

After a brief, dismal 2009 season for weakfish, recreational anglers may be limited to catching one or two weakfish on their 2010 trips ? or not fishing for the species at all.

Working to expedite the rulemaking for 2010, interstate regulators held a telephone conference Monday to finalize proposed weakfish regulations. A public hearing to discuss those options will be held at 8 p.m. Oct. 6 in the Toms River municipal building at 33 Washington St.

The proposed recreational rules include limiting fishermen to keeping one or two fish per day ? compared to a daily limit up to six fish now allowed in New Jersey. Another option is a weakfish moratorium ? a virtual shutdown of the fishery that's a traditional spring opener and late-summer mainstay for anglers.

Those options are a possibility now because of the "unfortunately grim picture of the (weakfish) stock right now," said Robert E. Beal, director of the Interstate Fisheries Management Program with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the interstate group that coordinates weakfish conservation measures. The commission will choose among those options at its November meeting.

In 2008, total reported weakfish landings "at 1.1 million pounds were the lowest on record," Beal said. But in this case, it's not from overfishing, Beal and commissioners said.

The weakfish population should be good, with healthy numbers of young fish reported in recent years, Beal said. But they do not make it to adulthood, meaning it's most likely that juvenile weakfish are being eaten by more abundant species such as dogfish or striped bass, say ASMFC officials.

"I don't want to give people false hope, if we put a moratorium on and nothing happens ? and nothing could happen," cautioned Thomas P. Fote of Toms River, who represents New Jersey on the commission.

Members of the ASMFC's weakfish management board agreed to drop one proposal for shorter weakfish seasons as an option. That would not necessarily save more weakfish, Fote pointed out: "There were no weakfish in New Jersey this spring at all. Then in late summer we had a big slug of fish."

The forthcoming rule, known as addendum 4, gained urgency this summer when ASMFC officials got an updated stock assessment showing the bad news, and New Jersey anglers saw weakfish in Barnegat Bay for only a short time in late August.

Next year's cutbacks will fall on commercial fishermen, too, with rules that would limit them to 100 or 150 pounds a day as an incidental catch to other species.


http://www.app.com/article/20090928/...S02&source=rss (http://www.app.com/article/20090928/NEWS/909280328/1070/NEWS02&source=rss)

[clamchucker]

An article that portrays the great weakfishing we used to enjoy. When I first read it, I thought it merely related to the cyclical nature of weakfish. We all used to say that. Now, I am convinced the weakfish population is near extinction. Last year was the worst year ever for me with weakfish catches.



June 10, 1974
Back Again—and Hungry


Some folks feared that the weakfish had swum off into semi-extinction, but now they are here, sizable as ever and biting as never before
Robert H. Boyle (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/Robert_Boyle/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm)
Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1088653/1/index.htm#ixzz1IrA8t0Hw


The scene at Brandywine Shoal lighthouse—out near the mouth of Delaware Bay and seven miles off Cape May (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/Cape_May/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm), N.J.—looks like a reenactment of the evacuation of Dunkirk. Collected there are small aluminum cartoppers risking dangerous seas from the Atlantic, sport-fishermen with their high-rise tuna towers and grimy old party boats. At daybreak there may be 100 of them, and at noon on a weekday there may be 1,000, some from as far away as Virginia (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/Virginia/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm), Pennsylvania (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/Pennsylvania/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm) and Maryland (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/Maryland/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm). On a weekend the bay is jammed with several thousand boats, so close together that it seems possible to walk from one to the other all the way to the rock jetty around the lighthouse. Anglers are casting their plugs, jigs and cut bait of mackerel and squid in every direction, and lines frequently become entangled. "Panic City" is the name that startled observers have applied to the vast, milling assemblage out of sight of land and, apparently, out of mind.


