The Good Old days of Fishing......

[fishinmission78]

written by Bill Donovan, publisher of NJ Angler :clapping:





I have stayed out of this debate, primarily because I try to make it a point not to criticize anglers for following the letter of the law. Two stripers is really not a lot of fish to keep for an occasional angler who charters a boat and happens to enjoy the best fishing day of his or her life. Besides, we are so overly regulated right now (and these regulations are really starting to affect our industry) that I hate to be pushing for more.

However, I happen to believe that the once-in-a-lifetime action along the Northern Jersey beaches is NOT representative of the overall health of the stock. In NJ alone, go just a few miles south and striper anglers are pretty close to being dry, and have been all spring. For example, there was no spring run in the Delaware Bay. None, Zilch, Zippo. I understand completely that things like water temp, forage, etc. play a role, and that fish surely do have tails, but with a stock so strong, how can it be that they bypassed the Delaware System? There are trends I've watched for a few years now, and they are disturbing.

I wrote about this issue at length in our March issue, and you can read the article in its entirety by clicking here (http://www.njangler.com/publishersblog.php?domain=&arcyear=2008&arcmonth=3). I hope you'll take a few minutes to do it. There is a lot of technical information in there that you may find interesting.

Let me bring up one point that I mentioned in another thread in another forum last week. If one were to think back to the 1970's, the last period that produced giant stripers like we're seeing now, all those big bass were taken in and around Raritan Bay and along the northern NJ coast, like they are today. Despite the fact that the world record came from Atlantic City in '82, there was little or no directed striped bass fishery in NJ south of LBI during those years. The impact of the more consistent Hudson nursery to the striped bass fishery was apparent during that timeframe, and I believe we are seeing the same thing now.

Those who have read Frank Daignault's "Twenty Years on the Cape" will see similarities between then and now. In that book the author writes about an incredible big fish opportuntiy throughout the 70's before the bottom fell out in the 80's. I happened to peruse that book again the other day, and the similarity to today's situation gave me chills.

I'm not saying the sky is falling with respect to striped bass, but I am saying that those who are fortunate enough to participate in what is going on underneath those bunker schools in northern NJ should understand that it is very, very special and quite localized. Don't take it for granted, not for a second, because you may blink at it may be gone.
__________________
Bill Donovan
Publisher, NJ Angler
Co-host, NJ Angler Video Magazine

[paco33]

I fish mostly on my brother in law's boat. He's been fishing for them for 20 years. We get bass, but this and last year have not been as good as when I first started going for them. If you run into a spring or fall blitz, its all good. Otherwise, we are catching less, especially in the summer.

Good thread.

[captnemo]

This 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/

[DarkSkies]

What fishing used to be like, Stripercoast1 aka Gunny:

(Gunny runs www.stripercoastsurfcasters.us (http://www.stripercoastsurfcasters.us) a growing group of hardcore surfcasters with an eye on conservation, aligning themselves with www.stripersforever.com (http://www.striperrsforever.com) and other groups in their fight to preserve the striped bass fishery.)

"When people talk about striped bass fishing and how they had a "blitz" for an hour, I realize there is a lot to teach people out there. We used to fish Cape Cod and the Mass area many years ago. Those were the nights when you were careful who you told about the fishing. There would usually be a small group of us dedicated guys out there for any given night when the bite was on.

And on it was! We would have times in the spring or fall at Race Point when the striped bass "blitz" stretched for 7 or 8 miles. We would have huge bass right in the surf at our feet. If they were on heavy bait concentrations, all you had to do was toss out a bucktail, or pick up a piece of fresh bait as the fish pushed the bait ashore. Toss out your bucktail, or that fresh bait, and you would have a fish in a matter of a minute.

These blitzes would last for a day or more sometime, and we all got our fill of fish. Sometimes I realize it was too many, and that probably contributed to the decline, because everyone acted the same way."



