captains charters and customers what are they saying

[cowherder]

Does anyone think that the charter or party boat captains have a good idea of how many fish are out there? I would think that since they are on the front lines they might have honest opinions about striped bass. Sometimes its hard to separate the truth from the bs when you read the reports.

[voyager35]

That would depend on how often they fish. I know a few head boat Capts. What they tell me is a lot different than what you see posted on the reports. Of course they have to fill the boat every day or end up bankrupt.

[captnemo]

Joe, I found something to add to this. It came from a blog where they also sell outdoor gear, I hope it's ok to post the link. What this guy says is the same thing you have been implying. Friends who live in Maine had a poor season in 2008, and some of the southern areas have had diminished spring runs. Among friends who own boats, there are not many that will consider this, except for a few guys I know who fish a lot. This all adds up to a smaller biomass, it makes sense to me. My .02. Great thread.





"Large concentrations of bass in some areas doesn’t necessarily equate to a healthy stock:
Man, there were some crazy striped bass blitzes in Montauk this year. The kind that make you just drop your rod and say “Holy *@$%!”. Truly extraordinary stuff. Understandably, such blitzes might make one believe that striped bass are extremely abundant. Unfortunately that is not the case. In other regions, particularly the Northeast, there are widespread complaints about the lack of quality stripers. In Maine, guides are going out of business because of the very real lack of what was once a thriving fishery.

As guides like Capt. Dave Pecci and Capt. Doug Jowett point out, it’s not due to the lack of forage as there seems to be abundant bait concentrations in the areas that they fish. Indeed I fear that Maine’s position at the northernmost part of the striped bass migration makes it a bellwether state.

In light of such Montauk blitzes, I ask you to consider the below passage taken from a University of New Hampshire Department of Natural Resources document titled A Guide to Fisheries Stock Assessment.

This is the document used to educate members of the fisheries management councils on how fisheries stock assessments are conducted:
“Fishermen will actively seek out areas with greater fish concentrations. As a result, their catch-per-unit effort could remain stable in the face of a declining stock. Consider a stock that contracts its range as the population shrinks, or increases its range as the population grows. Despite the changing range, catch-per-unit effort may remain relatively constant if the fishermen focus their effort on the center of the range, where fish density remains relatively stable.”

With this in mind, I would think managers would be practicing extreme caution when managing striped bass, particularly in light of its immense recreational value. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Delaware and Pennsylvania want open two-month fishing seasons targeting mature male striped bass. Maryland has proposed to extend non-quota management for its trophy fishery in 2009 and until stock assessment indicates that corrective action is necessary, and Virginia wants to extend its season.

All of these measure will increase fishing mortality on striped bass.

In my opinion they are reckless, and they show no respect for the views of those hardworking Maine guides that are being forced out of business. Undoubtedly, there seems to be a trend toward killing more bass rather than a move in the other direction.

That’s understandable given the recent stock assessment and the states’ understanding that their anglers want to kill more bass. But I think there’s a large majority of folks that would rather proceed down a precautionary road. Once which insures that we have plenty of big fish around in the future. It’s up to these anglers to let their state reps know their wishes. It seems as if the kill-more-fish-now folks are the only ones being listened to at this point, and that has to stop."
Captain John McMurray (http://laterallineco.com/ambassadors/john_mcmmurray_one_more_cast_charters_jamaica_bay_ guide.html)

http://www.laterallineco.com/blog/category/striped-bass/

[fishinmission78]

This came from another site. Capemayray, he's been around a long time. Captain from the Cape May area.




I was one of the few that attended the meeting last week and commented that I was in favor of a slot fish to allow more larger breeder size fish excape being harvested. I believe only 10 anglers commented out of those that were there. It will all depend on what national marine fisheries hands down as options that will meet the federal requirements.

It is always amazing how many people have ideas but never attend any of the meetings or send in comments in, if they can not attend. Then they go on and on about how it should be this or that not even knowing what went on at the meeting or understand how the regulations are determined. If and when options for a slot fish come about they will be handed down from nation marine fisheries and will have a number of different options that meet the conservation equivelent. They just don't pick numbers out of the air.

Seems like no one wants to face the facts that maybe stripers might be overfished. All you have to do is look around at all the huge stripers that have been caught in the last few years. Does anyone know where all the in-between class size bass are? You just can't keep harvesting large cows and expect bass populations to thrive. Most of the anglers that I know are all catching much larger bass than they ever did, but they are catching less overall and seeing much few of the inbetween sizes that use to be so plentiful.

I find it amazing that National Marine fisheries can say stripers are not overfished and at the same time they report that the year of the young reports show a decline year after year for the last 7 years. Where do they expect future bass to come from?

There are way too many anglers targeting stripers in New Jersey and every other coastal state as they are one of the few fish that you can still fish for. If we do not maintain healthy stocks we will be back having major problems down the road. As another charter captain stated earlier, anglers should be happy with one nice fish a day. Taking some slot fish will elimated killing some of the larger breeders.

If we continue to kill at the rate we are doing now, when there is a decline we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

[lostatsea]

I hope you're not ready to give up yet, DS. Here is an article that was just published in the Vineyard Gazete:

http://www.mvgazette.com/article.php?29887


‘Scary’ Decline In Striper Stocks

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL
A drastic decline in striped bass stocks has state and federal officials scrambling to protect the fish, but many recreational fishermen say the government isn’t moving fast enough.

“It’s really scary,” said Cooper (Coop) Gilkes 3rd, owner of Coop’s Bait and Tackle shop in Edgartown, who has seen the haul from the annual June catch-and-release striper tournament fall dramatically. “At one point we had somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 fish weighed in on one night. Last year there were 100 and it’s like a staircase going all the way down to last year. It’s just dropped every year.”

Last year, Mr. Gilkes said the annual springtime sea worm hatch in the Island’s coastal ponds — an event that historically attracts stripers by the hundreds — had “just about failed” after years of under-performance.

“It’s mind-boggling that we could get to this point with everybody watching,” he said.
Mr. Gilkes’s experience is supported by national data. In Massachusetts the Division of Marine Fisheries acknowledges that from 2006 to 2010 the catch of small stripers dropped by nearly 75 per cent.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) cited a 66 per cent decline in the estimated recreational catch from 2006 to 2009, and in March called for a drastic 40 per cent reduction in striped bass mortality for 2012 to help replenish the ailing spawning stock in the Chesapeake Bay.

But in an April letter to Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries director Paul Diodati, state Sen. James Timilty of Bristol and Norfolk County pushed for a 50 per cent reduction in striper mortality for this year. The move is backed by the fishing advocacy group Stripers Forever.

“As we look ahead to the season we must focus on protecting what is left of the large 2003 class of breeding females and work to avoid another total crash of the striped bass population,” Senator Timilty wrote.

“It’s a very smart move and why they will not act on it I have no clue,” Mr. Gilkes said in his tackle store on Thursday.

For fisherman and Striper Wars author **** Russell, Mr. Timilty’s 50 per cent proposal would be a good start, but he isn’t holding his breath.

“It’s a bureaucracy and it takes time to put things in place,” Mr. Russell said. “I’m glad that the ASMFC has finally woken up to the fact that we need to take some steps to address this but I just think it should happen now instead of postponing it for another year. It’s definitely heading in the direction of [the declines of the 1970s] unless they take some pretty severe measures.”

In an e-mail to the Gazette this week, Mr. Diodati said he has received some two dozen letters calling for a reduction in the 2011 harvest and that he shares the public’s concern about striped bass. But, he claims, it is not “possible or prudent” to act this year, citing an updated stock assessment due to be completed at the end of the summer that would guide the agency’s policy.

“Since there is no prior evidence showing that poor juvenile production is a result of excessive fishing mortality or low spawning stock abundance, it makes good sense to review that information prior to taking any management action,” Mr. Diodati wrote.
He also said the ASMFC could at any point freeze state management programs for several years, potentially keeping Massachusetts catch levels far below reasonable limits indefinitely.

“The interstate fisheries management program does not reward a state or offer incentives for taking proactive conservative actions,” he wrote.

The cause for the decline of the stripers is unresolved and hotly contested, but Mr. Diodati cautions that there are material differences between the current crisis and the devastating collapses of the 1970s.

“Today’s resource condition is much different and better than when striped bass stocks became depleted in the mid- to late-1970s,” he wrote. “Then, catches of large (and small) fish went virtually uncontrolled at the same time that young of the year production was plummeting.”

Mr. Diodati said that the numbers of reproductively mature fish remains relatively high, even above management goals and insists that the problems in the striper stock are attributable in large part to poor water quality and disease in the Chesapeake where the fish spawn, rather than overfishing along the coast.
Mr. Gilkes, though, thinks that everyone is responsible for the decline, recreational fishermen included.

“My own personal opinion is I’d like to see them go back to 36 inches for recreational fishermen and one fish a day,” he said. Currently recreational fishermen are allowed two fish a day with a 28-inch minimum. “I think that’s plenty until they’re back. It’s not being managed right. I know what worked last time when they went to 36 inches and they brought her right back. I was shocked at how fast those fish came back,” Mr. Gilkes said.

Mr. Russell also advocates the one-fish-a-day limit. Though he acknowledges that water quality in the six-state watershed of the Chesapeake Bay, which reaches far into Pennsylvania and includes Wahington, D.C., and Baltimore, may be affecting the bass, Mr. Russell implicates two other major factors in the stripers’ decline: poaching and the commercial menhaden harvest.

As the Gazette reported in February, more than 10 tons of illegally gill-netted striped bass were confiscated by Maryland environmental police this winter and a video of hundreds of dead stripers caught as bycatch in North Carolina waters has surfaced on the Internet.


As for the commercial menhaden fishery — the small fish is a staple of the striper’s diet — Mr. Russell said: “It’s basically one company, Omega Protein,” referring to the Houston-based fish oil supplement and fish meal supplier, the largest of its kind in the world.

“It’s true that the water quality is not very good but the menhaden abundance according to the AFSMC’s own data has gone down 85 per cent in the last 25 years,” he said. “The numbers are at historic lows and the striped bass are not getting enough to eat.”

With striper season poised to begin any day, Mr. Gilkes, whose livelihood depends on the recreational fishermen, doesn’t know why the fish have disappeared. All he knows is that he has had enough.

“I just want them back,” he said as he checked out a customer’s lures on Thursday. “I don’t care how they get them back. There are some very dark clouds forming and I don’t like them.”

[7deadlyplugs]

I found this on another site. This Capt charters in the NY Harbor area. Some guys say there is no decline, stripers are stronger than ever/ I suppose this guy, and his statistics, are :kooky: Learn from the past, thats what the posts here basically say, and I agree with them.:learn:

Here is what he said:
bass decline

"I have charters for bass Monday to Friday, 5-9 PM, May 1 to Nov. 10. I have been fishing NY harbor since 1994. By '96, 5 fishermen were averaging 20-30 bass, per night, clam chumming. Right through the summer!! Most fish were 23-27 inches. We would catch a few each week that were over 28 inches, but not many.

Today,.....same spots,..... we catch 6-8 fish a night. Of those 75% are now over 28 inches. School bass are missing. Ask the guys who fish Little Neck Bay in the spring. They'll tell ya' the schoolies are NOT like they used to be.

We are KILLING TOO MANY bass!!
My suggestion? 36 inch minimum size, one fish per person. "

[DarkSkies]

Professional and Charter Capts find fish for a living. They have to find fish for clients, or they starve.
They also have to drum up business by bringing a steady stream of clients....clients are not inclined to book a charter if the captain tells them fishing is terrible...


So what's a Capt to do when the fishing is poor, and a potential client wants to book?
Many Capts appreciate the value of future business and will say so, outright. :thumbsup:

Some know that they need the revenue, and will be more diplomatic. :learn: I want folks here to understand that you can't blame them for that.... but at the same time, you have to learn to read between the lines in a Capt's or boat's internet site reports....

[DarkSkies]

I thought it might be interesting here to see what the folks who fish every day for a living, are catching or not catching. Please remember if you post a report showing a Capt being candid that these guy work hard for every fish they catch. :thumbsup:

There are some days where ya just can't find a fish.
This thread was not intended to single any one capt out, as I have tremendous respect for the hard work they do. However, there are some leaders of Fishermen Groups (groups that purport to represent all fishermen) out there who claim that fishing has not suffered or that fishing is better than ever, or that striped bass catches have not declined.....I think we need to counter these irresponsible statements with a real dose of what is happening out there, on a daily basis....

I think when a captain makes a comment about the state of the fishery, from his professional perspective based on his logs and catches, it's important for the folks out there to see this, in aggregate.

Statistical analysis might be a more accurate tool for this, but most folks don't want to read statistical analysis...they want to read first-hand accounts of how the fishing is....so this is the best vehicle I could come up with for presenting any stories you might have to share....


So thanks for your input in this thread, folks, and please give credit to the captains who made the reports. Remember that every one of these guys tries his very best to get clients into fish, and there are some good days, and bad days, out there...

[DarkSkies]

**** Robin report, sent in by Finchaser, thanks....

www.cockrobin.com (http://www.cockrobin.com)

Hit the **** Robin today. Hadn't fished with these guys in a long time but still felt like a home away from home. We sailed with a good group of regulars and novices alike. We didn't bother looking up the beach as reports as of late have been very poor. Headed straight out east for the slammers. First drop produced a good jig bite which eventually turned to a bait bite. After it died, Capt. Jim repositioned us and we had decent bait fishing until we left. Overall, we had good to very good bluefishing.

[fishinmission78]

This guy threw everything but the kitchen sink. My logs show last year we were crushing them from MI to BI in mid october.


Left MI around 7 am this morn. Birds milling around the inlet so started the troll north right aways instead of running north to deal and rocks. MARKS down 30 feet. Trolled to the convention center. Trolled wire. Threw out the spoons, mullet rigs, tube umbrellas, etc..... snotty out. Wind couldn't make up its mind until noon when went hard west.
Trolled back and past MI. YELLOW EYES then tore up my mullet rigs. Brought them in quicklyand threw on b. Spoons again hoping to find the bass hiding under them.. NOTHING. just around noon about two miles south of MI THE BUNKER CAME UP. JIGGED AND ONLY BLUES. wasnt marking on bottom. Oh well. Still a great day with close friends.

[lostatsea]

William "Doc" Muller on bass in the Chesapeake and Hudson. Doc has written a few books and knows his ****.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoljiwS2puI

[DarkSkies]

Some of this I may eventually reference in the StripersAndAnglers state of the Fishery thread......
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?7784-StripersandAnglers-yearly-coastwide-fish-stock-assessment-state-of-the-fishery


A member called me today. This is a fisherman who has decades of experience and has fished for bass for many years before the moratorium and still fishes when he can get out there........He has a good friend who is a Cape May Charter Capt....I'm paraphrasing here, what his Capt friend told him about the 2013 Striper run in the Delaware Bay......