The boats and the fishermen are drawn to Brandywine Light by what Lou Rodia calls "the biggest run of weakfish ever, with the biggest fish in the memory of anyone alive." Rodia, happy flack for Cape May County and columnist for the Angler's News, a weekly for zealots, should know: the world-record weakfish, a monster of 17 pounds, eight ounces, was caught near Cape May (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/Cape_May/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm) in 1944.

What makes the present run especially remarkable is that until a few years ago weakfish were just about given up as semi-extinct. An angler who caught a couple of two- or three-pounders was followed down the street back home by admiring colleagues, and that solid reference work, McClane's Standard Fishing Encyclopedia, published in 1965, made wistful reference to the 11- and 12-pound lunkers of the past, noting that "the era of those large weakfish appears to be over."


Not so, now. Off Cape May (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/Cape_May/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm), fishermen are throwing back the three-pounders and heading for port laden with fish that run from four to 10 pounds. Occasional fish run up to 13 pounds. The biggest weighed in so far at the annual Cape May (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/Cape_May/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm) tournament was taken last week and hit 12� pounds, not bad considering that the fish will be around, feeding and growing, until October or November, when they migrate deep offshore.


Ranking close in popular esteem in Eastern waters to the unpredictable striped bass and the voracious bluefish, the weakfish is slender and shapely, its back burnished with purple, green and gold, its flanks dappled with spots. The term "weakfish" reflects no lack of gameness but refers instead to the very soft and tender mouth parts that easily shed a hook. For every weakfish caught, one or two escape.


Relatively little is known about the life cycle of this valuable sport and food fish, but according to Stuart J. Wilk, a biologist with the Sandy Hook Laboratory of the National Marine Fisheries Service, there may be two or three main contingents roaming up and down the Atlantic Coast from Florida (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/Florida/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm) to Massachusetts (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/Massachusetts/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm). Weakfish generally travel north in the spring in schools of similarly sized fish, and aggregations of schools may extend "over tens of square miles along the coast," says Wilk. The fish supposedly spawn in the spring and early summer near the mouths of estuaries, notably Pamlico Sound (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/Pamlico_Sound/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm) in North Carolina (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/North_Carolina/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm), Chesapeake Bay (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/Chesapeake_Bay/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm) and Delaware Bay, and the young use the estuaries as nurseries.

In the late 1950s the abundant schools up and down the coast suddenly went into sharp decline, and hundreds of thousands of anglers were forced to look for other fish. Although weakfish have historically been subject to cyclical fluctuations in population, nothing like this slump had ever been recorded.

Part of the blame fell on trawlers netting so-called "trash" fish off the Carolina coast for the pet food industry; these vessels swept up huge numbers of the young, which were pulverized for the house cats of America (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/United_States/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm). Other factors, like the environment and the effects of predation, were also at work. Says biologist Myron Silverman of the Sandy Hook lab, "Bluefish are big predators of weakfish, but in the last few years bluefish have been further offshore in the spring, which might have allowed young weakfish to survive. Then there are the factors of weather and the temperature of the water. If the weakfish spawn at just the right time, and the weather and the temperature are right and predation is low, the young should survive in large numbers."


Whatever happened, the unusual 15-year decline was suddenly replaced by exceptional resurgence. In Sandy Hook Bay the commercial catch of weakfish jumped from 13,570 pounds in 1970 to 312,712 pounds last year. This year the poundage should be much higher. The weakfish being caught now are the products of successful spawnings three to five years ago.

Anglers have been quick to seize the opportunity. Dewey Powell, a gas-station owner in Ocean City (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/Ocean_City/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm), N.J. (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/New_Jersey/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm), and his pal **** Wood, an ad man for two tackle companies—Gudebrod and Lew Childre—are striped bass enthusiasts, but in recent weeks they have taken time off from stripers to go after weakfish in Delaware Bay. "This fishing is a pure bonus for us," said Powell one dawn last week as he headed his 20-foot Sea Craft out toward Brandywine Light from Cape May (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/topic/article/Cape_May/1900-01-01/2100-12-31/mdd/index.htm). Two days before, he and Wood had boated 200 weakfish ranging from five to nine pounds. The fish ate up jigs on the bottom, hit at mid-depth and finally struck with a frenzy, during a tumultuous ebb tide, at surface plugs. "You'd throw a plug out," said Wood, "have a weakie whack it, and there would be 15 to 20 more fish following alongside right up to the boat. That's the time to break out a fly rod."