Fishing as it exists today:

"Guys are killing a lot more of the big breeders. For example, this summer there was a huge concentration of big bass off Block Island. Guys were taking out the 6 pack charters as much as twice a day, and coming back with their limit each time. These are 40 and 50lb bass we are talking about, taking up to 20 years to reach that size. Yet guys killed them day after day. Huge numbers of these bass were taken out of the biomass from Block Island this year. I have to believe that will affect the biomass and future spawning numbers. There's no way it would not affect the population.

In Rhode Island where I fish a lot we have always had good seasons for catching big striped bass from the surf. The bays, rivers, and estuaries hold tremendous amounts of bait, many varieties, shrimp, small whitebait, bunker, huge amounts of squid, and lobster. Yet we noticed the fishing was off, there were less big bass around.

I have seen the decline of catches with my own eyes. It's only a matter of time before it shows up in the official numbers. If we don't do something about it soon, we will be definitely be facing another moratorium on striped bass fishing."

[DarkSkies]

(guys let me know if I need to make any corrections to these)

Fin:
He tells me on a daily basis how they used to catch bass by the dozens, large, and in all year classes. Bluefish used to be so abundant they would fill 110Qt coolers with them to the point where people got sick of catching them. There was no idea out there that either bluefish or striped bass stock should be conserved. People used to fertilize their gardens with unwanted fish.

Then the stocks declined, slowly at first, until there was a noticable decline, and you were only catching fish in the "middle areas" (M&M theory). The edges of the M&M bowl were empty, and they instituted the moratorium.

He sees that same thing happening to the stocks today because people refuse to acknowledge that there is greater participation in fishing, more fish are being kept, and people are wasting plenty of large breeder fish just for the photo ops at the tackle shops.

He has seen wasted 40# bass that were left out in the sun, dumped into marina dumpsters. He may seem like he rants and raves a lot, but that's because he's passionate about these fish he loves to catch, and doesn't want to see history repeat itself. Pick his brain anytime ya want, he has the stats and figures to back it up!

As related by Finchaser:
Fishing before the moratorium:

"There were so many fish back then, it would take 3 or 4 days for one body of fish to pass by in the spring or fall. If you missed those, there would be another wave of fish right after that. That's why when people talk today about how they had fish for hours, it maks me shake my head. Fishing today is nothing like it used to be before the moratorium.

Fall run, 1980's:
A fall run back then was like a sustained fishing dream. Blitzes lasted for days, not 22 minutes. You could go fishing in the morning, catch some fish, go to work, come out on your lunch break, catch some more fish, go back to work, come home and eat dinner, and still go out to catch more fish, until your arms were really tired."

[DarkSkies]

Some anonymous recollections of others:

1. A friend called me today and told me how they used to go up to Cape Cod because huge numbers of bass used to pass by there on the migration. He told me of thousands of bass rolling in the surf, 30-40 years ago. As Gunny said, all you had to do was toss a piece of bait or a bucktail out, and you were into fish in the 30# class. They were all over the place. :plastered: :wow:




2. Another friend told me he has a friend living in New Brunswick, near Canada. The bass used to come there by the thousands as part of their northern migration as they passed the state of Maine. His friend hasn't had a good year for striped bass in many years. Is it a case that they just don't move that far north any more, or is it the case that there are less bass to go around?

Only you people can answer these questions for yourself. Do the research, there is a wealth of material in this thread.




3. Another friend has a problem with the lack of bluefish in the surf, especially as represented by the smaller year classes. I used to fish with these guys as recently as 5 years ago, and we had times when we would get numbers in the 30's and 40's of bluefish caught and released, several times a week, for the spring run. That hasn't happened to the extent it used to. People say the bluefish are all offshore on the offshore bait.

What about the edges of the bowl, the M&M theory? Isn't it possible it could be a factor here as well? http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/images/icons/icon3.gif

Of course, lots of people hate bluefish, and don't care. Many guys who fish from boats will dispute it, and tell you it's unreasonable to say this. There are miles and mils of bluefish just offshore, they will say. I agree that's what they're seeing, so I understand how they would dispute a hypothesis that there are less around. As mentioned, the surf fishermen catch the"overflow" How would you know about this perspective unless you fish from the surf? http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/images/smilies/don't%20know%20why.gif

Surf fishing traditionally was where you caught the overflow of fish from an abundant biomass. If that biomass is declining, the surf guys would certainly be the first ones to notice it.