"The 2013 bass run in the Delaware Bay has been the worst Spring fishery in all the years I have been fishing that bay.
The bass just were not there in numbers. Some have blamed the cold weather and the winds which made fishing difficult. There has been some good fishing above the Commodore Barry. As for the lower bay it has been terrible.
We have had to entice our clients who normally want to bass fish, with wreck fishing trips, or we would have had no income. "

[hookset]

^^^ Nice to hear some honesty out there.

[buckethead]

Yes very nice there are capts in the rb saying the bass run is the best ever. Ask them how many bass there are and they will say more than ever. A lot of them can't think beyond this week. They forget that everything is later this year because of sandy, the colder winter and the longer time it took the bay to heat up. The fish are fattening up before the long trip up the hudson and could be gone in a day or a week. Then when there are no sustained spring blitzes for weeks like years past maybe the reality will sink in.
It's like what we use to call being ******-rich. Pardon the term I don't mean anything bad by it. When someone has no money they complain about being poor all the time. Then they hit the lottery and win 25,000. They go on a wild spending spree because they forgot what having no money was like. When the good times are over they are back to whining again. I think a lot of folks look at the striped bass this way. Pary now. Get while the getting is good. I call those types golfers because it's just a game to them. I agree with you hookset. It is good to run across the few capts that are completely honest even to a fault. Many will not allow their name to be associated with a statement like the one your friend made for fear of further regs on the fishery.

[nitestrikes]

something interesting I read today-


"theres been people asking and hi end fisherman stating that the bass species may be in trouble...its hard to say but i know i didnt catch 1 fish between 20 and 30 lbs...we had many teen fish and many fish over 30...is it time to worry??..i think its time to start thinking...its easy to point fingers but i believe its all our problem...my belief is after reading research and watching seminars over the years from people like billy the greek and record holders, that the thriving part of society is the middle class...

its easy to assume that a 40 plus pound fish holds more eggs than an 18 lber which may be true but studies show that much of those eggs are not responsive...also, just think about the life of an 18 lber till it gets to 40 lbs and how many eggs it could lay over its lifetime...i believe the cumulative effect of killing that fish is far more damaging than a 40 lber that has already done so...further, targeting big fish in any species is dealing with less volume and is certainly harder than picking on the learning youth...

All i am saying is its not just your problem, my problem or commercial fishing boats laying stacks of immature 12 lbers on their deck...or clam belly guys posting catching 30 fish a day...thankfully some of them dont post anymore...i will never get out my pom poms and cheer for catching small fish that dont know any better...

in sum, i think its all our problem..and i release as much as humanly possible...and never pick on small fish because there the impetus of the future of the species..."

[rockhopper]

Honest report from Capt Gene of Montauk Sportfishing



10-28-13
The “rat patrol” continues to be the only action for stripers. They are still off the south side eating sand eels along with lots of bluefish, and there is nothing in front of the Lighthouse. But virtually everyone has to be measured, and don’t forget that you can squeeze the tails. With the mild weather we’ve had so far this fall, you’d expect that we’ll have fish here into December, and there are reports that there are plenty of fish in Massachusetts waters. It would be nice if some bigger ones would come along.

I’m not into surfcasting but it seems like those guys are finally getting some action, I assume all on the south side.

[nitestrikes]

Montauk bite has been very poor this fall
Report from another website for yesterday:

"nice day lousy fishing

Weather-wise it was the day we have been waiting for. Trolled chutes and diamond jigged all day and only 3 bluefish to show for it.Wow this is about as bad as I have seen Montauk at this time of the year. I guess they are all at Captree, and they are killing a mess of them!"

[surfstix1963]

They are starting to thin out quickly with all the boats on them here also.Surf still pretty dead.

[DarkSkies]

^^ If any of you would doubt the overall poor 2013 LI to NJ surf action thus far, ya might want to listen to what Surfstix says in some of his posts here.....

He's tied in to some of the best fishermen in LI....they all share intel back channel.....and I just want to re-iterate that despite what some of the internet experts are saying....his intel chain consists of guys who can fish every night, or at least 5 times a week.....If the bite is great, or lousy, they would know...:learn:

None of them is happy about the current state of the striped bass fishery....The world famous fall Montauk run that some plan their whole vacations around has been abysmal overall for the surf guys. This despite a few good nights of catching from those who were there at the magic moments when bigger fish turned on....

**Even Zeno, who few would doubt skills in catching fish....has had poor numbers this year.....despite fishing all over from MA to Li.....
Food for thought, people....

As always, thanks for your perspective surfstix....:thumbsup: :HappyWave:

[surfstix1963]

All I can say is stay tight to the bottom no more then 5ft. off sandeel presentation and any piece of beach structure should not be overlooked this is some of the toughest fishing we have seen in a very long time.

[rockhopper]

Thanks for sharing SS. This was a report from Capt Gene at Montauk. Looks like the bite that Montauk had is really dying out.


"The gannets are here. Most years the boats would be getting out the Sabiki rigs to start jigging up some herring for live baits, but not this year. The birds all down on the south side eating small weakfish, snappers and such. And, the herring might be too big for the stripers that are around anyway. Every day is a little different, with one day just about everything being too small and the next day enough keepers around to make the trip worthwhile.

But, they are a long way from the harbor – Ditch Plains and west, and seemingly moving farther away each day. Charter boats are bringing back a half dozen or so fish per day, a long way from what it should be. With the fall being so mild, you would expect the bass to stay around until Thanksgiving or so."

[seamonkey]

Thanks for the honesty Capt!

[seamonkey]

a barnegat report for today pretty bad


11/9 outa BI
In short...no fish. Started outa BI at sunrise and made our way north. Birds and bait everywhere as I'm sure everyone knows by now, but the striped ones are hiding somewhere....

Stopped to jig a few areas off ibsp in the morning where we had good marks but nothing but dogfish. Trolled of the bathing beach and the mansion but no love. We ended up off of seaside in a fleet where we heard there were some blues being caught but I guess we for there after the bite died.

I got a Bad taste in my mouth so far with this season but we still have time

[surferman]

From a guy whos brother went on the Miss Barnegat Light

"Very frustrating to say the least. My brother went out on the Miss Barnaget lite approx. 80 people, there were less than 30 fish caught only 3 bass that were keeper and some blues. This has been a little frustrating for me as the conditions are great for fishing ,but the fish are spotty , not like in the past years."

[captnemo]

"The great fishing that the boats have been experiencing over the past week was totally non-existent today. The only boats seeming to have any success were the ones trolling. The area between the channels where the best fishing has been was a virtual parking lot filled with party boats, charter boats, and a multitude of smaller private boats. I caught the boat's first bass of the day, albeit a short, on our second drift and that would be all she wrote for me. The forty plus fares on board tallied a total of 2 keeper bass, 4 short bass, & a couple of bluefish. Do the math as most fares caught the skunk. "


This was a report from yesterday. Sea hunter. Today in the same area some fish were caught until the fleet arrived and put them down. When the bass have been there in the past and they weren't feeding with all the sandeels its usually because they are not as thick as Capts are claiming. Sandeels are great for consistency when jigging or trolling. It is easy fishing until the traffic shuts it down. I read on another post here about folks arriving late to the party and jigging in the middle of feeding fish. This happens every year. I wish there was some way in the boating safety classes to teach these newbies proper fishing etiquette.

[basshunter]

I cannot stand by and let folks post the mis-information about how healthy the SB fishery is right now....because there is always a good chance others will believe them.....

It's time for some reality and real facts to enter these discussions....
To me, that's more important than whether someone "likes" me, or not.....
Overall, I feel we are probably headed for some sort of short or abbreviated moratorium....with the ASMFC probably not acting until 2015, it may be too late by then......

**The striped bass spawning biomass (SSB) is now 1 Million lbs from the ASMFC being forced to declare that overfishing is occurring.......I'm going to try the best I can to continue raising awareness of this, whether some folks are happy with that....or not.......:HappyWave:
.


darkskys how can you possibly correct them when there are so many? by the way I applaud your efforts though I am not sure how many will listen. Keep up thegood work. the misinformation you are talking about goes on every day. Some examples:


the government says its fine.... the ocean never saw so many bass..... WHATS THE PROBLEM !!!


The stocks of striped bass dramatically improved when the Gov stopped the commercial fishing for them. Its not the rod and reel recreational guys that decimate them. I see just as good if not better striper fishing right now than I did 10 years ago. These fish are in no way endangered in NJ..... Maybe we should kill more stripers since its a common theory that stripers are feeding on weakfish and making their stocks lower than years past.


these guys just don't get it. The commerical industry is what will kill this fishery not the recreational guys. I have been fishing these waters since the 70's and have seen highs and lows and right now we are on a high and I may not know everything but I can tell 100% it will not deplete the striped bass stocks by keeping a couple bass! These guys need to get a life or go hug a tree!

[DarkSkies]

The following quote came from someone who has family in the Charter Industry. They were talking about the NNJ 2013 Striped Bass season:

"I know the fish I was catching are the end of the year fish. 17-24inch fish is the beginning of the end. I hope the warm front this week breaths some life into this uneventful fall.
Yea, there have been some good days, but not like it should be. Simply not enough fish around. I do not know the reason because there is still alot of bait, but there is not a big body of fish in our area. Just sucks!"

[DarkSkies]

darkskys how can you possibly correct them when there are so many? by the way I applaud your efforts though I am not sure how many will listen. Keep up thegood work. the misinformation you are talking about goes on every day. Some examples:

Basshunter sorry for the delay in responding. I have been trying to get a lot of projects done I haven't been able to do in a while, and busy with other committments.
I thank you for taking the time to C&P the comments. I am not familiar with the context of the conversation they came from so I don't want to judge the folks who made the comments.

Rather than address them all, it seems there are several mis-interpretations evident here......I'll try to address them one by one....and hopefully this way, folks reading will not see this as criticism of others, but some broad based observations I have come to see, about when and why folks can easily mis-interpret what they see out there.........


1. The commercial industry will kill this fishery.
This is a common statement, repeated over and over throughout the internet.



What are some of the reasons folks have this interpretation?

A. They see videos of commercial bycatch, dead striped bass, laying by the thousands on the ocean surface after gillnetters have thrown them back dead.

B. They see videos of commercial beach netting operations off of Hatteras, which is a limited and specific fishery every year....

C. nonetheless, these types of videos induce horror and anger among fishermen as they come to believe that this is what is causing the real problems when bass fishing seems to decline in an area.

**We react to these videos, IMO, because they naturally provoke an emotional response.....no one likes to see dead bass floating on the water, a complete waste of the resource....

D. Poaching/Overlimit catches of striped bass by Commercial netters.....
It's no secret commercial netters are involved in many illegal poaching operations every year....a Google search will reveal dozens of prosecutions of watermen from VA to RI, being caught with bass they are not allowed to have.

This also will produce an emotional reaction, causing some of us to think that the commercials are killing thousands of unpermitted bass....and they are......

Is that where the biggest numbers of dead bass comes from?







**The Sum Total....of the harvest, illegal and legal, by the Commercials, is less than what we are now taking from the Recreational side...
If (and when) another moratorium is declared, fault will rest squarely on the shoulders of us, the Recreational fishermen.

[DarkSkies]

2. "If I can see bass in front of me, by the thousands, then they are not in danger!"

This is a common mis-perception by charter, private boat, and party boat anglers who go out amidst thousands of feeding bass, get their limit quickly, and honestly cannot understand what these other "whiners" mean when they claim striped bass are overfished.

In the past I have come down hard on folks making statements like this....it has usually ended in arguments.....
In looking back, over when and why we argue, I have developed a less confrontational outlook.......

A. Some of these folks, fishing amidst thousands of feeding fish, do not realize they are in the "middle" of the action.

B. They (incorrectly) assume that the action they witness, is the same up and down the coast (as it was 8-15 years ago) without wanting to understand what they are seeing may be limited to a specific area.

C. They don't have much of an understanding of Striped bass migration, or how long it takes a bass to develop to legal size (in most cases 6-7 years)

D. When they see folks ranting on the internet about there being less bass, they don't realize that most of the folks who feel that way, are fishing on the edges...or fish quite often....
The Biomass is contracting...but they cannot see it, fishing in the middle.

E. When the fishery is healthy, fish will be in the middle, as well as the edges.....there will be good representations of all the year classes through the range of catching and harvesting....
When the fishery is not healthy (like it is now), you will start to see it first, on the edges
(do a Google search for
"m&m theory" striped bass
to learn more about this.)



**Many fishermen, if they are catching, just don't want to take the effort to get that involved in thinking about bass....so to them, as long as they are catching, the fishery is healthy.....

[DarkSkies]

3. With all the bass we saw in front of us today, there is no way rod and reel fishermen could put a dent in the striped bass fishery!


Another common mis-conception.
A good friend got into an intense argument in a tackle shop with a party boat mate who made that statement. His assessment was there are more bass than ever before.....followed by the above statement.





This fails to take into account, the fact that there are severe gaps in the striped bass year classes.

1. Many of us on the northern NJ beaches have noticed a lack of smaller ocean fish in the fall. In the past, even before the "fall run" was officially declared, many of us could catch a few small bass, salvaging the trip. Lately, that isn't the case.

2. In the last week, some smaller fish have moved inshore....these are commonly known as the "death rats" because the smaller fish, being more tolerant of colder water, generally signal the end of the run..,,this is a pattern we have come to rely on every year......

3. However, the fish in point 2 above are not the ones I am talking about.....it seems that many of our resident fish in NJ, are no longer there in numbers.....
To learn more, do a google search for
"NJ's resident bass, why have they abandoned us?"

4. This decline in smaller fish, correlates with a decline I have been noticing for the last 6 years in my fishing logs.....and a decline in YOY totals for each of the last 6 years, except 2011.

[DarkSkies]

This fails to take into account, the fact that there are severe gaps in the striped bass year classes.

.


4. "Can't wait to catch my next trophy bass! Looking for a 60 lber!"


The grim truth is....many of those bigger fish are dead........
With the heavy emphasis on catching trophies in the last few years....fever over Greg Myerson's record bass from the CT rockpiles...we, as Americans, still have the "bigger is better" mentality in a lot of things we do.....

Bass fishing is no different....
Weighing in a 25 lb bass or posting a pic on the internet....garners some praise.....
But we all know...that weighing in a 40lb, or posting the pics......gets much more attention...

So much attention that fewer and fewer bigger bass are being caught regularly....
We have "over-harvested" that segment of the striped bass population.

