Re: StripersandAnglers yearly coastwide fish stock assessment, state of the fishery.
^^ Seamonkey somehow I must have missed your post when you posted it.
Thanks so much for the kind words. I'm on track to write, it's part of my long term goals, but it will not be on how to fish or where to fish.....I've lost a lot of respect for the guys who sell out all the spots for a few sheckels, and there are legions of guys in the surf world who feel the same way.....
Time to get this back to the top agiain...
a less than average season for many of the areas covered here. I'll be talking about them one by one as I get time.....for now, remember that a boat that can get itself in the middle of a few 30-50lb bass does nit signify the health of the fishery......and a Captain who states that the fishery is stronger than ever, either has been fishing for less than 10 years, or is doing a disservice by putting that mis-information out there....
As always, thanks for reading, and thanks for the kind words...much appreciated...:HappyWave:
Re: StripersandAnglers yearly coastwide fish stock assessment, state of the fishery.
Chesapeake Bay, Spring 2012
The bass fishery this year was very good for about 2 weeks. Other than that, many regulars in that area tell me they did not get the numbers of bass they traditionally do...and that there were a lot of disappointed folks who had higher expectations, only to get a sad dose of reality...
These are boat people, folks, who have the ability to get into the middle of the action, and still had trouble finding bigger bass consistently....
Additionally, the overall tourney standings were the poorest they have been in years....with winning aggregate sizes down from past years.....
Food for thought, people...
Re: StripersandAnglers yearly coastwide fish stock assessment, state of the fishery.
The end is near they are going down hill much faster this time around i don't think an accessment will help little late for that.
Special thanks to the guy's in the bay with there little hooks that gut hook fish but keep the numbers up. A special thanks goes out to the snag and droppers who are all pro's now using this no brainier way of decimation by keeping 2 qand 3 fish day after day. Most of them concider the spring as there bass season because they can't catch one anyother way.
Most short fillet keeping the tail section because these big fish eat and taste like sh_t from feeding on bunker just like blue fish
Re: StripersandAnglers yearly coastwide fish stock assessment, state of the fishery.
It seems like all we will have left is bluefish.:(
Re: StripersandAnglers yearly coastwide fish stock assessment, state of the fishery.
Yep just like the 80's for about 20 years or so
Re: StripersandAnglers yearly coastwide fish stock assessment, state of the fishery.
I'm going to try to finish this Assessment for 2012....
I let this lapse as other things in my life do have priority....but I'll try to get some of the Qualitative data I collected finished by the end of February.....
What's important is these are not random opinions by me on a soapbox, but a compilation of hundreds of critically honest observations by Captains and Anglers...all along the East Coast, who I have been fortunate enough to meet and remain in contact. I'm very grateful for their opinions as these are the folks who fish more than most.....
And absent quantitative data, or data that is sometimes flawed or skewed (look at the recent dispute in the Seabass assessments and biomass calcs)
I would submit that this Qualitative method of gathering and presenting assessments of hundreds of anglers...is as accurate a picture as you wll get at this time....and can been seen as a compelling indicator of
1. Trends
2. Concerns
3. Rationales
4. Critical Field Observations
Many thanks to all who have been a part of the accuracy in the Qualitative observations in this thread.......:thumbsup: :HappyWave:
Re: NJ Fishing Reports for April 2013....www.StripersAndAnglers.com
^^Sadly, it seems this year they are in less concentrations than they have been. (so far)
If you are fishing an area they normally stop at on the migration highway, you are likely to do well.
What I have seen and am hearing so far is there are a lot of other areas that are dead water.
This could be partially due to lingering affects from Sandy...
They are in an area for a night or 2, and with no bait to hold them move on quickly..
As of the beginning of the week, there aren't many varieties of bait in most of the northern bays, other than bunker and worms....
Southern bays are a bit different....holding spearing and some other small forage....
The Spawning Areas...
Every year there are reports of big fish C&R in these areas....
There are a lot of strong opinions on this kind of fishing, so if ya's want to discuss it please feel free to start another thread on that...:thumbsup:
1. Chesapeake Flats fishing....
started about 10 days ago with some decent action....since then it has been spotty.....even night fishing with plugs which has traditionally yielded the biggest Spring fish. A few large were reported. I've received reports from some of the area's best anglers...guys who in the past said catching multiple 40# class fish in a night was a given......
Some are saying the flats fishing has been declining for the past several years.
These same guys are reporting that those fish have not been there in numbers this year.....
Why not?
2. Delaware Bay and Flats fishing....
The activity in this fishery ramped up within the last week. Nonetheless many of the anglers out there who are reporting double digit catches are catching quite a few of those fish in the 10-22" range....small YOY and 2nd year schoolies,,,,great to see them, but where are the bigger fish?
Again, I'm well aware of some of the bigger fish...I have the pics sent to me....but as far as quantity of big spawning Delaware stock fish...guys are already grumbling and asking where did they go this year?
3. Hudson River and Flats fishing.....
They are still catching small fish up there.....with an occasional 20# thrown in....but my point is, the big bass up to 60# that normally are swimming up the Hudson this time of year have not yet been sighted or documented.....Even by the guys who are fishing the lower Hudson, and NY Bight.
(Right now the NY Bight should be filled with millions of bass, if one were to truly believe the specious argument that the Hudson stock is composed of 4 million striped bass)........:rolleyes:
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...dson-this-year
The anglers fishing those mentioned areas would be the first to see the bigger fish before they make the long trek up the Hudson, and they haven't....
**I know there are folks who claim to be experts on this,,,,saying that the colder winter slowed things down a bit....set the clock back.......I'll buy that argument, to an extent....and am stilll trying to be optimistic.....but if these fish are not in the bays in the numbers that they have been, not in the canals, inlets, and river mouths.......
Where are they?
** Yes there have been some ocean fish following schools of bunker and herring over the past week, but they are there one day and gone the next....which to me indicates no real concentration of bass.....This worries me greatly.
more on that in this thread here.......
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...of-the-fishery
food for thought, folks....:learn:
Re: NJ Fishing Reports for April 2013....www.StripersAndAnglers.com
Re: StripersandAnglers yearly coastwide fish stock assessment, state of the fishery.
Re: Captains, Charters, and Customers.... what are they saying (and implying).....
Some of this I may eventually reference in the StripersAndAnglers state of the Fishery thread......
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...of-the-fishery
A member called me today. This is a guy 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. "