At Brandywine Light, Powell eased in between boats and dropped anchor. The tide was flooding, white water splashed on the rocks and Powell and Wood began casting white bucktail jigs attached to a snap swivel up to the jetty. A weakfish has two large canine teeth in the roof of its mouth that can sever a line without a swivel. The jigs, shaped like a football and weighing an ounce and a quarter each, were allowed to drop to the bottom below the jetty, where they bounced and swirled in the current. The weakfish were feeding on spearing, a slender, silvery baitfish, and hopefully the buffeted jigs resembled crippled spearings. The weakfish struck even before the retrieve, and in half an hour Powell and Wood landed a dozen weighing four to five pounds. "We don't use cut bait on the jig," Powell said. "That's what most of these other fishermen are using because that's what they think they have to do. We're doing what we'd do for stripers in some situations, and these weakfish will just gobble the jig right up."


After prowling up the bay a bit, searching for bigger fish, they returned to the light and let the boat drift in a rip. This time Powell and Wood snapped on three-quarter-ounce ball-shaped jigs. Letting the jigs sink to the bottom, 20 feet down, they began gentle retrieves, lifting the lures perhaps a foot and then allowing them to fall back. More often than not, a weakfish would grab a jig as it sank on the cast or when it fell back in the retrieve, and by the time the boat had drifted up to the light in the now ebbing tide, the anglers had landed 15 fish, the largest six or seven pounds.



Wood, with a stiff bait-casting rod and Dacron line, took more than Powell, who was using a spinning rod with 12-pound-test monofilament. "There is a stretch to mono," Wood said, "and after you feel the strike and go to set the hook, the fish might be gone." Finally, with 30 fish in the box and the wind kicking up, they agreed to call it a day.
Back at the launch they expressed mock chagrin at their catch, but Lou Rodia, who had followed along most of the day in another boat, said in all truth, even for a flack who happens to be a fisherman, "In a lifetime, you may see this kind of fishing only once. I've been fishing for 30 years, and I've never seen anything like this anywhere, anytime." Hopefully, this will prove to be only the beginning, not the end.




Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1088653/2/index.htm#ixzz1Ir9LQyUp

[dogfish]

Here's one to think about, folks. This was written in 2009 but still remains the same. I haven't caught a weakfish in years.

http://www.mvgazette.com/article.php?23123

10/02/09
Once a Derby Prize, Weakfish Now Need Protection of Ban

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

http://www.mvgazette.com/images/photocache/img/4959.jpg (http://www.mvgazette.com/buy_photo.php?6120)

Derby fishermen haven’t weighed in a weakfish in decades.

Weakfish, also known as squeteague, were once common in this region, so popular a sport fish that up until 1987, they were part of the annual fall Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby. Then they disappeared from these waters. They were removed from the derby after not one was caught in 1987.

Now their numbers have fallen all along the eastern seaboard to the point of collapse; fisheries managers with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission are looking at a ban on the catching of this fish. Public hearings on the management of the fish will be held next week in New York, Virginia and Georgia, a week later in Maryland and North Carolina. The states are collecting input on a future strategy, called Draft Addendum IV, to protect the fish.

No hearings are being held north of New York. Coastal states Rhode Island and Massachusetts are in the northernmost part of the range. And there are historical records that show the fish has at times been huge in Cape Cod Bay up to the Gulf of Maine.