Food for thought people, food for thought. :learn:

[Stripercoast1]

Many years ago, Bob Pond, owner of Atom Tackle, organized Stripers Unlimited with his own money. He did this because he saw the writing on the wall. It was the beginning of the out of control Menhaden purse seining. He noticed the Bass were getting skinny and were seeking less nutritious forage. Sand eels take more effort for less gain, and were becoming the targeted food source of Bass and Blues along the North East coastal waters. Bass were also addapting to eating any and all available food sources that also take more effort but little gain. Cunner, Sea Robbins, and other rough fish were turning up in the stomachs of Bass on a more than usual occurance. To equate this to human standards, eating a bowl of saw dust will make you feel full, but little or no nutrition is gained.
I remember when Bob would arrive on a beach or the canal, and the attitude was, "Here comes Chicken Little." This was during the 70's and the research he funded was scoffed and belittled. Just a few short years later, all he tried to warn about came to fruition.
The situation now is not any differant from my eyes. We hear the warnings and ***** about lousy catch rates but wait and watch for what someone else is going to do.
The Bunker are not here. The reasons for some areas of the coast to see them, while others have none, are really almost too simple to undestand. New Jersey and New York put in regulatory controls on how and when the Bunker fleet can operate. They could not legally shut them down, so they made it hard for them to operate. North of those 2 states the Bunker are no where near the numbers we once saw. The Bass that locked up on Block this past year were on Scup, AKA Porgie. Scup do not contain the oils and fats that bunker provide for Bass to sustain good health, but in the absence of proper food they are better than nothing.
Call me chicken little if you want, in fact being grouped with Bob Pond would be a badge of honor to me. The crash is coming again, the only thing I wonder, is if we will catch it in time this time.

[plugaholic]

That was a great read stripercoast1. You are correct that people stand buy and watch without getting involved. All of a sudden the bunker are gone, the fish are gone and everyone will be walking around with the foot up their *** wondering what the hell happened. I wish more people would get involved.

[DarkSkies]

Dan has been fishing for a long time. Here he shares his thoughts about how things used to be, and where he sees fishing heading.


9660274

[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. "

[vpass]

My sentiments exactly, I notice over the years I'm catching more keepers and less shorts. Most of the shorts this year are maybe 3 years old. I’m not seeing many 4 to 8 years old fish. And hardly any fishes older then 10 years old (my luck is not that good for this size fish, it could be me.). If the 2011 YOY is true, it could be fun fishing in 4 or 5 years from now, keeper size in 8 years. bigger fish will be rare . We need to start protecting these fish to have a better then average YOY. And the way I'm seeing fish being kept or killed (N.C.) we could be headed for disaster.

The only reason the 2011 YOY was good is that all conditions were meet to have this striped bass spawn succeed as it did. Why were 2004 to 2010 not as good?

[BassBuddah]

Tom Forte :2flip: and his stupid statement of there are more bass than ever delayed it a year



^^ That is not possible. That statement is inane. How could a commissioner be so irresponsible?


my recent Montauk report:

I was looking for a thread to add my summer observations to. This one seemed appropriate. I have been fishing the big M consistently for about 20 years, Summer and Fall. Last Fall was the worst one since I started keeping logs. I was hoping this summer would turn out better for we who fish the Point at Montauk and the night tides at different places there.
I have gone out there for the last 2 weekends. My results are not encouraging. Each weekend my biggest fish were only in the mid teens. First weekend I managed 2 teeners to 15 lbs. Last weekend I managed 1 thirteen pounds. There were a few small schoolies and bluefish. All on the night tides, into sunrise. And a few bluefish as well.
According to my logs the 2nd week of June has consistently been a point where the action starts to heat up.
We have water temps around 67 degrees there right now, and it has been as low as 61. This is good temperature for bass and they should have been there in greater numbers. This concerns me. I am hoping things will turn around for the fall but am not optimistic. The boats are doing well out in deeper water. We have had a lot of small whitebait run through the Point and the fish should be there but they are not.