Don't believe me? :don't know why:
Do a search of fishing reports of headboats, charters, private boats...on any major fishing site.....
Even at Montauk, you will see the average size of the bigger fish being caught is 20-25 lbs.

Are there bigger ones caught?
Absolutely....but if you fish regularly, you have to have noticed the average size is declining every year......
One reason being that we are over-harvesting the big girls......and they are not being replaced quickly enough.......it takes a 35lb bass an average of 15-20 years to mature to that size.....many folks are not understanding that part of the equation.....they are not like Doritos...ya just can't make more......

[DarkSkies]

5. "There are no bass inshore because there is too much bait offshore!"


There are times when the above statement makes logical sense.
It would also make sense to say that the bass are not close in some areas because of the extensive beach replenishment.

However, this statement doesn't take several instances into effect. The years 2011 to 2013, some areas of NJ coasts had miles of bunker just 1/4 mile offshore for several late Spring months into Summer. In some cases these vast schools of bunker stretched for up to 20 miles.

Bunker is arguably one of the best and most desirable food sources for striped bass....and a preferred food source.....









**For the above statement to always be true, the converse - that when there are miles of bunker in close, there should be thousands of bass on them - should be true as well....
For parts of 2011- 2013, it was not.......what we had in the late spring, after the first wave of bass moved north, was a dead sea filled with miles of bunker.....and not many bass at all under them........

This fact supports the statement that the biomass is declining......and I offer it as proof in the argument here in hopes that some who don't get out there to fish a lot, will begin to re-assess their thoughts and think of the other possibilities why they are not seeing bass in front of them......

Thanks for reading.....:HappyWave:

[jigfreak]

Sorry ds that dude is absolutely not in the loop. Didn't you know there is a big body of fish still coming down from MA?:kooky: Yessir, they are all staging in MA and will be here next week according to what the latest internet genius said. I can't believe the lack of intelligence of some of these posters.:bucktooth:
check it out - hot off the presses

A friend of mine on the southeast side of Long Island has tired arms from reeling in all of this bass. He said one day they were virtually beaching themselves. We are also not hearing negatives from CT or MA either. Nonstop action.

[nitestrikes]

check it out - hot off the presses


A friend of mine on the southeast side of Long Island has tired arms from reeling in all of this bass. He said one day they were virtually beaching themselves.

This is why you can't trust the internet or 3rd party reports. When you say southeast side of Long Island you are usually referring to mecca. I was at montauk this past weekend and got one rat. A few others were caught on bucktails they were about 20". The action was slow at best. As for the other beaches the south shore has been dead for almost 2 weeks now. Fish beaching themselves? I think someone is smoking too much crack.

[surfstix1963]

There are herring around now and no bass on them as far as the northerly reports they are heard every year just to stir the pot even if they were coming they may migrate the same path as the others 60-70 ft. of water the Mecca boat I fish on called it quits 1 week ago surf has been dead for at least 3 weeks the party is over other then the rats.And as to the charter Capt. if he doesn't know why there are no fish he shouldn't be in the business they are getting wiped out.It is either moratorium time or 1 fish at 36" that's my opinion I'm not getting into the numbers game I'm done with that,I have a family that is growing quickly and need to spend time with them.

[SharkHart]

I came over from another website to post and it seems like something already being discussed kind of. A charter capt was saying WOW look at all these short bass out there, the future is bright. But said it at a lengthy or rate and as if to say look everything is OK........I am thinking C MON MAN, every single year there is shorts at the end. Some of the stuff they come up wit is so weak. I didnt really see any shorts all Nov. As we know the biomass has to stretch long parameters, shorts at the end is zero indication, and i am fairly sure the guy knows it

[hookset]

I think I read that post. Capt sal cursi. According to him every time it rains stripers come down from heaven.

[jigfreak]

I think I read that post. Capt sal cursi. According to him every time it rains stripers come down from heaven.

Wow unbelievable.
This is his original post:

We have been invaded by small stripers!The talk early in the year was "Wonder were all the small schoolies are''?Seems like they don't show up as much on the clam beds like they did a few years ago.It is a great sign to see them in mass quantity as the future looks good.It is a changing fishery with multiple year class stripers at different times of the year.I would much rather eat a 28" bass then a fat 43" spawner.In fact I wish we had the slot fish and could keep one 26" for dinner.No matter what with the hughe mass of small stripers in our waters is a good thing.All the fish we have been jigging are released with out being harmed.Great sport and and an occasional keeper for dinner!Looks good for my grandchildren.http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/images/smilies/smile.gif
__________________


I can't believe hes a captain. Where did he get his captains license a box of cracker jacks? All the talk about the bass numbers being around and this chump is talking about numbers of small bass as being a sign from Allah that all is well. These small rats show up every year how could a professional capt not be aware of that? He has no credibility. Absolute fool.

[storminsteve]

That captain is a joke his business is off because they're only shorts around and he wants to push for keeping smaller fish He's about as transparent as a window pane

[cowherder]

I think I read that post. Capt sal cursi. According to him every time it rains stripers come down from heaven.. Lol!!!!!

[DarkSkies]

What I see out there, is a disconnect between many ....

This has allowed me to see, that many folks out there just don't understand.
As I illustrated above, by always fishing in the middle of the action, and seeking the highest areas of activity, they have trouble comprehending that bass are in trouble. The attitude is, well the bass are there, you just have to burn more gas to get to them.....

(As in the case of the Golden Eagle this early fall, who was at one point burning lots of fuel to travel up to 50 miles each way to the Captree LI area bite......)


Many don't see the absurdity of that....when there were lots of fish, widely distributed, as in the past, boats haven't had to travel up to 50 miles one way to get to them......

[basshunter]

I saw this in another thread "why the decline in stripers" by surfstix. Quote from Capt John McMurray. very chilling to read:


Great read by Capt. John McMurray
Here is the text of the article.
Extremely frustrating


But the point is, striped bass, which are becoming more and more contracted/concentrated as they decline, and more and more susceptible, have literally no sanctuary anymore.

But I will note again that because of the bouts of good fishing I described above, it?s hard to convince managers that this is indeed a serious situation that requires management action now, rather than when they finally figure out that overfishing is occurring and/or that the stock is overfished. As I?ve mentioned before, managers don?t have the perspective we have, and most just don?t spend the time on the water we do.

So yes, I?ve had some of the best days of striped bass fishing in my life in the last three years. Days where I?ve seen more 40s and 50s in the space of a day or two than I?ve ever seen in my entire life. The above described fishing is a good example of that. But while such concentrations of fish are intense, they are restricted to very specific areas, and they are generally short lived. And that makes sense given all the good year-classes we had in the nineties and even early two-thousands and the poor to average ones we?ve had during the last 8 years (with the anomalous exception of 2011 of course). As we fish on these larger older fish, they get fewer and fewer, and show up in fewer places along the coast, but when they show up, boy do they show up. And herein lies the problem, and why we will likely see an accelerated slide.

Years ago, when such bait concentrations occurred and stripers got on them, it was generally an island-wide event. In the ?good-old-days? in Oct we?d have solid fishing from Montauk to Sandy Hook, NJ. In other words there was a wide distribution of fish, like there should be when you have a healthy population.

Now, because the stock has contracted (note, this is not anecdotal, a peer-reviewed stock assessment has confirmed a sharp decline since 2006), what we have are exactly these sorts of short but intense slugs of fish showing at very specific areas. And here?s what really sucks about that. Because of the internet, smart-phones etc., when such good fishing does occur, the word gets out so quick that every freak?n boat in the region is on them the very next day, if not that afternoon. And they are all ?limiting-out? (I hate that phrase!) every single day, especially the party boats, who often take in excess of 100 fares and run more than one trip a day. Because we?ve had 8 years of average to below average young-of-the-year indices, we really just don?t have much in the way of schoolies anymore. So when these bodies of fish do show, they are pretty much all keepers, and most people feel entitled to keep their two per person.

Unfortunately, those of us who thrive on releasing most of the stripers we catch are without-a-doubt a minority. For a long time the catch-and-release thing seemed like it was catching on/growing. But it stalled once stripers got a bit more difficult to find. I?d even argue that the catch and release crowd has shrunk during the last few years, for reasons of which I?m not quite sure. What?s really irritating is that there are plenty of boneheads out there who refer to such anglers as ?elitists? for not wanting to kill every darn keeper they catch. You tell me how having some foresight, or simply wanting these fish to be around so that our kids might be able to catch a few is ?elitist?!?

The striped bass situation will likely get considerably worse before it gets any better. History has been pretty clear that ASMFC doesn?t take significant action until the situation is quite dire, and there?s no reason to believe it will be any different here. What?s really unfortunate is that managers are probably looking at such fishing reports off of Fire Island and thinking ?there are plenty of fish around, the stock is fine?.

[seamonkey]

"Without question there has been a big decline in bass numbers since the late 90's and earlier 2000's. The spring of 2013 was a case study in the state of the Delaware Bay spawning stock. There were essentially no bass in numbers at any of the usual spots in April, and there wasn't an appreciable number of bass in the lower bay until early May where you felt that you had a chance at a good catch. We did have some good catches in April, but mostly WAY up the bay in areas that we've only HAD to fish in the last couple years. A few good catches of fish in an isolated location doesn't redeem the state of the entire fishery.

If you don't think the bass numbers were lower this spring and the spring prior, I wish we could travel back in time to the late 90's and early 2000's when there were acres of bass spread from the upper reaches of the bay to the rips. I rarely even fished the bay in the late 90's through 2003 because the spring bass bite was OUTSTANDING in the rips. The reason for the fishing being so good in the rips during that period was that there wasn't room in the bay for all the fish so they had to stage throughout the bay from upper reaches to its mouth. You could pick your poison...bunker, clams, bucktails, or PLUGS and always feel you had a certifiable shot to smash them...not just catch a couple.

All that said, something needs to be done. This is particularly important in the spring when fish are making their yearly spawning run. Unfortunately, short term pain for long term gain may be NECESSARY. A moratorium would be devastating for a lot of business. Boats, tackle shops, gillnetters, marinas along with a host of other businesses would feel painful effects. A possible solution would be going to 1 slot fish in the spring. I know, I know...many will balk and rightfully so at cutting the bag limit in half. However, the house is on fire and if we don't call the fire department, we'll be calling the contractors to rebuild from the foundation. At that point, a moratorium would be inevitable, but it wouldn't make a difference. You can't take them if there is a moratorium, and you can't take them if there aren't any to be taken.

I hope that everyone can come to a solution that puts us all on common ground and allows boat owners to take home fish for dinner, charter and party boats to run trips and catch people fish, bait shops to sell bait, and keep everyone happy. To do all that...we need the stripers to still be here."






The above was posted by Capt Adam of the AdamBomb out of cape may. He is a local capt here and knows the area well. I agree with what he said.

[jigfreak]

Get a load of this. Posted on the internet today. The guy who posted it is an IGFA certified Capt. What a total idiot. Dark I sent you a pm you might want to take a look at the thread.

Once again, the striper biomass doesn't need saving. It's as strong as ever. SAVE THE WEAKFISH!

IGFA Certified Captain

[hookset]

Just because he is igfa certified doesn't mean he knows bass. Maybe he's a fluke guy. what the hell is an igfa certified anyway?

[surferman]

An honest report I read on the net. Seems like the Raritan bay is the place to be up north! Everyone is fishing there.


AM: All of the boats did well yesterday, but that bite never developed today, as the best we could do was a slow pick. We managed about 15 keepers along with a decent amount of shorts, although there really weren't enough fish to go around for the large crowd on board. There was a sizable fleet, that included boats from the central state ports of Belmar & Brielle, fishing the western end of the bay today. That should tell you how good the fishing is down their way right now. I did hear of bass being caught in the Sandy Hook surf, so maybe the fishing will start in other areas and take some of the pressure off of the bay fish.

PM: Cliff, I was on the PM trip on the Tiger. Opposite conditions of what you had in the AM. We had incoming tide and ESE wind. The wind was almost nil early, but picked up to where there were a few white caps late. We had 3 keepers and 2 or 3 shorts for about 20 fares. I did not get a hit.Where are the jig fish? The Big Jamaica and the Golden Eagle were heading for Sandy Hook, on their way home, when we were coming out.

[rockhopper]

I thought things have been real slow in jbay this year. Been out there 8 times already and only got one small bass. read this the other day. Anyone else have thoughts about it?

"May 01, 2014
Jamaica Bay (http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&jsonp=vglnk_jsonp_13998651331968&key=cbfd4056588fed0adba07fe2e67617fd&libId=81c4d4c3-455a-4db2-80aa-2d077b4b79ab&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.noreast.com%2Farticles%2Fblog .cfm%3Fb%3D50%26a%3D4354&v=1&exp=8%3AC34%3A8&mid=__default__&type=S&out=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bizrate.com%2Fjamaica-bay%2Findex__af_assettype_id--4__af_creative_id--3__af_id--%5BAFF-ID%5D__af_placement_id--%5BAFF-PLACEMENT-ID%5D.html&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.noreast.com%2F&title=-%20Noreast.com&txt=%3Cspan%3EJamaica%20%3C%2Fspan%3E%3Cspan%3EBay %3C%2Fspan%3E) Report
by Capt. Vinnie Calabro
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that after this mini-monsoon,Jamaica Bay will get its *** in gear.

Seems like the only game in town is across the pond, so to speak, in New Jersey and Staten Island. Raritan Bay is continuing to produce for both the clammers and bunker boys alike, which is the norm for the early season.

Now, Jamaica Bay is a different story. All the cast is in place, bait, water temperature around 53 degrees (not bad), and winds coming from the west. All this, except any appreciable body of fish."

[rockhopper]

Capt Gene of Montauk Sportfishing-

"The fishing season seems to be getting shorter every year. Years ago we would aim to be fishing by April 1 when we’d head over to Block Island for cod and then in May maybe some flounders. Now that is over and this year the start of the season is closer to June 1. At the other end November has been a bit of a bust with the striped bass. It’s getting harder to make a living every year."

[buckethead]

This was posted by Capt John McMurray.
thought you and the folks here might appreciate reading this. Spot on imo.





Capt. John McMurray

Admitting this is without a doubt bad for business, but let me be frank: The striped bass fishing so far this spring just sucks. Yes, I’m still able to put guys on fish, and out of the eight trips I’ve done this season I’ve had a handful of “good” days, but it’s been ******* hard. A lot harder than it used to be. A lot harder than it ever should be.

We can try to blame it on this year’s weather and what appears to just be a “late start.” Yet given the steady downward spiral we’ve seen over the last several years, the later in May it gets the more it becomes apparent that this is pretty much the new “normal”. Even if we are a month behind, we still should be seeing lots more fish. Maybe it will get better, but I dunno man…

There are indeed some isolated bodies of fish around, but there is very little if any consistency anymore. You may find a few fish in a particular spot and be on them for a couple of days, but rarely more than that. Used to be, if you were on ’em, you were on ’em, usually for weeks.