Squeteague was once landed by the barrel on the Vineyard. There is a report that in the early 1900s the fish was so abundant and cheap it was used as fertilizer here. Everett H. Poole, 79, of Chilmark remembers in the 1940s when 200 pounds a day were landed at a fish weir near Menemsha.

http://www.mvgazette.com/images/photocache/img/4960.jpg (http://www.mvgazette.com/buy_photo.php?6119)

Unfamiliar fish were once common.
Lee Welch, an Edgartown electrician, caught a 16.90-pound weakfish in the fall of 1986. His fish, caught in Edgartown harbor, won the derby and still stands as the largest caught weakfish in the annual contest.


On the Vineyard, squeteague has become the forgotten species. Sightings of the fish are so rare that when an angler sees one, he doesn’t know it.

Reports out of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission this year describe a fish in crisis. They call the fish “depleted.” Their records up and down the coast are indicative of the problem: In 1980 the catch of weakfish was 36 million pounds; the annual catch by both recreational and commercial fishermen beginning in 2006 was less than two million pounds. And the fish is only being seen and mostly commercially harvested near where it spawns, the Chesapeake Bay and surrounding coastal waters.

Estimates on the amount of this fish in the sea also are dire. From 1982 to 1990 it was estimated that there were 113 million pounds of fish swimming in the ocean. The estimate in the past two years is down around 11 million pounds. It is believed that should fishing continue, weakfish will disappear.
Robert Beal, director of the interstate fisheries management program with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, said weakfish is one of the regional stocks in the worst shape. Tautaug and winter flounder are not too far behind.

“Weakfish is a poster child for multispecies management,” he said. “The current level of fishing is not sustainable. It is a big decision, any time you think about a moratorium.”

Mr. Beal said there are already restrictive measures in the states that still fish for weakfish. A greater challenge ahead will be how to restrict the fishermen from catching the fish as a bycatch. Bycatch is the accidental catching of a closed fishery when targeting another species. There is also significant science indicating the environment is a big factor in the poor survival o f juvenile fish.

Greg Skomal, of Oak Bluffs, is a fisheries biologist with the state Division of Marine Fisheries. He sits on a technical committee that oversees weakfish for the division. He is also the chairman of the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby.

“Weakfish may be the first curveball that management has to try and hit,” Mr. Skomal said. In addition to overfishing, Mr. Skomal said, “the fish are suffering from natural mortality. How do we account for that? How do we manage the fish to bring it back? If the greatest level of mortality now is due to the environment, we have to take a plunge into ecosystem management.

“We can control one [overfishing] but we may not be able to control the other without looking at ecosystem-based management, trying to manage all pieces of the puzzle,” Mr. Skomal said. That means also considering such things as juvenile fish, where they are born, what they are feeding on, habitat, water quality and other predators, rather than just regulating fishermen.

Mr. Skomal said there are scientists in the Maryland area who have evidence striped bass are feeding on the smallest of weakfish and predation will prevent any kind of restoration.
He said the derby committee used to discuss the state of weakfish, but not anymore. “We feel fortunate there are bonito and false albacore around,” he said.

There are Vineyard recreational fishermen who see a parallel between these times and the dramatic effort to save the striped bass in the mid-1980s.

Everett (Spider) Andresen of Chilmark said fisheries managers should institute a commercial and recreational moratorium on weakfish just as they did with striped bass. Mr. Andresen is a retired publisher of Saltwater Sportsman Magazine, a magazine that was a leader in recreational striped bass conservation back in the 1980s. “I support a moratorium, it is the only hope we have. Those fishcrats always have a long list of excuses. When striped bass was in a state of decline and collapse, they said the bluefish were eating the striped bass. They said the trouble was cyclical. There is a lack of forage fish. Perhaps predation is a part of the problem, but 90 per cent of the real problem here is overfishing.” He said: “Recreational fishermen are just as guilty as commercial fishermen.”

http://www.mvgazette.com/images/photocache/img/4961.jpg (http://www.mvgazette.com/buy_photo.php?6118)

Charting the decline.
The first and last time he caught squeteague on the Vineyard was one evening in July of 1967. It was off the North Shore at an area well known as The Brickyard. “We caught 200 pounds. We caught a fish with every cast.” He said those were the days when anglers would keep the fish. “In the mid-1970s, we went and caught them off Block Island,” he said. But now they are gone and it is a rare occasion when he hears of a fish being caught.