[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

[Monty]

A good read in Fishing In Saltwaters, written by Lou Tabory
http://www.flyfishinsalt.com/species/fish-species/striper-report-2013?page=0,0&cmpid=enews070913&spPodID=030&spMailingID=17680302&spUserID=NTY3MzAwMDc2MzIS1&spJobID=217931806&spReportId=MjE3OTMxODA2S0

Striped bass are an ideal game fish for many reasons, but one of the most notable has to do with the fact that they feed in so many different conditions. I can’t think of any other major game-fish species that can be found in such diversified water. Stripers can swim freely in heavy rolling surf or along rocky shorelines with 10-foot waves crashing into structure. Another plus is the simple fact that they primarily live in the Northeast, which just so happens to be the most populated region in the United States, making them accessible to thousands of anglers.

Stripers were my first exposure to fishing. Nearly 60 years ago, using a light spinning rod and an Uppermen bucktail, I caught my first bass; about 10 years later I took my first on fly. In those days, fly-fishing for these great game fish was an oddity and was a tactic that seemed frivolous to most anglers. Fly-fishing was for trout or in southern locations for tarpon and bonefish. Back then, most anglers felt fly tackle was not suited for rolling surf, big rips or ocean beaches, where casting distance was often the name of the game. But these anglers were wrong, and the sport grew until there were in some locations more anglers fly-fishing for bass than there were spin anglers. Into the 1990s and early 2000s, the boom of fly-fishing in the Northeast continued to grow. Striper populations were coming back strong from a catastrophic collapse that occurred in the ’80s — the fishery was thriving. There were solid numbers of fish, not the large fish we saw in the ’70s and early ’80s but indeed plenty sizable for fly tackle. While the spring and fall runs were very healthy ones, in all actuality, the spring runs were stronger than the fall runs, which was opposite to the fishery of the ’70s and ’80s.

Then something happened. Around 2005 or 2006, the fishery seemed to taper off. Other anglers I talked to noticed a drop in numbers even earlier than that. All of us hoped it was due to a lack of bait or a change in habits, but as the years passed, the numbers continued to fall and fishing success dipped. Knowledgeable anglers still find some fish, and in New Jersey, fishing is still good because large concentrations of menhaden are off the state’s beaches. From year to year, some sections of Maine and locations such as Rhode Island, Montauk, New York, and some areas in Long Island Sound still see bright spots, but generally up and down the coast, fishing is off.

The outer beaches of Cape Cod, and the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts, have seemed to be the hardest hit, with the shore fishing getting worse each season. Many anglers began to blame the drop-off of striped bass on the growing population of seals in these areas. And it’s accurate to say that beach fishing there is off more so than boat fishing. Without a doubt, the effects of well over 120,000 seals not only chasing stripers but also consuming them makes matters worse. Some boat captains claim there are still good numbers of fish, and this might be true. The huge offshore rips that run from Monomoy Island to east of Nantucket and then west to the Vineyard are vast sections of water seldom affected by fishing pressure. In fact, this water was a stronghold, a sanctuary if you will, for stripers during the last collapse. These areas still hold fish and it is hoped they will continue to do so. There are reports from blue-water boats looking for tuna spotting large schools of stripers well offshore in deeper water. This could be due to a lack of bait or a change in stripers’ habits; perhaps with fewer fish competing for food, there is no need for the fish to move into shallower water or along the beaches to feed. In my early fishing days, we seldom found fish on big shallow flats. Only when the numbers of fish increased and big baitfish became less plentiful did flats fishing become popular. But why are fish suddenly not feeding on the flats or along the beaches as they did only a dozen years ago? It keeps coming back to fewer fish.
Evidence of a drop-off in the striper fishery is seen in the lack of anglers traveling to locations like Cape Cod and the islands to fish. Ten to 15 years ago, Cape Cod hosted large numbers of surf anglers, especially in the fall. Beach buggies were everywhere. Most were spin fishermen, but at the Vineyard fly-anglers often dominated the water. And it really didn’t matter because the fishing community was out enjoying its mutual passion — fishing for striped bass. Now the number of anglers that come to Cape Cod in the fall is down to a trickle. The last few years, in most cases, I had the beaches to myself except for the seals, which have now taken over.