I can already hear some people howling about the small body of fish in Raritan Bay, which everybody and their mothers have been knocking the **** out of. I can’t even bear to go over there anymore. But there simply is not the distribution of fish you would see with a “healthy” stock. Even just a few years ago, when you had good fishing in Raritan, you would also have good fishing from Jamaica Bay to Western Long Island. That’s just not the case anymore. It’s a huge bummer.

I used to hit the alarm clock every morning during the season and hop out of bed with a sense of anticipation because I knew there was a reasonable chance that we would have good action. Most of the time we did. It was an ego boost to effectively and consistently put anglers on fish. They thought I was good. I thought I was good.

Now, when that alarm clock starts buzzing at 3:30 a.m., I have to force myself out of bed. And the stress of putting anglers on fish, anglers who pay me a lot of money to do just that, starts even before I can get caffeine into my veins. It’s just not that fun anymore man. Over the weekend one of my best clients, who sensed the obvious anxiety, suggested I get a prescription for Xanax. I laughed out loud, but perhaps he wasn’t kidding.

I got into this business because, well, because I just loved striped bass fishing. I would have given up anything and everything to do it, and, as my sordid past indicates, a lot of times I did just that. Sounds kind of pathetic, but I built my life around striped bass. Now it’s disappearing before my very eyes… And it f’n hurts, man. All while a couple dozen jokers sit around a table in a stuffy room in Alexandria and make excuses to avoid taking action.

Getting the play by play at last week’s Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission striped bass board meeting via text while I was getting skunked on the water was disheartening. So, let’s talk a little bit about that meeting. While I’ve covered it in other posts, I should provide a just little background here without getting into too much detail.
David Bailey with a nice striper. Photo by Capt. John McMurray

David Bailey with a nice striper. Photo by Capt. John McMurray

Last year a new striped stock assessment, using up-to-date data and better science, was peer reviewed and released to the public. In short, it recommended new, lower fishing mortality “reference points.” In other words we should be killing fewer striped bass every year. I know, right? Duh! It also made clear that the “spawning stock biomass” is continuing to decline and that it will almost certainly fall below the threshold that defines an overfished stock – if not this year then certainly the next. (Note: striped bass has not been deemed “overfished” for more than two decades.)

In case you didn’t get that, unless we reduce fishing mortality significantly – like right now – we will likely be “overfishing” and the stock will be “overfished” as soon as this year. Pretty damn clear what the right course of action is right? Not if you’re a commissioner …

Instead of accepting the assessment results and taking action the moment they were presented, ASMFC did its typical ******** and moved to further analyze (read, delay). It tasked technical folks to write two addenda. The first would simply propose accepting the newer/best available science and the new reference points (e.g., the lower fishing mortality target) presented in the assessment (why the hell they’d need an addendum to do that I don’t know). The second would propose management alternatives that would get us to the required reduction, which appears to be approximately 30 percent by the 2015 fishing year.

So, back to last week’s meeting. These two addenda were finally presented to the commissioners, and there was the usual BS about how such a reduction would be too drastic and would hurt the fishing industry too much. What about my/our industry? It’s unquestionable that the light-tackle industry is beginning to suffer due to a declining striped bass fishery. Not just guides, but also all those manufacturers of 8- and 9-weight flyrods, light spin gear, soft plastics and plugs, as well as those who sell them. I haven’t done the research, but I have to imagine that there are fewer Bass Assassins, Slug-Gos, etc. sold. I know that I’m certainly not making orders like I used to. And the plug manufacturing industry? Those guys really must be taking a hit, because the surf fishing has just sucked for the last couple of years. Surf fishermen are losing access to this fishery very quickly. Ask any surfcaster who made the annual pilgrimage to Montauk last year how it was. Expect a lot of expletives in their response.

Back to the meeting. There was talk about how the decline is just a “trend.” I should note here that it is quite true that the decline is not entirely due to fishing. We’ve had about a decade of average to well-below average spawns in the Chesapeake or, perhaps more accurately, bad conditions for recently spawned striped bass survival (with the exception of one good year class in 2011). From what I understand, it’s been pretty bad in the Hudson also. This is likely climate related. There was a comment at the meeting that reducing fishing mortality isn’t going to bring those poor year classes back. Well, of course it won’t! But it will help protect those weaker year classes by not exposing them to excessive fishing mortality. It just seems like common sense that when the stock is experiencing a downward trend, no matter what the ultimate cause is, you’d want to reduce pressure on it. But that ain’t the way a lot – I believe most – of ASMFC commissioners think.

It’s interesting that there wasn’t really all that much talk of the viable alternatives themselves save the “slot limit” option, which I wrote about a few weeks ago. Even then it seemed like the discussion was more about how to game such a limit to maximize harvest rather than making a real good-faith effort to seriously reduce fishing mortality to the point where it might actually make a difference.

What I found most irritating was the motion to achieve the fishing mortality reduction in three years vs. the originally intended one year – in other words, incrementally ratcheting down fishing mortality until the target was achieved in 2017. That is complete crap, man. Just more delay with a fishery that needs decisive action now, before we get into even deeper water and I end up having to sell my boats.

And, as an aside, the striped bass management plan requires managers to end overfishing in just one year. But the ASMFC commissioners apparently ignored that technicality.

We were assured at the last two meetings that they would achieve the fishing mortality reduction in 2015, and a lot of us felt like even this was an unreasonable delay given they could have taken action in time for the 2014 fishing year – before overfishing occurred and before we had an overfished stock.

Of course the motion to drag out the harvest reduction passed and will be considered as an option in the addendum when it goes out to the public (presumably after the August meeting). There were other options that will be added to the document before it goes out to the public, each one a seemingly new and creative way to delay or weaken any real effort to prevent the stock’s further decline. Most of it is difficult to understand stuff that will make your head spin, but trust me on the intent. Reading between the lines, it all looks like more analysis/more delay.

Given the conversation that took place last week, I’m gonna be damned surprised if they agree on anything constructive that will benefit the striped bass stock (not to mention businesses like mine who depend on it) by the 2015 fishing season. These guys couldn’t even agree to use the best available science (e.g., the reference points from the benchmark assessment) without doing a darn addendum and putting it out to public hearing first. By the way, they were supposed to do this back in February (see At ASMFC Last Week, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly) but then had some sort of convoluted conversation about how it should be put off until this meeting (last week). Yet they still didn’t agree to put it out to public comment! Seriously man… it would be funny if it wasn’t so F’n infuriating! Maybe they will put it out in August, but at this point, delay seems to be the best way to maintain the status quo and allow overfishing. Sad, but I’m afraid it’s true.

Of course, striped bass, or any species that the ASMFC manages, isn’t bound by the same sort of firm rebuilding goals and deadlines (specified in the Magnuson Stevens Act) that federally managed species have to comply with. If they were, the best available science (aka the new reference points) would have been accepted as such without question. Regulations that would achieve a 30 percent reduction and prevent overfishing and an overfished stock would have been promptly put in place, certainly by the 2014 fishing year.

But that’s obviously not happening now, precisely because the ASMFC has the “flexibility” to delay, delay, delay. And that’s exactly what they do. As a result, the great majority of stocks they manage are in pretty bad shape.

So why are parts of the recreational fishing community asking for that sort of flexibility in managing federal stocks!? Yeah, yeah… I’m not gonna harp on that again, as I’ve done it in post after post, but it really is ridiculous, especially since the recreational sector benefits from the sort of abundance that comes from rebuilt stocks. Instead there are people out there who are willing to **** it all away over stupid red snapper, which only a small fraction of anglers fish for anyway.

At any rate, striped bass continues to tank, and I’m pretty damn sure that all these substandard trips I’m running, along with the ever increasing skunkings, is gonna crush businesses like mine. Meanwhile the national “conservation” organizations that claim to represent recreational fishermen promote “flexibility,” which sells guys like you and me down the river so narrow special interests can benefit. It’s pretty ******* depressing. Maybe I should add Prozac to the Xanax prescription.

Yeah, I know this is somewhat of a rant (if you want a more rational description of what’s going on I suggest Reading Charlie Witek’s blog: ASMFC Shows Us Why Even Striped Bass Should Not “Be Managed Like Striped Bass”). But I’m tired and disappointed. At the fishing, at the managers, at ASMFC, which is supposed to represent the best interests of the public but which so obviously doesn’t, at those recreational fishing organizations that used to be the “good guys” who seem to now be dumb enough to promote just the sort of flexibility that is messing up my striped bass fishery. (Note: It’s kinda funny that they are using striped bass as an example of successful management, which should tell you that they just don’t know what the hell they are talking about.) I’m tired and disappointed at myself for not just canceling my charters and going down there last week to at least try and convince some of those people that this decline is real and that it’s affecting a lot of people, like me. Something must be done … soon. And it can’t be a half measure. I’m gonna do my best to make it to the August meeting. Stay tuned..

In the meantime, please call or email your commissioners. Insist that they stop dillydallying and making excuses for delay. You can find their contact info here: ASMFC commissioners.

[7deadlyplugs]

rockhopper I like Capt Gene. Read his reports all the time. He is one of the most honest captains out there. His latest Montauk report-

"Inshore the striped bass fishing still isn?t what it should be. Saturday morning I took a tour after the half day boats got in. One boat had 10 bass, another had 5 and one only had a single bass, and they were all were top line charterboats of equal talent. It seems if you can find the right spot you can do all right, and it?s not always structure. Often, it?s just a couple of birds picking away."
For more info about fishing in Montauk, check out www.montauksportfishing.com

[Monty]

I just read Capt John McMurray latest Reel-Time article:

http://www.reel-time.com/articles/conservation/eat-bluefish/


Eat Bluefish!
Posted on June 17, 2014 by Capt. John McMurray Charter Captain
Keeper stripers showed in good numbers this week, so why the F are we killing them all!

Yes, we finally had some good striper fishing this week, which is a darn good thing, as at least for a few days I don’t feel like strangling everyone.

What’s left of the last strong year class we had, the 2003s, seems to have finally stumbled across all those immense schools of bunker that have been loitering along the south shore of western Long Island. (The 2011s were strong also, but they have yet to recruit). It was actually pretty epic at times, with adult menhaden spraying out of the water as 25- to 35-pound bass boiled underneath them. They were taking surface plugs, even flies if you fished them right. Most people of course were live lining. … Pretty much everyone was killing fish. I mean a lot of them. Unfortunate that this exploded on Sunday, so there were a lot of boats out and a lot of guys on the beach. All of them killing fish.

I get it, man. Bass haven’t really been around in good numbers in the last few years, so when they did show, everyone felt they had the right. And I suppose they did. Still, it doesn’t make it right.

But before getting to that, lemme just talk about the lack of fish. Some of the unenlightened still blame it on the weather, confirming their armchair theories with the sudden onslaught of 2003s in June. But that ain’t it. There are simply less stripers around. We all see it on the water, and it’s been pretty well documented by the pointy-head science guys, also. But these infrequent slugs of fish moving though, while awesome even as they become more short-lived and infrequent, probably aren’t helping convince managers that there’s a real problem.

It’s not unusual for fish to be locally abundant, even when a stock is depleted overall, and such pockets of good fish stand out even more when they appear in an otherwise empty sea. They have become the new norm in the striped bass fishery, and it’s kinda a bummer. I pretty much built my business around the schoolie fishery. I really hate to be one of those old guys waxing about “how it used to be,” but we used to consistently catch a dozen, maybe two dozen fish in the 18- to 24-inch range, with the occasional good fish (in the 30- to 40-inch range) mixed in. Even if we didn’t catch a good fish, there was always the expectation that we could, and that always brought people back.

Now what we have are scenarios like the one I described above, where we have brief but extraordinary showings of fish, all of which are generally large. A couple of years ago, right around July 4th , we actually stuck more 40 and 50s in the space of a just few days than I had ever seen in my life. On the third day, I ran out of Breezy Point after telling my clients how awesome it had been the prior two days to find the same sort of bait concentrations, identical conditions, but zero fish. The small but concentrated body of fish had simply moved on. There wasn’t much before them, and nothing came in their wake.

I’m all for extraordinary fishing, but it’s tough to handle the huge highs and then the low lows. I imagine it’s like coming down from a good crack buzz or something. Leaves you empty and just wanting more. For sure I’d rather just have the sort of consistency we used to have, which comes with a healthy fishery and a good distribution of age classes, so I don’t feel like I want to punch everyone during three-quarters of the fishing season.

But I’ve talked about all this stuff before, and I’m getting off track. The point is that when these fish do show up, why do we all feel compelled to kill them? I mean, come on man. Don’t we realize that these are the last of a great year class and it would benefit us all to just let them go so that maybe we can catch them again next year? For Christ’s sake, the big ones don’t even taste good! If you’ve ever eaten a fish over 40 inches I’m guessing you know what I mean. They have those thin purple veins throughout the fillet. I imagine it’s very similar to eating a ribeye from an 80-year-old steer. Yuck!

While we’re on the subject, striped bass in general doesn’t really taste like anything. Sure it’s “white” and “flakey,” which for some reason is what the magazines say we should want from our fish, but seriously, it’s relatively tasteless. Sure, it’s good when you fry it, but anything is good fried. I suppose all the chefs like it because it’s, well, bland and serves as a good medium for various sauces they’ve concocted, and I get that also. But I dunno man. When I eat fish, I kinda want it to taste like fish.

So … brass tacks. I’m sure there are some who may disagree with me here, but as a food fish, striped bass generally sucks. And as we all pretty much know at this point, the stock is in trouble. If all of you guys really give a **** about the stock as much as you say you do, then stop killing them! I know, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the hunt. Hell, if you don’t get all fired up when it goes off, then you shouldn’t be fishing! But take a step back next time you get into them good. And think to yourself all the reasons you should just snap a quick photo and throw that big beautiful fish back in the water, so it can spawn again, so that another angler can encounter it one day, when it’s even bigger!

Listen, there are plenty of bluefish around right now. In fact, I’ve been having some epic fishing in just a couple feet of water, fishing poppers for some monster bluefish. If you are turning your nose up right now, you are gonna have a really tough seven or eight years before the striped bass resource gets back to where it should be. And that’s assuming Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission does the right thing, and we all know it may not.

The point is that if you want to bring something home for the table, kill a bluefish.

Don’t give me that ******** about how you simply “don’t like” bluefish. And yeah, I’ve heard the one about placing a bluefish on plank. Placing the plank and the fish on a grill. Cooking for 30 minutes, then throwing away the fish and eating the plank.