Mr. Welch, who caught the derby’s largest weakfish in 1987, remembers catching the fish, which he hooked with a live bunker while it resided under a large school of bunker. Schools of bunker of that size are no longer seen in these waters.

Dan McKiernan, deputy director of the state Division of Marine Fisheries, caught a large weakfish in the fall of 1979 near the cliffs of Gay Head.

“I don’t know what the recipe should be. We don’t catch the fish,” Mr. Mc-Kiernan said. But Mr. McKiernan said the prescription for saving the weakfish will be complicated. He said one option will protecting the nursery areas where the fish are known to reside.

Mr. Poole said he can recall when he ran a fish market and he had to purchase weakfish from one fisherman so that he could also get mackerel for his shop. “I used to have to buy two boxes of squeteague from a guy, which was 250 pounds, each day in order that I could have 30 pounds of mackerel. “I used to go out to the trap [fish weir] in a catboat, pick out my fish as they brailed it into the boat.”

“Nowadays, if you see a squeteague, it is a pretty big deal,” Mr. Poole said. “I see one or two around Menemsha each summer.”

**** Russell wrote a book called Striper Wars, the story of the striped bass restoration in the 1980s. He is an avid Vineyard recreational fisherman and longtime conservationist. “We heard plenty when they were trying to restore the striped bass. It was pollution in the Cheseapeake, predation. Stopping overfishing was not so big a deal,” he said.
“But what happened? When Maryland declared a moratorium and other states pretty much shut down the fishing for five years, striped bass made the biggest comeback of any fish in the ocean.” Mr. Russell said. “If you give the fish a chance, it has the fortitude to overcome all the other factors.”

[jonthepain]

If you give the fish a chance, it has the fortitude to overcome all the other factors.

amen to that.

there was an op/ed in the raleigh paper the other day, claiming that it's the recs who have killed off the striper population.

that's why she was against the sportfish designation legislation that was up for vote here.

and that after all the recent bycatch and comm striper dumping stories down here.

just give them a chance! sheesh.

http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2011&BillID=h353&submitButton=Go

[voyager35]

jonthepain, I support the gamefish act, it makes sense for where we now are at. I don't mean to argue with your opinion, but I might agree with what that lady said. I think that from what I remember in the 1970's many guys were fishing for striped bass commercially, from the Carolinas to Mass. It seems logical to say they slaughtered the bass stocks back then. We as recs did also, but I dont feel there were as many recs back then.
Look at it now, 40 years later. Almost everyone who has a boat wants to fish for striped bass. I don';t know how is is down in North Carolina, but I am seeing more yahoos on the water today than at any point in the years I have been fishing. You should hear the radio chatter out on the water in NJ for a day or 2. Some of these guys are brain dead., I don't know how they ever got a drivers' license let alone passed a boating safety course. I have heard so many stupid questions on the channels sometimes I just turn it off and communicate with other captains via cell phone.

I would say there are more of us fishing in boats now than ever before. With all the species we can't fish for or have restricted seasons for, I say striped bass are taking most of the heat. And I feel they are getting hammered. You should see the dumpsters after a hot bite up here, loaded with racks of big fish.
So I am not trying to disagree totally, but I think the recs are the big consumers here. Those poachers in Md and your area certainly did a lot of damage., but I say we do more.