There has always been mixed emotions with stripers. In Massachusetts, there are many commercial rod-and-reel anglers. I first saw evidence of this while doing the early outdoor shows in locations like Worcester. I was a young gun, a fly-rodder who believed that stripers should be a game fish and released — not a popular opinion in those days. I participated each year in the Saltwater Round Table at the Worcester show where Frank Woolner, the first editor of Salt Water Sportsman, liked having fun setting me up as a radical who wanted every striper released. It was in good humor, and at the same time, it allowed me to make my point — stripers are far too valuable to kill. When the collapse of the striper fishery came, I remember Frank saying, “I don’t know how Tabory knew about the stripers problem, but he was right.” Back then, I had no knowledge of what was wrong; it was just my moral belief that it was right to release the majority of them. I never was against anglers keeping a special fish or eating a few each year; it was the slaughter of fish for the market or to fill a box for a charter business that upset me. Before the moratorium, there were virtually no regulations to protect the striped bass. For some anglers this meant “kill ’em all.” It was this mentality that sparked the collapse of the fishery.

In the 1940s and ’50s striper numbers fluctuated, but by the early ’60s the numbers increased as did the young-of-the-year. From the early ’70s, striper numbers continued to grow, with 1973 recording the largest commercial landing in modern times. Fishing for bass was at an all-time high with large numbers of big fish taken from the beach. Some articles written in outdoor publications bragged of the large numbers of big fish piled on the beaches. This was when commercial beach-angling became very popular, with catches of more than a thousand pounds of stripers on a hot night. This certainly was not the norm, but it was definitely possible and is an accurate gauge of how good the fishing was at that time. But even on an average night, these anglers were killing many fish with no restrictions of numbers. Nobody ever thought it would end; the fishery seemed to remain strong. The market price of stripers was high and anglers were making big money.

The average spin angler experienced fishing that was often unheard of. Along the beaches, catching a 20- to 30-pound striper was possible on any outing, with a 40-plus-pound fish still a very real possibility. I got small glimpses of this possibility, but I was able to seriously fish only the end of this run of big fish, and it was still good especially by the standards of someone who had never fished the cape and islands during the best years. In the early ’80s, everything changed. The numbers of stripers decreased rapidly, and at the same time, young-of-the-year numbers drastically dropped. With no regulations in place to prevent further damage, anglers continued killing these big fish; all stripers over 15 pounds are females, which means they were killing the brood stock. There was another problem, a void of smaller fish. Most of the fish were bigger. In the waters off the cape and islands, there was a time when fish under 15 pounds were almost nonexistent. The ’80s, unlike the early ’70s, had fewer fish, but when you hooked up the fish were 20 to 40-plus pounds. Yes, it was an exciting time to fish, but as these larger breeder fish disappeared, nothing replaced them. The stocks of fish from the Chesapeake Bay, the major supply of stripers along the East Coast, had a grim future. The Hudson River stocks were stronger, but they supplied fish to a much smaller area.
In the early 1980s, the cause of this devastating drop in striper numbers was lack of regulation. Actually, there could have been a blessing in disguise in that the fishery collapsed so fast that drastic measures were needed quickly. It was the first time in the history of the striper fishery that sport anglers and commercial anglers agreed on an issue — stop killing fish. It took a little time, but eventually a moratorium was established protecting stripers. It was a tough measure, but necessary, and slowly the fishery began to strengthen.