The truth is the stigma comes from all those jackasses eating bluefish that are either too large (and have been eating bunker their whole lives) or aren’t fresh. Dollars to doughnuts, if you don’t like bluefish, that’s because you haven’t prepared them right. So I’m gonna do you a huge favor and give you my double-secret bluefish recipe, even though I’ve been hoarding it for myself and my family for the last 20 years.

Trust me. If you like fish at all, you will like this!

First, cut the throat of the fish when you catch it and let it bleed out on the ice. Then,

Take a “small” bluefish (5 pounds and under), fillet and skin.
Pre-heat oven to 500 degrees or as hot as that MF will go
Put a generous slab of butter on a 12 inch by 12 inch piece of aluminum foil
Put the fillet on top of it
Generously salt then cover it with lemon pepper (if you don’t have, then just use lemon juice and cracked pepper)
Put two more generous tabs of butter on top
Slice up some onions and place across the fillet
Wrap up the fillet
Place it on a cookie sheet
Note: if you do more than one fillet, wrap each fillet individually
Cook for 8 to 10 minutes
Put on plate, open the foil and eat right from the foil (note: there is no reason to remove it from the foil. If you do that you will totally F it up).
Note: Asparagus goes really good with this, and so does a baked potato … and, um, so does an ice cold Budweiser out of a can. You fancy beer snobs can drink whatever trendy IPA you might have in the fridge. And, um, the wife says pinot grigio goes well with it also.

Yes, bluefish is a “fishy” tasting fish, and yes, the big ones can be “oily.” But the ones under five pounds, if fresh, are really F’n good if you just give them a chance – especially when they are prepared in the way described above, where you are basically steaming the fillet in butter. I mean really, what could be better? There are a lot of other ways to prepare them. Capt. Paul Eidman makes ceviche, which I haven’t yet tried, but I’m told is awesome. (Hook us up with a recipe, Paul!)

The point of all this drivel about killing/cooking/eating bluefish is so you knuckleheads might think twice about killing bass in the increasingly rare instances they do show these days. Seriously, just because they haven’t been around, should we knock the **** out of them when they do show? Is that bland striped bass fillet with the gnarly veins running though it worth the spawning potential you just destroyed? The answer is no! All the talk means nothing if you choose not to walk the walk. Take home a couple of bluefish instead. Try that recipe, then thank me in the morning.

Peace…

[nitestrikes]

There is a small trend developing among some of the Montauk Captains.
Just read this report. Dark hope it's ok to give some publicity to this Capt. Capt Tom of the Mystique. Here is his report.

"Charlie, Allison and Bill went fishing on the Mystique Monday July 7. We left the dock at about 11:00. The bass fishing was lights out red hot with big fish between 25 and 38 pounds. Several captains at my dock and I have been encouraging people to take only one of these large fish per person. We kept one fish per person and released several. We were back at the dock by 3:00. The amount of fillet on these fish are plentiful and it was nice to release a few. The water is still pretty cold and the released fish swam away strong and happy."

[J Barbosa]

Thats a great start :thumbsup:

I wish more of the NJ charter boats would encourage their fares to keep only one fish.

[captnemo]

I don't like to speak out against other Captains but this fellow has the right idea. I have seen so much waste at the marinas. There is nothing wrong with keeping or eating a bass. Limits are not illegal and sometimes I get tired of the zealousness I see on the internet when someone keeps one fish to eat. Not just this site but other sites. That being said I have seen so much waste over the years. Folks who went out on a trip and happened to find schools of big feeding bass. All taking limits plus bonus. Unfortunately some of them happened to be fluke fishing and were not prepared to handle the bigger fish. So tbey stuff them whereever they can and don't have enough ice. When they get back after a long day the fish's skin is dry and the meat is cooked. As I said I am sometimes offended at all the posts I see judging whether we should keep a bass or not. I am equally offended by the shameful waste of good striped bass I have seen out there. All for the trophy shot at the dock. Please folks, eat as many bass as you feel the need to. But don't waste them. It's poor sportsmanship.
I hope what that montauk capt said catches on as well. We are at a tough cross roads now with striped bass. It could go either way.

[DarkSkies]

There is a small trend developing among some of the Montauk Captains.
Just read this report. Dark hope it's ok to give some publicity to this Capt. Capt Tom of the Mystique. Here is his report.



Nitestrikes, that's encouraging. The honest Captains out there with decades under their belts know we're in trouble. I mentioned earlier that Montauk Captains have developed the hybrid bottom fish/bass trips because the quantity of bass available at Montauk, even for those fishing the Rips, has dropped off significantly in the last few years. These people are self-aware and doing their best to save the fishery.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: to them and others. Feel free to post links or quotes when you people come across info like this. I would be glad to give them some free publicity.

[BassBuddah]

Capt Ron's report today.

Had Bucktail bob and friend Pete out today for an all out bass blitz of big fish. Had 21 fish up to the high 30's on live bait and jigs. Released all but two 32" fish. I am advocating the release of big fish whenever possible.
Next openings Sun. Afternoon, Mon., and Tues.

Capt. Ron 516 835-4910

[nitestrikes]

Nitestrikes, that's encouraging.:thumbsup: :thumbsup: to them and others. Feel free to post links or quotes when you people come across info like this. I would be glad to give them some free publicity.

Here's another one, dark. Capt Art of Halfback Charters.

we missed yesterdays report for Charles mcgillick and family.
they requested no trolling wire. We had to wait until the tide started to run and after that it was a bail job of big cows from 25 to 45lbs.

they kept one per man and released the rest. some into the 40lb range.

I don't think keeping two of these cows per person is good for anyone.
my customers were in agreement.

captain-art.com
631 668 1305
we have openings next week for this excellent bass bite.

[rockhopper]

I don't think keeping two of these cows per person is good for anyone.
my customers were in agreement.

captain-art.com
631 668 1305





:clapping: :clapping:Awesome and congrats to the Capts'! They are crushing bass at montauk right now. Great to see some who don't want to put them all in the fish box.

[strikezone31]

Capt Ron. This guy is on a roll. His charter didn't even keep one fish and he himself did not keep one. Good deal.


Had Michael Zhu out last evening for the twilight trip on the Capt. Ron. Mr.Zhu was visiting from Hong Kong and had never wet a line in the Atlantic. In one of life's ironies, Mr. Zhu singlehandedly landed17 striped bass with several into the low 40 pound range. Since he was returning to Hong Kong the next day, he had no need of fish and all were released. I have had many friends fish for years without a 40 pound fish.I guess you need to be a vacationing tourist.
The crazy bass bite continues.
Capt. Ron

[buckethead]

Thats a great start :thumbsup:

I wish more of the NJ charter boats would encourage their fares to keep only one fish.

I agree. Some of the charters have no ability to see the consequences of their actions. Good karma to these ones that do.

[strikezone31]

Capt Jeff of Second Choice Charters. He is also author of the book "Caught- Montauk Capt" not sure of exact title.

"We got in on the same bight everyone else did. It is true: all fish were between 32 and 42 pounds. Everyone caught. EVERYONE! It was lock and load, We caught over 50 fish for sure, maybe more.

These are facts: in 79 when they had blitz like this but rec boats often kept them all, came in with 20 fish each. That is not happening now, for the most part. 2) The only thing that prevent a massive kill off was water temps being low, at 65. If the temp was 70. Most fish would have died, not having the strength to get back down to the bottom in the massive 4 knot current. Most people also do not know how to release fish.

While fishing is great , here , now..Still we should not celebrate too much: the commercial guys cant get a slot fish (under 36 inches) to save their lives out here. For me the canary in the cold mine, has always been Montauk Harbor in early June you usually here small bass crashing bait. The last two years the bait was there but no Bass, no splashes eerie!!"

[buckethead]

^^^^^ :clapping::clapping: for Jeff Nichols.

[stripercrazy]

Def a good way to go. kudos!

[DarkSkies]

**This is the first time in years, that I can remember some Montauk Capts recommending their fares to only keep one each. This is extremely significant.

Montauk Capts are tough as nails. I have made friends with some Capts over the years. In my experience, they don't like to say something if they feel it will hurt their business,. and I don't blame them. For some Capts now to be publically stating on the internet and their websites, that they are encouraging less bass to be kept on each trip, could have the effect of turning business away from them to someone else,,,,,and yet you still have a few Capts doing it.......
This is a clear and compelling indication, of how much the level of activity, and robustness of the bass fishing, has sunk....even in Montauk....the famed Bass and Sportfishing Capital of the World.....

For Capts to take a financial risk of less business, and encourage fares to take less, is to be commended. These Capts have nothing to gain by stating what they are seeing, yet they are stating it anyway.
They see it clearly in reduced catches., particularly over the last 5 years. The most seasoned Capts know this. They may not be willing to talk about it on the internet, but the Capts I know, are most willing to talk about it when they get together to compare notes about the fishing......

Please let's try to post some of their reports, and see if we can give them some publicity. Some fares will not consider ever chartering a boat where a Capt is encouraging that.

It really does speak to how inconsistent the bass fishing has become, even at Montauk.

[cowherder]

Good deal this is great news. At least some one is trying to do something.

[dogfish]

http://mvgazette.com/news/2014/07/10/commercial-striper-season-slow-start?k=vg53d204d829cf5&r=1

Commercial Striper Season Off to Slow Start

Mark Alan Lovewell
Thursday, July 10, 2014 - 11:40am
5 Comments (http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/#comments)
Striped bass fishing is off to a slow start this year, with many fishermen reporting a poor catch early in the season.

The commercial fishery opened June 23. New rules are in place for commercial striped bass fishing this year, with lower daily bag limits and restrictions on the number of fishing days.
But lower limits appear to be a non-issue this year, at least in waters around the Vineyard.

"Striped bass fishing has been really horrible," said Buddy Vanderhoop, a veteran Aquinnah charter fisherman who runs Tomahawk Charters out of Menemsha. "I only caught 25 keepers all season. I usually do that in a day."
Scott McDowell of North Shore Charters out of Menemsha echoed the sentiment, calling it the hardest start in his 24 years of running charters.

"Fishing is abysmal," he said. "This is the worst. And last year was bad."

Early numbers from state fisheries managers confirm the news. Dan McKiernan, deputy director of the state Division of Marine Fisheries, reported this week that so far this year fishermen have landed 96,274 pounds of fish, roughly eight per cent of the 1,155,100-pound state quota. Mr. McKiernan said fishermen are landing about 30,000 pounds a day. Many of the fish are being landed off Provincetown and in Cape Cod Bay. He said he is hearing from fishermen out of Chatham that the season is starting late because of the cold winter. "We know that a lot of the migration of other species were delayed by half a month," he said. "We hope that the striped bass are late."

Mr. McDowell had another view.
"Everyone is saying water temperature. They have to blame something other than overfishing," he said.

In March of this year the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission lowered the daily bag limit for commercial striped bass from 30 to 15 fish per fisherman. Rod and reel permits are limited to two per day. The number of fishing days was also cut from four to two per week. Striped bass may be harvested commercially on Mondays and Thursdays. The minimum size for commercial fishermen is 34 inches.

The recreational fishery, which allows two fish per day and a minimum size of 28 inches, is unchanged.
The new rules for commercial fishing are intended to extend the season.
Beyond the cold water, there are other theories as to why the striper fishing is slow. Jeffrey Canha, a Vineyard Haven charter fisherman who operates Done Deal Charters, said he believes the fish are bypassing the Vineyard.
"It looks like the Hudson River fish [that spawn in the Hudson River] passed by the Vineyard, went through Buzzards Bay and into Cape Cod Bay," he said. He is hopeful that fish coming from the Chesapeake Bay are starting to move in.
Nevertheless, he agreed striped bass fishing has been poor. "I made 200 drifts from Makonikey to as far east as West Chop and nothing," he said of a recent trip.

Phil Cronin of West Tisbury who operates Capawock Charters, a light tackle flyfishing charter business, had his own similar story.
"In June the waters are usually loaded with bass, everywhere you go," Mr. Cronin said. "I went out one morning at 6 a.m. in June. I started on the north shore and hit the regular spots, the Brickyard, Cape Higgon, Cedar Tree Neck and there was nothing. I went on my merry way. I went to Devil's Bridge [off the Gay Head Cliffs] on a falling tide, and there were no birds, no fish. Then I stopped at Sandy's [off Philbin Beach] and went to Squibnocket. I went to Noman?s Land, front side, and back side. I went farther out. I went to the Southwest Ledge, five miles south of Noman's Land, to Southwest Shoal. It was an exploration. I got back [at 3 p.m.] without seeing one striped bass. I did see bluefish."
Mr. McDowell said a few stripers are being caught off West Chop. Alec Gale at the Menemsha Fish House said he is buying some striped bass from local fishermen, but not many. "It is not the best season in the world. We are getting some," he said.

[BassBuddah]

November Rain charter report


Fishing in Montauk continues to be good, with consistent bass, fluke and bottom fishing. Granted, some days are better than others, but overall, we've seen some excellent fishing. Most of our bass have been caught on eels, but the boats fishing with wire are just as productive.

Fish in the 30+ pound class are the norm these days. That said, let's not be greedy and take our limit of bass just for the sake of saying "we had our limit".
While it's great to show off some big fish, unless you really, really have a home for them, please consider not taking your 12 or 10 or even 8 bass if you book a trip.

At 30-40 pounds, one fish can easily feed 6 or 8 people. At the end of the day, it's the charter's call on whether they take their limit and most captains won't tell you otherwise. However, I personally ask all of my customers to think twice about how much meat they really want. In most instances, a few fish is more than sufficient. Let's fish wisely, or one day there won't be any bass left for any of us.

Capt. Jill

[DarkSkies]

I generally don't post specific names and exact posts from other sites and have encouraged you folks to leave that info out as well in case someone would object.
However, under DCMA and content laws I claim all my content posted here or on other sites. I believe there is also some leeway in quoting others as long as the source of the quote is referenced.

The following is from a BassBarn thread, where I duplicated my posts and will be copying some of the posts of members here in support of various arguments in case they should somehow disappear later.

Any contributing member here, who has an issue with me posting their posts here on another site, please let me know. Thanks for all the support and all you have given to this thread over the years, people......

(Please refrain from commenting on specific BassBarn posts unless that referenced quote is from a member here as well.
Thanks!) :HappyWave:








**************************
2 very respected Capts in this forum seem to have the same opinion......

Capt Paul Goins:
http://www.thebassbarn.com/forum/18-sandy-hook-raritan-bay-forum/429410-striper-biomass-doesn-t-need-saving-s-strong-ever.html


3. Once again, the striper biomass doesn't need saving. It's as strong as ever. SAVE THE WEAKFISH!




Capt Derek Fisher Price:
http://www.thebassbarn.com/forum/18-sandy-hook-raritan-bay-forum/429410-striper-biomass-doesn-t-need-saving-s-strong-ever-5.html

there are more striped bass around than ever.