When we fish and get into a lot of big bass, we usually keep 1 or 2. Sometimes we keep the limit, but we have never used a bonus tag. I know folks who use their striped bass bonus tag each time. The greed in using that tag kills me, as these guys have full freezers of meat and continue to use their tags to give fish away to every relative, guys down the block, etc etc. So many idiots view this as a magically renewal resource, and there is not a lot of emphasis on conservation, for the majority of folks I see out there on the water.
Also, a lot of folks get ino the "get them before they're gone forever" mentality, and to me that is short sighted and selfish. Don't you want the bass to be around for your grandchildren to catch?
For some, I guess not.

[jonthepain]

i guess you're right

down here the name of the game is redfish. stripers not so much.

so maybe NC can lead the recovery, since recreational pressure here is not as great as up north.

well, except for Hatteras. Stripers are still the big draw there.

[captnemo]

A good article written by Capt John


Capt John..................... WEAKFISH STOCK WEAK

Managers fall short of instituting a complete ban as stocks hit an all-time low

The last few years have resulted in some extraordinary weakfish catches, including the all-tackle record 19.12-pounder caught from the Jersey Shore in the spring of 2008. On my boat alone we stuck two fish (one in 2006 and one in 2007) that I’m certain would have blown the IGFA flyrod record out of the water, had I had the sense to take girth measurements. But there was always an urgency to get those fish back in the water as soon as possible. The presence of small numbers of such large fish and no small or medium fish is a classic sign of an impending collapse. Weakfish were in trouble then. They are in bad trouble now.

A recent stock assessment completed and peer reviewed this year found that the stock has reached an all time low of 2.9 million pounds, far below the “biomass threshold” of 22.4 million pounds, which is what scientists would consider a healthy stock. This is an astonishing drop, since the East Coast harvest in 1980 was 80 million pounds.

The current situation has become dire enough that Dr. Jamie Geiger of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service suggested that managers might wish to consider invoking the provisions of the Endangered Species Act as one of the “management tools” available to them.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), which has management authority over the species, has known about the precipitous decline in weakfish stocks over the last decade. It’s a little troubling that they refrained from acting until now, since timely action by ASMFC might have prevented the collapse of the stock. However, the dynamics of the weakfish population has long confounded fisheries managers.

Historically, the species has experienced extreme highs and lows. They virtually disappeared in the early 50s and showed no sign of recovery until 1972. The early 70s began a period of tremendous growth in the fishery, which peaked in 1980. Then the fishery declined steadily throughout the 1980s, dropping to low in 1994. Management measures allowed harvest to increase slowly through 1998. Beginning in 1999, commercial landings began to decline again, and by 2008, were reduced to an historic low of less than 500,000 pounds. Recreational landings followed a similar trend.

According to ASMFC biologists, the recent decline isn’t due to fishing pressure. Natural mortality has increased to a level between two to four times that of fishing mortality in recent years. Surveys show that juvenile weakfish populations continue to be strong but they are not making it to maturity.

Weakfish anglers know that the species is most often found in estuaries, which provide not only productive feeding areas, but spawning grounds for adult weakfish and important nursery areas for juveniles. Thus, a number of environmental factors may be causing problems with such estuary dependant fish. They include intense coastal development; “dredging and filling “activities that have limited shallow water nursery habitat; water quality degradation resulting from point and non-point source discharges; the intensive conversion of coastal wetlands to agricultural areas; alteration of freshwater flows and discharge patterns; and power plant cooling facilities which have been said to cause entrainment and impingement.

There is also the issue of predation and increased competition for forage. The usual folks interested in larger striped bass quotas claim that stripers are eating all the weakfish or that they are eating all the weakfish’s food. Yet the two species’ historical abundance and coexistence make such arguments difficult to accept (the explosion of weakfish abundance in the early 1970s coincided with what was at the time the largest year class of striped bass ever recorded.) The same can be said for bluefish (anglers harvested 95 million pounds of bluefish in 1981, and just 19 million pounds in 2008.) The dramatic increase in spiny dogfish populations has also been pointed to as a factor. Regardless, attempting to protect one species by the large scale killing of another has never been successful, on land or at sea and it is currently not one of the management tools available under the ASMFC’s single species management approach anyway.