One thing that has happened in the last five to six years is people not facing the facts — stripers are in trouble again. Some anglers have lowered their expectations and now refer to as a good day’s fishing a situation that years ago was only a fair to poor outing. Newbie anglers simply believe catching a few fish is what is to expect. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) is turning a blind eye to this very serious problem, often siding with commercial interests. In Eddies, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service magazine, an article by John Bryan appeared in the Spring 2012 edition about the successful restoration of striped bass. The proof offered is a phone call from an angler fishing Montauk who claimed that the fish were so thick you could almost walk on them. That kind of thinking is just sad. To see the problems, fisheries management needs to look at how few anglers travel to locations like Cape Cod to fish for stripers compared with 10 years ago; or examine how the numbers of stripers entered in the Martha’s Vineyard Derby as well as the sizes of fish have dropped in recent years. The 50-pound benchmark striper is a thing of the past. Sales of nonresident over-sand beach permits has dropped significantly in the last five years as well. Even with cell phones and the Internet broadcasting any action, fishing is generally slow for the average angler. A quote from John Bryan’s article addressing the decline that occurred in the late ’70s states that “over harvesting, especially of spawners, was identified as a major reason for the decline, and strict limitations were put in place.” Why would fisheries managers, who openly admit that harvesting too many spawning females caused the last decline, go out and do the same thing again, allowing anglers to take two fish a day over 28 inches?

I am not using just my fishing success to judge the health of the striper population; I’m getting information from many other anglers that fish a lot harder than I do. I believe charter captains using effective techniques like wire-line trolling or bait anglers fishing in deep water are not true indicators. In my opinion, the best barometers are the fly and surf-plug anglers. Fly-fishing is the most difficult way to catch stripers, followed by surf fishing with artificials. In the last six to seven years, say anglers I know who fish using these techniques, fishing is falling off in many New England locations, and in the last three years, it’s gotten worse. Ten years ago, locations in shallow water in late spring in Cape Cod Bay would usually have hundreds of fish each day; now they have 30 to 40 fish, sometimes half that. This is not based on one year but more than five years of checking these locations. Now, if there is a small push of fish one day, the next day is often dead. In the good years when you hit fish, they were usually there for three to four days or longer. In the late 1990s in May, the “bowl” just south of Chatham Lighthouse on Cape Cod might have had a hundred anglers fishing — now it’s mostly empty. Guides I know that specialized in light tackle and fly-fishing for stripers have stopped doing trips or fish for other species.

There is one easy solution to this problem: Stop killing the breeders. Both recreational and commercial fishermen target larger fish because regulations require that practice. A slot limit similar to what the state of Florida has for most of its game fish would stop the killing of females. In the Northeast, only the state of Maine has a slot limit. If stripers were protected from 28 inches to 48 inches, they would have at least eight to 10 years of freedom to spawn. A one-fish-a-day, 22- to 26-inch slot limit would solve this problem, letting anglers keep a fish while saving the fishery. When it comes to fisheries management, Florida is the example we need to follow. Unfortunately, because of commercial interests a slot limit will be a tough sell. Even most six-pack captains would fight any laws that would take away from their business.

Obviously, the best solution would be to make stripers a game fish. However, I’m afraid the only way we will get game-fish status is if we lose this great game fish one more time.

[finchaser]

I agree on bad ^^^ but not even close to the worst in the 80's we fished sometimes all week every night to get one fish

[DarkSkies]

I was talking to a friend the other day.....he targets big fish at every part of the migration, and fishes Jersey and throughout the Coast to find them.....

He has had a frustrating year.....
Has been jumping between Jersey and LI lately just to find a decent bite.....

Now....our interpretation of "decent" might be different from other folks.....;)
We were talking about the spring and fall bites of a few years ago....

1. The sand eels coming inshore twice a year...
2. The fantastic peanut bunker runs we used to have......
3. The Spring runs we used to have where bass and bluefish pursued a smorgasbord of bunker, herring, rainfish, spearing, etc to the beach.....
4. Catching 20-40 fish per night, on a good night....(not just during the crab molt)
5. When you could realistically catch fish in NJ and LI for 8-10 months of a year, instead of the abbreviated Spring and Fall Seasons we now have....
Etc...etc......