[DarkSkies]

I was going to try to post these in chronological order, but this thread about he 2014 rockfish shootout caught my eye....

Started by Mr No Mojo! How ironic.
http://www.thebassbarn.com/forum/5-striped-bass-forum/390730-rockfish-shoot-out.html



I'll just post a few of the comments....Barn members feel free to look at this as but one example......Yessir the bass population is very strong. :rolleyes: There are more bass around than ever!

These are your fellow Barner Capts,....... your peers... making these comments, folks.....
1. .is it possible they are all delusional?
2. or it possible they are honestly discussing what they are noticing?




One weigh in last year and none this year. Tough times ahead for the bass?


Greg, pretty amazing. We had our finger on the trigger waiting and waiting to make the trip but with the reports we were getting we bagged it. Two years in a row very interesting and not just luck in my mind, something is changing.


Those that do not believe bass are in trouble are lying to themselves.


The runs are being affected everywhere. Check out this video

http://vimeo.com/42129694


I agree with Supafly.
It's easy to look at the periods of hot action like off Fire Island this year(where party boats just slaughtered big fish by the 1000's),
but in the grand scheme of things these fish are just not around in numbers like they were. I have seen more and more sand eels every year, and weakfish catches are increasing significantly. Two things bass love to eat... It's been a slow decline for years now and I think it's coming to a head.

1. "They are offshore,
2. their migration route changed,
3. water temps are off" All that is just kicking the can down the road.
Just my opinion on an internet forum :)

OnTheBanks, I have been saying that for years. I agree, Capt.
The "offfshore migration" argument is not valid because there was a certain % of bass that ALWAYS migrated offshore, and another % that migrated inshore. What sometimes changes that is the available food. There have been plenty of times in the last 2 years that we have had acres of bunker from Island Beach to Sandy Hook, Spring or fall, with few or no bass on them.

Bunker are among the easiest prey for striped bass to eat - if striped bass numbers were truly strong there would be a lot less happy bunker pods inshore.




I have fished Virginia Beach in January for the last 8 years. 3 days of fishing has always yielded 85 to 225 stripers from 10 to 55 pounds. This year we got 1 fish on the last day. What does that tell you?




I bottom fish in the fall in this popular summer time spot bout 15 miles out of south jersey and every year there has been loads of giant striper and bluefish schools out there,but also used to be good fish inside too.
I have changed my feelings after som research and my records that the fish didn't change patterns to outside the 3mile zone they are always there but less fish so the inshore has suffered.

Thank you for the honesty Pelagicfish64.
There's nothing wrong with having an opinion, Capt... or even one that differs from others, That's America.
IMO the real measure of a mature man, is having the willingness to change his opinion when he finds out that what others are seeing, may be more accurate, than what he believes.




Everyone keeps saying
1. theyre offshore. They keep reading and hearing this but its not true.
2. Theyre was a small body of fish offshore of va but nothing crazy.
3. Theyre was also a small body of fish inside the chesapeake but very small.
4. The last two years were very evident that the stocks are hurting.
5. Every year it keeps getting worse and this year was really bad down theyre.
6. Got a bad feeling we are in for a cycle of bad fishing til this next good spawning year grows.

Lucky Stripes it took a lot of balls to say that. I completely agree Capt.
Thank you Sir.

[dogfish]

Sounds like you have some really obtuse Captains down your way Rich. Even the Commercial guys had trouble finding fish when the season began. No one here is saying there are more striped bass around than ever. If they did they would get laughed off the dock. I don't know how you put up with it.

[ledhead36]

X2 what dogfish said. I would put your knowledge up against any internet capt. You found tapeworms for us one spring when we couldn't and love bait so much you ate that clam soaked sandwich that time. Don't pay attention to these losers. Striped bass used to be all over. Keyport, Union Beach, the mud flats by the raritan river in back of the go go bar all held bass all summer. I hope people don't think this is spot burning because there are no fish there now you can check.
You got some real street cred in the RB, Rich, just like Swiss and Davey.
Oh - you do smell a bit rank sometimes in case anyone is wonderring about the rumors theyre true. Just trying to keep it real, brother.:HappyWave:

[DarkSkies]

1. You found tapeworms for us one spring when we couldn't and
2. love bait so much you ate that clam soaked sandwich that time. Don't pay attention to these losers.
You got some real street cred in the RB, Rich, just like Swiss and Davey.
3. Oh - you do smell a bit rank sometimes in case anyone is wonderring about the rumors theyre true. Just trying to keep it real, brother.:HappyWave:


Thanks so much for the love, bro....:laugh:
I'm trying to reinvent myself and figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life.
When I put my resume together I'll be sure to mention these 3 specific things. Surely they'll guarantee they hire me! :kooky::rolleyes:
Thanks as always for the kind words and the ball busting led. :HappyWave:

[williehookem]

Capt Gene sept 22 report not many stripers yet
Striped bass are finally getting ng into shape with more of the charterboats bringing back full loads. The key is getting through the bluefish which are also plentiful.

But so far there has been no sign of the real fall run with birds all over the place on top of bass getting fat.

That also applies to the falsies. They’re here but it isn’t the wild scene of past years. Mid-day Sunday I took a drive around the Point and saw a bunch of the light tackle boats hanging out under the Light. But no birds and none of them were maneuvering around trying to get a cast to some fish – just hanging out, waiting for something to happen.

[lostatsea]

Reported by the average angler today-

" Yes there's a catch of bass here and there but it is really scary slow out there. I talked to my buddy who guides in Montauk and he said the albie bite is still hot but the bass haven't showed as of yet. It really is sad that we haven't seen a consistent arrival of bass as of September and now October when a fish or two a day is usually the norm. "

[plugginpete]

from today

ERI to JI where are the fish????
Ok finally had a fishable day. Was at it just after High tide with water cooling down to 63/64 degrees. Got outside and trolled spoons and a deep diver from West of ERI all the way to Jones from 50-30 feet of water, with just one knockdown. There was bunker everywhere along with a few whales spread out around ERI. Radio chatter suggested everyone else was doing the same whether trolling, chunking or live-lining. There were a few bass around early supposedly but most people had nothing going on. Couldn't even find any birds working. I'm starting to get worried whether these fish will ever show up in decent numbers I would think we should be in the thick of it by now as we just passed the october full moon

[Monty]

from today

ERI to JI where are the fish????
Ok finally had a fishable day. Was at it just after High tide with water cooling down to 63/64 degrees. Got outside and trolled spoons and a deep diver from West of ERI all the way to Jones from 50-30 feet of water, with just one knockdown. There was bunker everywhere along with a few whales spread out around ERI. Radio chatter suggested everyone else was doing the same whether trolling, chunking or live-lining. There were a few bass around early supposedly but most people had nothing going on. Couldn't even find any birds working. I'm starting to get worried whether these fish will ever show up in decent numbers I would think we should be in the thick of it by now as we just passed the october full moon

Hard to show up if they are dead :idea:

[porgy75]

This was the Jamaica report from Fri Nov 8 Capt Bogan-
"Friday was a tough day. We read plenty of stripers but they did not want to bite."


Maybe this sounds stupid. I just wanted to know if there are a lot of stripers around and a big boat like the Jamaica is fishing for them with lots of bait,bunker, clams or jigs that make it look like a big school of bait in the water, how come they are not catching? Thanks

[rockhopper]

Report from Jones I read. I hope it's not over.

Went out for a three hour tour today, trolling spoons and deep divers. Bunker are gone seems like the bass went with them. Only huge blues to 34 inches caught. Not bad for sesame style bluefish but bass would be better . Hopefully the sand eels will show up before the next body of bass do or they will pass right by now that the bunker are gone

[rockhopper]

Karen Ann today. this has me worried these guys always catch big fish. Time for the death rats already?

Another good shot at blues and bass fishing all sight casting and jigging. Keeper ratio probably 10 to 1 on the bass, trying to cull out keepers in the mix.

[nitestrikes]

Same for no time charters. out of SB. 60 bass and only 4 keeper size. Looks like we may be seeing mostly small fish from now on.

"SATURDAY WE HAD GABE AND THE BOYS OUT FOR A BASS EXCURSION. WE HAD NON STOP ACTION FROM BEGINNING TO END. UNFORTUNATELY A BODY OF SMALLER FISH MOVED IN AND WE ONLY MANAGED 4 KEEPERS WITH OVER 60 SHORT FISH RELEASED!"

[seamonkey]

Betty and Nicks posted this today.
1/16/14 UPDATED 4:27 AM It's the dead sea again as far as I can see. Not one bluefish or bass caught in the tourney yesterday and even the night bite was bad last night. Unless we get these fish that are still north and some sandeels quickly, this will be one of the worst Fall runs I can remember.

Now I don't feel so bad for skunking out.

[fishinmission78]

Unless we get these fish that are still north and some sandeels quickly, this will be one of the worst Fall runs I can remember.



X2 I have got some nice fish but overall this fall has been terrible for me.

[fishinmission78]

SM there's no real reason to make the trip north as the great action has slowed to a trickle. got 2 dinks this morning and I mean dinks. Biggest was 18".
B&N's latest report -
"11/23/14 UPDATED 4:39 AM Dead and participation is at all time low."

[seamonkey]

^^^ Wow considering all the postive rallying that guy usually does that is depressing. Thanks for the heads up fishing mission.

[surfstix1963]

The surf has been dead for the last 2 years.Yes their are some fish caught hardly banner fishing,last year in the fall the boats hammered the bass heavily this year they are paying for it the charter/party boats have seen the worst bass fishing in years.I know quite a few Captains from the Captree fleet one is my neighbor so I'm getting my info straight from the horses mouth despite what the reports are saying.The fish have been leaving deeper each year mainly because they have a good food supply there so they have no reason to run the beach when the main body of food is not there.Small blues are 40 miles offshore we were catching them out seabass/cod fishing on Saturday.I have not fished the surf much this year(due to many factors) and what I have caught was dismal to say the least.

[DarkSkies]

1. The surf has been dead for the last 2 years.

2. Yes their are some fish caught hardly banner fishing.

3. last year in the fall the boats hammered the bass heavily this year they are paying for it the charter/party boats have seen the worst bass fishing in years.I know quite a few Captains from the Captree fleet one is my neighbor so I'm getting my info straight from the horses mouth despite what the reports are saying.

4. The fish have been leaving deeper each year mainly because they have a good food supply there so they have no reason to run the beach when the main body of food is not there.

5. Small blues are 40 miles offshore we were catching them out seabass/cod fishing on Saturday.

6. I have not fished the surf much this year(due to many factors) and what I have caught was dismal to say the least.

Took the liberty of numbering your points, Surf....hope ya don't mind....:HappyWave:

1. This is what many folks don't understand.....if they are catching fish....how can the surf be "dead" ?....Many would argue with your point here....saying....."Oh the fish are there but you just have to move around to find them"......Yep....we know that....:rolleyes:.....during the crab bite of Winter 2011....I caught up to 30 fish a night from the jetties.....
stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?8168-Winter-Fishing-Thread
some others who lived closer were hitting numbers up to 50 a night.....Yes that was a truly special bite....but for me, to catch those fish....I had to move up to 8 locations a night....try walking out on 8 jettys and jetty areas for a night's fishing.....and compare it to 10-15 years ago when you didn't have to do that......that's where I agree with ya, Rich...:thumbsup:...and get irritated by the new age fishermen who don't have an understanding of the whole picture....

2. Go back 8-15 years....the fishing today doesn't even compare...I agree...:thumbsup:


3. Some real honesty here, Rich, thanks for posting it.....most Capts would agree in private conversations...Fin has these conversations with his Charter Capt friends all the time..
unfortunately there are still a handful of Raritan and Sheepshead Bay Captains putting out the propaganda that "Striped Bass fishing is better than ever!" because of a financial agenda...


4. I would agree, and add that as the bass biomass has shrunk, these fish that are "now offshore" have contracted in size......compared to prior years when there were more, and their range was more diverse...

5.......

6. Agreed....the fishing was so specific that unless you were willing to drop everything and rush out exactly when there was a good bite....or travel all over the state, and in come cases the East Coast, to areas which were hot for a week at a time....(for the record, there was no prolonged sustained Fall run even in the Montauk surf this year, of the magnitude that existed in years past).... Yes...some 50's were caught on eels at night by surfcasters who put in a helluva lot of time and effort...but if you honestly put in more than a few years fishing Montauk and out East...you would see that the numbers of fish available passing through have shrunk to a fraction of what it used to be......

[clamchucker]

Here is something I read on the world wide web today. It was mentioned here that some folks have no perspective because they don't have time on the water. That is a good point as well. I have been fishing for over 60 years and have seen the ups and downs.I agree.

"I surf and boat fish and there were many days (the majority actually) where there were just no bass around at all. This spring was the worst I've seen in over 10 years also, maybe 13 years actually.
The mad dog bite around Halloween and some decent jigging at the mouth of the Bay does not constitute a good year.
If you fished off Monmouth County on 10/30 and then Ocean County on 10/31 you would have thought stripers were falling from the sky. But that wasn't the way the rest of the fall went.
Those boat fleets you see with boats so close it looks like you could walk between them are a funny thing. I liken it to a dwindling resource, like a herd of wildebeasts around the last watering hole in the Serengeti. A ever shrinking biomass of fish concentrated into smaller and smaller areas (usually a specific bunker pod these days in NJ). It's desperation fishing. Meanwhile there's miles of open ocean with no bass.
Everyone knows a few guys that had some good days out there, or had a couple good days themselves hopefully, but that doesn't indicate a healthy stock of fish.
The indicator of a 'good' season is a consistent bite with good fish for weeks on end. There was a time when the fall was like that. Not a one hour blitz in the morning where Joe Blotz catches his first 40 lb striper ever so the captain can post its the best fishing he's ever seen.
Stop in and talk to guys like Ricky Donofrio who has been at the boat game for a real long time, much longer than any 5 year charter captain telling you how great striper fishing is now (while claiming we don't need striper regulation changes). He'll tell you it's bad, and getting worse, much like a lot of guys up and down the east coast will say."

[nitestrikes]

From a recent report. the action at montauk was very spotty this fall. Unless you were fishing at night.

Hardly any reports of fall run from montauk to smiths' point\Jones/south shore like past years. Nothing like the fall runs in early december from 3+ years ago. Anything I missed or is this the new normal? Fall run is dying these years, unless you do the eel night thing in M i guess. Not much when i went during the days in Oct.

[dogfish]

Capt Jason Colby from Quincy. I agree.