Weakfish stocks may also be suffering from unreported bycatch, either in the winter trawl fisheries off North Carolina or in the gillnet fisheries prosecuted in numerous estuaries.

In any case, it’s very difficult to prove that any of these factors are a significant source of weakfish mortality, and even if scientists could pinpoint such factors, there doesn’t seem to be much that can be done to correct them. There is consensus amongst scientists that in order to rebuild the weakfish stock, total mortality will need to be reduced, and the only tool they have to do that is to reduce or even eliminate fishing pressure.

The usual cast of characters are suggesting that since fishing is not the large part of the problem, then commercial and recreational fishers should not have to make sacrifices. Yet CCA NY Chairman Charles Witek notes “In the face of a stock decline that cannot be readily attributed to any single cause, taking immediate action to reduce such mortality as ASMFC may be able to control should always be seen as a preferable alternative to doing nothing and allowing the situation to deteriorate further, so that any recovery effort ultimately undertaken will only be more difficult.”

A Draft Addendum to the weakfish management plan, proposing a range of options to reduce fishing mortality was recently created by ASMFC to address the stock assessment results. The options range from maintaining the status quo to a complete harvest moratorium and limited bycatch only commercial fisheries. The ASMFC Weakfish Management Board met in early November to consider public comment and take final action on the Addendum. There was a motion made by Tom O'Connell of MD for a moratorium, but Tom Fote of NJ offered a substitute motion that would allow a 1 fish bag for anglers and a 100 pound trip limit for commercial fishermen. Unfortunately, the 1 fish/100 pound trip limit passed by a vote 9-6. The argument was that this will allow for some data collection and some dead discards to be converted to catch. Of course, once you have such a “bycatch allowance” inevitably it results in a directed fishery, especially on the commercial side.

The vote was unfortunate, given the dire condition of the stock. A moratorium would have given weakfish a far greater chance at a timely recovery. But it wasn’t surprising. ASMFC has not imposed a moratorium since the one imposed on Atlantic sturgeon more than ten years ago. Recently they refused to shut down the winter flounder fishery, which is in terrible shape, even after a federally-imposed moratorium was implemented. Such short sighted policies which have clearly become the norm at ASMFC benefit neither the fish nor the fishermen in the long run. Let’s hope it’s not too little too late for weakfish.

[J Barbosa]

Weakfish 2014

I know this was started as a bass thread but the weakfish deserve a mention too. I know we have some great weakfish anglers in this thread who actively target and catch them.

Personally I don't target weakfish but I am very happy whenever I catch one as by catch. I do catch a few while bucktailing with gulp for fluke.

I've slowly watch the latest weakfish in this "cycle" start to grow up.

For the past three years I have noticed a trend...each year the predominant sized class seem to be a little bigger and there seems to be less of them.

So far this year I've only seen one caught and heard of a few in Northern NJ.

I am starting to get a little worried that I am not catching more of these as "bycatch".

Are too few of these being released back safely?

[ledhead36]

^^^^^^^^ I think whenever they begin to make a comeback netters like the belford pirates smash the population to smithereens by picking up all the stragglers. I forgot what the limit is maybe someone here knows. Go to the belford co op around the late fall and they have small spike weakfish for sale. When all the little ones that got born that year are streaming out of the bay those damn pirates net and intercept them. there might be other boats out there too. I do know the belford boats do it for a fact because I seen the weakfish in the glass case there.

[jigfreak]

Salty tours is the guy you want to look at who is raping them in ocean county. He's worse than a pirate. More like a scab or a carbuncle.

[buckethead]

There should be no commercial fishing at all for weakfish. I read here they have a 200lb per trip limit. No teeth in those regulations.