We started comparing notes, him saying it was his worst year ever since the moratorium.......
It's been the same for me......

When the fish are available, he catches more fish over 30# from land than anyone I know....
And he has sat out there 2 tides in a row, just to get one larger fish........he definitely knows how to "find the fish"....http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/images/smilies/thumbsup.gif

Lamenting how bad we see that things have declined.....
and talking about the "Good old Days....http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/images/smilies/fishing.gif

[DarkSkies]

I then realized.....
The "good old days" we were talking about...were only 8-10 years ago......
When you could go out for a night of fishing.....and pull in 10-20 fish or more......:fishing:

** Caveat......These "good old days" don't even compare to the fantastic fishing that existed after the bass rebounded after the moratorium, in the late 80's and 1990's.
But it occurred to me many of the newer folks out there fishing don't have that as a frame of reference.....

It also came to mind...
There is a lot of internet chatter about "finding the fish"
"The fish are there you just have to work for them"
"If you know what you are doing, you can catch regularly"
and other naive phrases..........

I asked myself how there could be a disconnect between the griping we were doing.....
And some of the bravado you see out there today on the internet?.....some of it ending up as "Well if you are not catching maybe you just don't know how to fish!"....and other ridiculous statements........:kooky:

Was also talking to Monty yesterday as well....
He said something about...."Yep the fishing sucks....we know it....we just have to adapt.....
(which many people have done......) :thumbsup:


I do think when we forget or minimize how good fishing used to be....we lose our sense of perspective.....
A 20lb bass......which ordinarily didn't raise many eyebrows in a tackle shop....becomes a "Cow" ;) or an example of "epic fishing".













I thought I would ask the folks out there........
1. What the "Good old days" means to them......
2. And what they miss the most about them.....



Thanks for your opinions.....

[finchaser]

There gone forever on every fish species. I miss catching and eating whiting and cod. Now all that's left is fishing with a bunch of know it all assh_les and immigrants who don't respect the resources and don't know sh_t.

Period

[fishinmission78]

The "good old days" we were talking about...were only 8-10 years ago......
When you could go out for a night of fishing.....and pull in 10-20 fish or more......:fishing:

** Caveat......These "good old days" don't even compare to the fantastic fishing that existed after the bass rebounded after the moratorium, in the late 80's and 1990's.
But it occurred to me many of the newer folks out there fishing don't have that as a frame of reference.....

It also came to mind...
There is a lot of internet chatter about "finding the fish"
"The fish are there you just have to work for them"
"If you know what you are doing, you can catch regularly"
and other naive phrases..........

I asked myself how there could be a disconnect between the griping we were doing.....
And some of the bravado you see out there today on the internet?.....some of it ending up as "Well if you are not catching maybe you just don't know how to fish!"....and other ridiculous statements........:kooky:



ds you have to realize that 70% of the posters on the internet today grew up playing doom and other first person shooter games. There attention span is about 30 secs. I started to notice this last year with the cell phone crowd. Guy would fish 15 minutes and then check his cell phone for reports. My last very good years were 2002-2007. I also have caught up to 50 bass on a great night. It seems to me those days are long gone. The generation that fishes today considers 5 bass to be epic and is so self centered and lazy most will not work beyond 2 hours for one fish. They only come out spring and fall blitz time. Most stay home when its freezing like it was last nite which is ok with me. And the rudeness and mugging -saw that in the other thread don't get me started. One of these days I'm going to take a dump on some of these muggers heads. That might learn them some manners.