"I started "whining" about the decline in bass numbers in 2006 or 2007. Many of my statements were made on this site and here, as well as other places I was told that "I am imagining things", "I'm crazy", "it must be something local to where I'm fishing", etc.
I strongly disagreed with all of these things (except the 2nd one) because I was out there every day fishing the exact same way and places for years on end. You tend to be able to recognize "a trend" and that is just what was happening....
To add that in the 70's, I thought that "tough fishing" was the way it was. I was quite content to catch a few fish a week as they were averaging well over thirty pounds apiece. In 1981 when I moved "full time" to Montauk and I started getting into 400 and 500 pound nights I thought I had died and went to heaven. From where I was standing I couldn't see anything coming!
....JC



__________________
Captain Jason Colby
Little Sister Charters

[7deadlyplugs]

My buddies fish montauk almost every week for stripers. Some of them got large by tossing eels late night. There were some nice fish. Nothing like it has been 5 or 6 years ago tho. Stripers don't just disappear from montauk unless there are less of them. There is no special place they hide. They have to pass by the point. When they don't you know there is something wrong.

[williehookem]

Read this by an older fisherman. Thought it was a pretty interesting comment.

"I fished thru the late 70's and 80'sand into the moratorium years and at a time even though the size limit was only 16ins there wasn't too many little ones around .You put your time in and ground out the bite you were waiting for.Even though its in my opinion nowhere near as bad as before the shutdown something with the population is not right."

[surferman]

Some of these capts are now posting pics of grilled and broiled bluefish and saying how good they are and sharing recipes on the internet. Do you think they would be doing that if striper fishing were that great?

[finchaser]

With the new regs and far less fish which is from past years gluttony. These so called pro's can't put a catch together with out large bunker schools with fish big enough to eat them committing suicde. One of the so called self proclaimed expert Captains was in the shop the other day inquiring about how to troll spoons on wire. A hero to zero in a year pretty pathetic if you ask me.

[buckethead]

2 recent comments by charter captains-
This one from point pleasant."As you can tell, the fishing has been tough for us with all the time wasted looking for the Stripers. Pretty bad ratio..... Fluke soon!"

"I give you a lot of credit honoring your charters wishes to fish for stripers when they are few and far between. We marked them real good after we saw you the other morning but didn't have any livies at the time. Found the bunker then couldn't find the bass...go figure right."

[fishinmission78]

read on a fishing reports site
There are no fish out of Barnegat Inlet. There are no stripers, no fluke, a few small blues. There aren't even any crabs or skates, nothing. Its like fishing in a desert. Its so bad the party boats are fishing around the rocks in the inlet for small blues and I saw nothing caught. And the commercial guys are taking whatever bunker they can find. Shut the lights, close the door, its over.
Sun June 14 2015

I agree with most of what this guy is saying above. The only thing I would disagree is we have had some great action in the bay and inlet for blues this year. The best in years. That is cause of the bunker tho. The blues have been on those bunker for a long time. Finally started to die down cause like the op says when they net a lot of bunker the fish go elsewhere.
Also blowfish and croakers are now around in some good numbers too. that will bring a lot of fish in.

[williehookem]

2 reports I read on the net recently-

"If I had to rate the spring run in the western sound (west of Captain's Island) so far this spring, I would rate it a F+ to a D-.
Fishing has been very inconsistent and the bigger fish are just passing thru the area and a few lucky boaters are picking at them in the middle (not my style of fishing).
There is no consistent bite on the pieces, reefs or any structure other then small 15"-34" bass. Spots that have been great for over 12 years, are holding nothing but rats."



Below is from capt gene of montauk sportfishing. I read his reports every week and def think he makes a lot of sense.


"Besides the charter boats not sailing the way they should, there doesn’t seem to be the amount of boats out fishing that you would normally expect to see at this time of the year. The owner of the boat that I run isn’t here yet, so I haven’t been out on the water much, but I have been taking a drive out around the Lighthouse on occasion.

This Saturday at mid-day I only saw four boats fishing. A little further along I stopped where I could look back and see boats fishing the Elbow, and there might have been a dozen or so boats there. Later on coming back from the boat in Devon, coming down the hill into town I could see only two boats fishing, probably off Ditch Plains.

Most years I would see what looks like the Blessing of the Fleet. From the road I couldn’t see how many boats were fluke fishing between the Radar and the Point and I wasn’t going to pay the $4.50 parking fee just to count the boats.

Then I took a ride around the marinas, where I saw a couple of old-line charter boats that I wouldn’t even think about calling if I needed a boat for a weekend, sitting in. Weekdays are a lot worse with boats tied to the dock.

May is already a wasted month and now June is looking to be almost as bad. And, it’s not just the boats in Montauk. The boat I run is docked at Devon Yacht Club, back in Gardiners Bay. It’s 75% sailboats with a couple of outboards and my boat. It looks like only about half of the slips have boats in them yet, and there is a list of members waiting for slips there, so it’s not that there are no boats to fill the slips as much as it is there is no hurry to get the boat in the water."

[voyager35]

"Safe to say the worst OCEAN spring Bass run in 15 yrs..Conclusion - second yr of a declining ocean run season. Weather patterns continue to plague the eastern seashore - 2 yrs running.
My data doesn't support nor negate the negative effect of prior years cull limits. While I support freedom of choice and to each it's own, I have the same line of thinking to the state of the fishery and the effects of consumption."

^^^^Just read this today. I agree 100%. The spring run is nothing like it used to be. It used to be a no brainer to take a run to the shrewsbury rocks and pull a full limit from there with several fish over limit, only keeping limits or less. I have only gotten stripers at the shrewsbury rocks twice this year.

[nitestrikes]

Fire island beaches have been loaded with bunker, not that many bass. this was posted earlier-
"Got out early 5am to the bunker pods. Found all the bunker you want in 29-35 ft of water...Bunker were all over!! No sign of bass. Didn't see anybody on fish either. I guess they were off the bite yesterday or they have moved on"

[plugginpete]

Subpar Bass Run...

Definitely the worst spring bass run in the western sound since I started fishing it hard (15+ years).

Very inconsistent and fish not setting up on structure or pieces. Just some rat bass (20"-34") on the pieces. Small body of bigger fish moved through the middle, but even that was much worse then previous 10+ years.

Last year was slow also. Hopefully, it's due to the very cold March and Aprils we've had.
If not, then the Hudson stock is also struggling now.


I found the above online. He was talking about mid LI Sound.

[finchaser]

Subpar Bass Run...

Definitely the worst spring bass run in the western sound since I started fishing it hard (15+ years).

Very inconsistent and fish not setting up on structure or pieces. Just some rat bass (20"-34") on the pieces. Small body of bigger fish moved through the middle, but even that was much worse then previous 10+ years.

Last year was slow also. Hopefully, it's due to the very cold March and Aprils we've had.
If not, then the Hudson stock is also struggling now.


I found the above online. He was talking about mid LI Sound.

It's going to get worse they wipe them out and now they cry they can't catch them. Not weather related
You can't believe how many can't catch a fish with out bunker and blitzing fish even the Great Johnny Buck tails is silent
Fisher Price an occasional post
Some even come in the shop and ask how do you troll wire and what do you troll for bass, pathetic self proclaimed experts what a joke

[jigfreak]

I think participation is down all over. If it wasn't for the bluefish a lot of guys would be out of business. Just read this today
"The lack of Boats and customers on the water makes it feel like October already."

[nitestrikes]

"Bass fishing is on a major decline the past 4-5 years and this year is the worst year by far.
Of course with effort and a little luck, you can run into some very good trips. But overall, the bass fishing has been terrible this year. Very spotty and very localized.
A 1-2 week bite at Montauk does not justify anything. That bite will be over in a week tops (already slowed down big time off the moon). Also, the lack of 10-25 pound fish, both in Montauk and in the Western South Shore is shocking and alarming. It is not normal for every tom **** and harry to go out and catch 40s and 50s, like it's nothing. The overall population is very unhealthy. PERIOD. I speak to long time captains + great bass fishermen in all areas of LI and the ENTIRE community agrees. Bass fishing is in trouble.
In my opinion, a slot limit of something like 1 fish @ 24"-28" per person is appropriate with nothing smaller or bigger allowed for at least 3 seasons. You can not allow it as is, because the majority of the fish falling right now are big breeder fish from 30-50+ pounds.


"People have different views of what's "average".
For instance, 5-10 keeper bass a tide is decent. 10-20 bass is good. 20-30 bass is very good, 30+ bass a tide is excellent.
Some people believe 2-3 fish is considered good, when in fact, it's horrible. The fishery, at least in the western LI sound is nowhere near where it used to be from 2001-2013. The peak was 2006-2010. Since then, there has been a steady decline.
Going out and catching 30 bass to 35+ pounds was normal (for those who know what to do). This year, I didn't even catch 30 bass the entire spring and I and my crew put in full effort. Last year was similar."



Just read these reports from the western sound. I fish there every may and june and I agree. There is usually a good bite in little neck bay. Then as the fish move west the locations change. You can at least find some fish. I have done very poorly there this year.

[rockhopper]

One of the BEST comments I have read on the net this year. X2!!!!:clapping:


I'm old enough to retire & old enough to remember the mid 70's.

This whole discussion has gotten old and has been rehashed to the point of silliness. For my part, I never said there were no bass. I've merely used math to model the trends based on the available data. The data, the trends, the models, all say that the stocks are on the decline.
Not saying there aren't bass to be caught, just saying that the stocks are declining and because nature doesn't do linear, it's not as simple as a line on a graph, or a threshold switch. My main concern has always been the way the resource has been managed, which I will say without hesitation, is managed by idiots.

The annoying thing about these conversations is the limited scope and sample set that you guys use to justify your statements. You make arbitrary statements based on personal memory and selective data sources, like bucktails "comms fill their tags" statements.

Who cares if the comms fill their tags, they **** well should be able to. They could do it in the 80's also.
If you fish for a living, you should know how to catch fish otherwise you won't be in business very long. I never said there are no bass. There will always be bass to catch for those who know how to find them and are willing to put in the time.

So you still catch bass and as you stated, you maybe even enjoy the process more because you have to use your skills, or whatever the implication was. Who cares, it has nothing to do with the argument. If I still lived there, I could still catch bass, chase them up the island, beach / bite here, beach / bite there, inlet by inlet. So what, who cares, it would have nothing to do with the argument.

You guys wear your opinions like badges. You offer very little into the information pool on how to fish, or more specifically, what makes you guys such great fishermen, but as soon as somebody suggests that the fishing is not as good as it was, you ride in on your horses and tell them that they don't know what they are talking about. And the thing that I think everybody picks up on, and that rubs everybody sideways, is that your opinions (based mostly on personal observations and memories) are presented with a smugness that most find distasteful. It gets old fast.

So why not give everybody a break. If somebody makes a statement that there doesn't seem to be as many bass around (which is actually backed up by scientific data) then let them make their statement. Just do everybody a favor and let it pass. Use your superior fishing skills and go catch a bass, or something.
We've heard your opinions, many times, and honestly, nobody wants to hear them again.
Frankly, the arguing that goes on over these threads has basically ruined the quality of this discussion board. And that's sad, because this used to be a vibrant and interesting place.

Maybe you don't care, maybe having that kind of impact makes your **** hard, the whole passive aggressive thing, I just don't know.

What I do know is that if everybody engaged in these discussions would put equal energy into providing information and insight on fishing the surf into this board, then it could be an interesting place to be again.

How's that for a suggestion.

[buckethead]

^^^^^^ I agree with the above. Most of us who have been fishing and seen the last decline feel fairly confident that the same conditions exist nowadays. Actually it is easier for them to decline because modern technology and fishfinders make it easy to find fish even when they are not blitzing.
I was going to also say that more folks are fishing compared to the 80's moratorium. That has changed recently. Fishing has gotten so bad I hardly see crowds. Even in the ocean most of the boats you see will be drifting for fluke or going offshore. Have seen quite a few drift the bunker pods this year but they soon gave up after finding no bass underneath.

[BassBuddah]

capt gene of montauk sportfishing. I read his reports every week and def think he makes a lot of sense.


I read his reports as well. A true gentleman and one of the most honest Captains out there. . I have a few friends who have been doing well out in the rips. Usually first light and late afternoon has been good. his latest report July 20.

The striped bass fishing has slowed down from the crazy state it was in. There are still enough big fish around, but they are getting a little harder to catch. The big tubes and chutes are working as are the eels, but you have to be in the right place at the right time. One of the problems is the bluefish. Catch a couple of bass and then a couple of blues and they start chumming and pretty soon you can't fish that spot for stripers anymore.

[nitestrikes]

Agree about Capt Gene. One of the nicest guys you will ever meet. Class act.
Latest report from the Viking last night, pretty sad.
"Night Striped Bass
Captain Carl reports an unfortunate night of bass fishing, we didn't have any bites, not even a blue. It was a dead night."

[hookset]

My vote for idiot of the year

Capt Sal Curci
"I believe our striper fishery is healthy and this run proves how many bass are around. Bass are rolling on top and are visible to the naked eye.Not only is Raritan Bay on fire but the ocean run is very good also.If there is no bait there are no stripers. It is that simple. I still believe in conservation and think it is a good thing to keep a smaller slot fish. It should be in the limit not by bonus tag. From Long Island the Hudson River to the west end of Raritan Bay to Asbury Park there are Bass."


Hey Capt if the raritan bay is on fire how come most of the numbers came from guys trolling. A technique used when the fish aren't stacked. Fish to asbury park? How come the belmar boats are still going out to the mud hole and sea girt reef fishing for bluefish if the fish are stacked to asbury park? What a clueless idiot!

[hookedonbass]

can't get guys out there unless they are bailing fish all over the place. You have to exaggerate. Then you will finally have 300 guys fishing and 20 will catch.


"Just beat on the STRIPERS today. People had 8 to 10 fish a piece but they had to release some. We had four fish between 40 to 50 lbs. each. There were many limits including bonus fish. It was crazy fishing".

"We fished south of our inlet this morning and it was a FULL ON STRIPER SLAUGHTER ALL DAY LONG! We caught all big stripers with only a couple throwbacks. Some customers caught over 10 fish, only keeping what's allowed. We also read them 40' thick at times. All were caught on crocs, shads and gold 47's. The stripers were up to 45 lbs and many of them were at least 25 lbs or bigger. If you've been waiting to catch the stripers like we have, now is the time! Get out and catch them while the weather is good! Interested in an extra keeper? Get your bonus tag here."