There gone forever on every fish species period

I agree. Some of the young guns have no clue how these fish used to be all over. You could pick any bridge in ocean or atlantic county and pick off a few bass for most months of the year except winter and very early spring. They just don't get it. Island beach with the exception of the sandeel bite in 2011 has been a vast wasteland and it gets worse every year. If fishing doesn't turn around with the new limits John from B&N could be out of business in the next 5 years.
Most guys gravitate toward the pocket because they know how bad the rest of it can be. I still catch because I know the cuts and troughs and re-scout after every storm. To catch more than one now you have to be on your game, not just on your cell phone.

[seamonkey]

I then realized.....
The "good old days" we were talking about...were only 8-10 years ago......


lol

[seamonkey]

Fin:
He tells me on a daily basis how they used to catch bass by the dozens, large, and in all year classes. Bluefish used to be so abundant they would fill 110Qt coolers with them to the point where people got sick of catching them. There was no idea out there that either bluefish or striped bass stock should be conserved. People used to fertilize their gardens with unwanted fish.

Then the stocks declined, slowly at first, until there was a noticable decline, and you were only catching fish in the "middle areas" (M&M theory). The edges of the M&M bowl were empty, and they instituted the moratorium.

He sees that same thing happening to the stocks today because people refuse to acknowledge that there is greater participation in fishing, more fish are being kept, and people are wasting plenty of large breeder fish just for the photo ops at the tackle shops.

He has seen wasted 40# bass that were left out in the sun, dumped into marina dumpsters. He may seem like he rants and raves a lot, but that's because he's passionate about these fish he loves to catch, and doesn't want to see history repeat itself. Pick his brain anytime ya want, he has the stats and figures to back it up!

As related by Finchaser:
Fishing before the moratorium:

"There were so many fish back then, it would take 3 or 4 days for one body of fish to pass by in the spring or fall. If you missed those, there would be another wave of fish right after that. That's why when people talk today about how they had fish for hours, it maks me shake my head. Fishing today is nothing like it used to be before the moratorium.

Fall run, 1980's:
A fall run back then was like a sustained fishing dream. Blitzes lasted for days, not 22 minutes. You could go fishing in the morning, catch some fish, go to work, come out on your lunch break, catch some more fish, go back to work, come home and eat dinner, and still go out to catch more fish, until your arms were really tired."


Wow I can't even imagine fishing that good!:bigeyes:

[ledhead36]

Great recollections from past runs. Thanks for sharing that finchaser and stripercoast, I had some great years from 89-93. After the bass came back they were pretty strong. I know that some brag about catching a double digits in the bay in the spring. News flash, when you use clams you should be catching dozens. That population is way down. I know they say the hudson stock is healthy but that is what we target in the early spring and the fishing sucked early spring this year. We used to go through almost 2 bushels of clams on a night when the fishing was good. That was our crew, 4-5 guys. Between us we would land and release over 100 fish,so that was at least 20 fish apiece some nights more. Haven't had a night like that in years. just my .02

[fishinmission78]

Bump to the top for a great thread

[finchaser]

The good thing I start my 50th year of bass fishing the bad it will never be like the good old days especially with the downward trend of the bass which I never thought I'd live to see. But as it says below my avitar

[bababooey]

How about the days of getting whiting and bringing them to get smoked. My Dad used to do that. Another thing we'll never get to see again. Sigh - longing for the good old days.

[jigfreak]

frostfish

[nitestrikes]

Times passed forever, sad to see them go. Go back 50 years and the sharpies would catch winter cod from beaches near Cape Cod.

[finchaser]

done it all and happy to have done it and sad to see it go. Sure miss it more and more as things deteriorate including me

[fishinmission78]

done it all and happy to have done it and sad to see it go. Sure miss it more and more as things deteriorate including me


Yeah but whats the alternative. Dirt nap in a pine box? No thanks.
This quote says a lot-
""I've spent some time fishing the local banks by me. There's fish here but the majority are small. I caught one dink this morning and saw two others caught. There's keepers but not the majority yet. It's not hot fishing but better than sitting home."

That being said I got blanked today.

[plugcrazy]

Mr grandfather was telling me about this. I guess from Dec to March you could go to the wet line and pick them up by the dozens. Wish I could have seen it.