Does exaggeration also include captains on the party boats?
2 reports from yesterday-This pic was posted with the 2nd report. Does it look like there was 45pound stripers in the pic? What do you guys think? thanks

[seamonkey]

"The stripers were up to 45 lbs and many of them were at least 25 lbs or bigger. If you've been waiting to catch the stripers like we have, now is the time! Get out and catch them while the weather is good! Interested in an extra keeper? Get your bonus tag here. "


Does exaggeration also include captains on the party boats?
2 reports from yesterday-This pic was posted with the 2nd report. Does it look like there was 45pound stripers in the pic? What do you guys think? thanks






The recent Striped Bass bite has been EPIC in our area and we have mixed schools of Bass in our area. You can literally go out there and catch a 40-in fish on one cast, and a 25-inch fish on the next.. Since we need to respect this natural resource, I highly recommend only keeping what you will eat, and get a quick pic and release those fish over 40 inches as they are most likely our breeding females. I do have a few tags left for fish in the 24 to 28 inch lengths - Personally these are the best-tasting ones.
Recently, I had a charter with a telecommunications group on a 5hr Striped Bass trip, we only needed about an hour and a half. We had our 4 man limit by 9am, and released another 14 fish with our 2 biggest at 37 inches.


I saw the same exaggeration. The report above was posted today in LBI by a charter boat.
The charter captain is talking about how great the fishing and measuring his biggest fish in inches instead of pounds. That means that most of the fish they caught were small. The ones they released were small if you read between the lines. 4 guys catch 18 fish and it's EPIC? :kooky:

[clamchucker]

You have to remember that some of these captains are young and newer to striped bass fishing. They have a perspective of 10 years or less.

Folks are different than they used to be. Many want a guarantee and don't realize there are no guarantees for a good day on the water. Captains also have to talk up the catches to get folks out there.

[buckethead]

A lot of the charter captains are fly by nights. Anyone remember the renegade and how popular they were a few years ago? They even named a plug after them, the RTW plug. Where are they now?

[fishinmission78]

Renegade sportfishing the one season wonder. Sure I remember them they took polish shads plugs that you could buy for $10, put their logo on them and started selling them for $25. rofl. Totally disappeared. The website got taken over by a guy posting freshwater fishing advice. Anyone can call themself a captain just go out and get a 6 pack licence.

[storminsteve]

When a guy sells a plug that you can purchase at $10, at $25 and with all the hoopla he created you have to give him some credit. Better than PT barnum! Sucker born every minute. He can't help it if boat guys are so desperate to catch they will believe anything. Kudos to him for exploiting the mindless lemmings.
Anything close to good surf fishing I have seen lately has been blasted apart by the boats jockeying for position. We think beach muggings are harsh. The boats mug each other without apology every weekend. I have seen some crazies at sandy hook coming so close on the drift they actually got stuck on the sand there! Some of these guys I think they're lucky they passed their motor vehicle drivers test let alone a boat license. Half of the ones I have seen in close this year don't even know how to work a bunker school. rant over, sorry guys.

[finchaser]

Renegade sportfishing the one season wonder. Sure I remember them they took polish shads plugs that you could buy for $10, put their logo on them and started selling them for $25. rofl. Totally disappeared. The website got taken over by a guy posting freshwater fishing advice. Anyone can call themself a captain just go out and get a 6 pack licence.

Mike moved away

[fishinmission78]

OK thanks for the info did not know that.

[williehookem]

I was following a discussion between 2 gentlemen on a forum page. The last thing posted was pretty interesting to me because it seems a lot of gents think the stripers are strong. The south shore was great this year, if you fished demo to breezy. A lot of my buddies who fished montauk every week had poor results. I agree with the statement below-

"we are going to have to agree to disagree then. what saddens me is when someone makes statements or claims like you have made here, there is not much factual evidence to back them up and other fishermen would tend to believe that you may have made some accurate points here. and then they think that the striper population is in fair shape, and there is no danger here.
anyone who wants to learn, look at recent articles by Captain John McMurray. your argument that the fish have simply shifted movement offshore does not hold water.fish have always moved offshore. And when there were more of them the overflow reached out to many areas where they cannot currently be caught. I can name you at least 25 areas along the striper coast that do not hold consistent amounts of fish anymore, particularly smaller resident fish.

some of the conditions we are experiencing now, great abundance in certain areas and extreme lack of fish in many other areas, such as Montauk, R strikingly similar to the conditions that existed right Pre-moratorium in the 80's.

the best way to learn in my opinion is to get out there and talk to guys in their sixties and seventies, who remember what it used to be like and will gladly draw parallels as to how things are now. I used to be able to catch fish at night in great numbers away from the crowds.some of the newer anglers out there, may not remember that or the days when we had blitzes of fish not only for minutes or hours at a time but for weeks at a time.

I am sorry that you seem so convinced in your convictions. I really wish you would spend more time on the water, do some research and see that some of what you said is inaccurate, and possibly try to teach the younger anglers out there what is happening with the striped bass population. Block Island fishing, by anyone who has gone there regularly, was very poor this year. the MA canal bite, while good in the canal, has indicated concentrations of fish as I mentioned previously, with many areas of the Long Island Sound being devoid of a good bite unless you could get in the middle of Bunker schools at night.

I personally Know some friends who were fishing Fisher Island this fall and Phenomenally well. there was also a fantastic shore bite in the Hudson River where guys were catching fish 2 40 pounds every night for a three week Stretch. none of that indicates a healthy fishery, because the folks were doing that simply managed to put themselves in the middle of great schools of bunker and bait fish.

what is most disturbing is that the edge areas that held fish every year, consistently and in patterns, as part of a migration, do not hold fish consistently anymore.

if you or anyone else wants to learn more, do a Google search for "Yearly coastwide fish assessment, state of the fishery"

I am hoping that you will be able to get out and fish more times per week, meet some old timers, and get a better picture to counter some of what you believe. Thank you for all the good work you do tagging, and best wishes to you and your family for a happy holiday season. Jack"

[dogfish]

your argument that the fish have simply shifted movement offshore does not hold water.fish have always moved offshore. And when there were more of them the overflow reached out to many areas where they cannot currently be caught. I can name you at least 25 areas along the striper coast that do not hold consistent amounts of fish anymore, particularly smaller resident fish.

some of the conditions we are experiencing now, great abundance in certain areas and extreme lack of fish in many other areas, such as Montauk, R strikingly similar to the conditions that existed right Pre-moratorium in the 80's.

the best way to learn in my opinion is to get out there and talk to guys in their sixties and seventies, who remember what it used to be like and will gladly draw parallels as to how things are now. I used to be able to catch fish at night in great numbers away from the crowds.some of the newer anglers out there, may not remember that or the days when we had blitzes of fish not only for minutes or hours at a time but for weeks at a time.

I am sorry that you seem so convinced in your convictions. I really wish you would spend more time on the water, do some research and see that some of what you said is inaccurate, and possibly try to teach the younger anglers out there what is happening with the striped bass population. Block Island fishing, by anyone who has gone there regularly, was very poor this year. the MA canal bite, while good in the canal, has indicated concentrations of fish as I mentioned previously, with many areas of the Long Island Sound being devoid of a good bite unless you could get in the middle of Bunker schools at night.

what is most disturbing is that the edge areas that held fish every year, consistently and in patterns, as part of a migration, do not hold fish consistently anymore.

if you or anyone else wants to learn more, do a Google search for "Yearly coastwide fish assessment, state of the fishery"

I am hoping that you will be able to get out and fish more times per week, meet some old timers, and get a better picture to counter some of what you believe. Thank you for all the good work you do tagging, and best wishes to you and your family for a happy holiday season. Jack"

I searched to find the source of that quote. The gentleman id'd himself as Jack Bass. I recall his posts here a few years ago. From my state of Mass. Another fellow basshole.;):HappyWave:
well-said Jack, and well put. My fishing has been good only because I got a kayak. In MA we had a good run in the canal but the outer beaches did not hold a lot of fish during prime time. I got tired of running all over. In the past few years I have been able to get fish in some of the bays and harbors hear the islands. The nights of running to the Cape throughout the summer for a night of catching fish after fish are long gone.

[plugcrazy]

I remember him too, part of the stripercoast surfcasters group I think. I might not have as much experience as some of you guys here but a definite #2 on this. Good points made. I fish from cape may to island beach. This year has not been that great for my local beaches and have had to make the run up to island beach last week to try to get some numbers.

[hookedonbass]

Report I read from today manasquan area. guess not every boat is actually crushing the stripers ROFL. I would like to thank this Captain for his honesty.

Today, 05:14 AM
"We went out from MI and searched all the way down to Ship Bottom. Not a single bunker to be found. I was picking up a ton of marks just south of BI but they weren't touching anything. Pretty disappointing to say the least."

[williehookem]

Captains report from Captree

"Outgoing*

53 degrees

eels

only rats and outside

notta touch inside
I guess a few rats are better than no rats at all"

[captnemo]

Mentioned in Captain Al Ristori's blog yesterday

The northern Shore December striper fishery never developed, and the Atlantic Highlands boats dropped out of it. Capt. Rob Semkewyc reported that very few of the bass he saw and marked from his Sea Hunter would hit. He had one shot of bass up to 27 inches before deciding to call it a season after this week's NE blow.*

[cowherder]

Interesting take on surf fishing at Sandy Hook from nj.com:
"Allen Riley and John Mazzeo of South Plainfield drove down to the Sandy Hook surf along with Duke Matero of Piscataway, Lou Vargas from Fanwood, and John Bernal of Bangor, Pa. Based on his results so far in the northern Shore surf, Riley wasn't expecting much on a beautiful morning -- and that's what they got after casting lures, fresh bunker and Gulp for hours. Mazzeo was high hook with two sea robins, while Maturo hooked a sundial on Gulp, and Vargas caught a skate. Riley managed a 14-inch fluke on Gulp, and noted that this has been the worst spring surfcasting he's ever seen in that area."

[dogfish]

Didn't fish Block this year. Opinion from someone who did-

I moved to Block in 1983, what a trip it has been. Last year I had 2 fish over 50. This year has been the WORST ever for me and my fishing partners. Year after year I could see hundreds of boat on SW ledge slaughtering the jumbo bass stacked up out there. This can only last so long. Well that time has reached us. After the huge kill on the canal that mass has been pounded. It's outright disgusting. Bock has been dead all season no large fish at all for me this year and very few small. No rivers out there to attract bunker schools. I do my part and release all bass I catch. The fishing industry will feel this.

[cowherder]

That's pretty scarey. Block is the other mecca after montauk, no?

[williehookem]

Yep Block Island, Orient Point and Montauk are the best spots I know of to get trophy bass. This year not so much.

[williehookem]

Don't know if you folks follow him on fb. Bill Wetzel is a LI and Montauk guide, one of the best in the business. Somebody asked him how his fall has been, this is what he posted

"Bill Wetzel. Worst season since the moratorium""

[nitestrikes]

Bill is a standup guy. Met him several times out East at night. Very simple in what he says but meaningful. I agree. My fall was poor as well and I fish all over LI. The problem is, for every guy like Bill trying to explain with honest words, you have the Captree idiots exaggerating for business. Read the words below carefully. It is apparent to me the Capt who posted them is brazenly hyping it up. People read that and they tend to believe.

" After finding a few fish on our last two drifts this morning we went back to that area this afternoon and had an absolute striper bail job with easy full boat (https://www.brownells.com/search/index.htm?k=boat) limits and catch and release... I mean we were in the secret spot ( LOL ). The bass got bigger as the day went on BASS to 30 pounds.Great day memorable and unforgettable to have bass on every cast. We released more bass than we caught the last 3 years keeping only the Limit for the boat....."

[nitestrikes]

Also wanted to say I had a tough year last fall as well. Hoping for a better Spring. So far it's been schoolies.

[captnemo]

Interesting how 2 of the better captains had different experiences today. From Capt Al Ristori blog.

"Capt. Vinny Vetere has been doing very well mixing up trolling his Ho-Jo’s from Katfish out of Great Kills plus live-baiting bunker. However, stripers were scattered in the back of the bay today and wouldn’t hit live bunkers. Trolling produced a pick of bass up to about 25 pounds, but with only one doubleheader.
At Atlantic Highlands, Capt. Ron Santee said the fishing has been “beyond tough.” Even bunker chunks haven’t been working on his Fishermen. Normally striper fishermen would be cursing at bluefish eating striper baits, but they’d be welcomed now. Santee hasn’t seen one in the bay or ocean though they are two weeks late."

[nitestrikes]

This is a NJ Capt. Capt Ron, I believe they are fishing the raritan bay.

"Loads of Bunker in the AM in shallow water, just not many fish eating them so it was back to the clams for bait. Only caught 1 Bluefish so far and it's already May 15th!!! Has to be the worst Spring fishing for us that I has seen in 40 years.....Back at it tomorrow.
Capt. Ron "

[jigfreak]

Def agree with that. The charters do better than the PBs because they can target small bodies of fish. Then they come back to the dock and report that they "killed them, on Da meat!". Total BS. Capt Ron of the Fishermen is one of the most honest captains out there. He tells the good with the bad, never exaggerates. I was on his boat a few times, would def recommend if you want a good fishing trip at a decent price. You have to check out his Dad Ron Sr. The guy is an old salty who often outfishes everyone on board. Then again, the guy has been fishing the salt over 60 years.

[captnemo]

from the Brooklyn's capt a few days ago. One of the best party boats in the area-

Well to say this year is not going well would be a nice way to put it. It is already June and no blues on any big party boats almost ZERO.
Today Capt Mike as always went near and far and far to maybe check to last possible places for Blues to be and we found Zero. We did find some huge bass at the end of the day.

[BassBuddah]

A guy named Frank Theo, commenting on a youtube video:

"My feeling is that the bass fishing is worse than it was during the 1970's and 80's and there's more pressure on the Striped Bass fishery today from all party boats charter boats privet boats and poachers that call themselves fishermen that have been keeping the bigger breeder Striped Bass by the barrel full none stop for the past 23 years.

Three years ago during the fall run a party boat that I will not name posted multiple pictures on Norest.com (https://www.youtube.com/redirect?redir_token=WuIcURdH9SR8D50IOv6UoC7p92t8M TUyNzc3MDY1OEAxNTI3Njg0MjU4&event=comments&q=http%3A%2F%2Fnorest.com%2F) with his bow full of barrels of 30 to 50 LB bass and slobs laid out all over the deck, do you think the DEC wasn't watching this ? They did !!
That winter the DEC proposed a slot limit between 28 inches to 40 inches per bass. You could only keep one fish per angler on a boat that size, and luckily that DEC bill didn't happen.

I saw this posting and I wanted to through you some input from somebody who's been around the block a few times and saw the hay day of party boats and the privet boat commercial fishing industry come and go, and who loves surf fishing. NOPE I'M NOT A BASS SNOB, personally I could catch bluefish all day and take one home for the table over a bass... Happy Fishing !!"