StripersandAnglers yearly coastwide fish stock assessment, state of the fishery
There are a lot of threads on internet sites discussing what's happening with fishing.
Take away all these types of threads, and all you would have left would be a few fishing reports, some people discussing tackle and gear, and a heck of a lot of whining and self-indulgent posts. :rolleyes:
I feel that boring as they seem, threads like the one I'm starting now are needed.
More and more I realize that there are many folks out there who have only been fishing a few short years. To them, fishing has never been richer, each year the "epic" fishing gets better and better. :wheeeee:
Given that they have only been in the game a few years, their perspective seems "right" to them, and sometimes they aren't willing to consider that they might not be looking at the whole picture.
When you broaden the timeline of fishing experience, you begin to see patterns that develop more clearly, not just over weeks or seasons, but over decades.
When you have this level of experience, you begin to see how this all ties in together, and the interlocking relationships between predator, bait, bait migration, weather changes, structure changes, and the fishing that we all love.
What you can expect from this thread?
1. Twice yearly. I'll talk about the state of fishing, based on a combination of gov't statistics and most importantly, observations from fishemen who are out there on the front lines, fishing almost every day of the season.
I'm fortunate to have the contacts I have. :HappyWave: In some cases they don't want publicity or mention. In other cases they might come here and weigh in for a post or 2. However, the bottom line is....these will be accurate observations based on folks who fish regularly. It will be a collection of observations, from different folks in different areas, that helps to make this thread a success, and perhaps a resource for some of the scientists out there who have little contact with real fishermen. :learn:
2. These statements will be generalizations of fishing within a specfic area. Please remember that, whether it's noted or not.
And remember that there are some folks who will do much better than the observations here. If so feel free to come here and report your experience. All opinions welcome.
I know about blitzes that occur, every day. I get real-time info, every day. We may not mention them here as much, but that doesn't mean they don't happen.
However, for purposes of consistency, I think it's best to report on the fishing that the average fisherman experiences. Granted, the "average" fishermen I refer to from time to time are highly skilled, and may fish way more than most people.
Nonetheless, I think for consistency over time, it's best to present a broad spectrum of fishing, if any of this is to have credibility.
What will set this apart from threads elsewhere?
1. To my knowledge, there are no threads on internet siites that are now discussing the fishing on a coast-wide basis, to the extent that it will be discussed here on StripersandAnglers.
It's been suggested by more than one person that fisheries management would be best achieved by considering all the species in the ocean as a sort of primordial soup, all inter-dependent on each other, and all needing to be kept in balance lest too much damage be done by one dominant species.
Ex: the protection of the spiny dogfish as "endangered" has long been pointed to as a failure of fisheries management to see the big picture. By completely isolating the population figures of this species from the rest of the mix, management has allowed them to proliferate to the extent that they dominate most species in areas most favorable to them. This has shifted the dynamic in the biomass ratios for many competing fish.
This is just poor long-term planning.
It has economically affected many fishermen, both recs and comms alike.
And it is just one example that would be different, if fisheries management would look at species globally today.
2. This thread will attempt to weave in different species to show the inter-relation. Although you will mostly hear assessment of striped bass, you will hear assessments of other fish that live in the same environment, why or why not their numbers are what they are, and how they are involved together.
3. This thread will attempt to show how our perception of fishing is related to the bait migration. More studies out there focus on striped bass fishing, than many other species.
Still, not much attention is paid to bait migration. I'll attempt to show the folks browsing here how the bait and predator migration are critically intertwined.
2011 Coastwide fishing assessments, mid year, July 2011.
I'll do one of these every end of June, and every end of December, to capture 6 months of fishing experience at a time.
Might as well start the mid-year one, as it's almost July.
These will take some time to post, as I'm involved in some other projects now, and have limited time.
I'll try to be as accurate as possible with each area.
Remember, these are based on reports I received, if it's an area I don't fish regularly.
Chesapeake Bay Assessment, Spring 2011
The striped bass fishery got off to a good start. There was some rain and runoff that diminished early catches in the upper Chesapeake. Kudos to fisheries management there for deciding to keep fishing closed for an additional few weeks during the spawn.
Even though some folks said they had good fishing, I think overall there were less trophy bass weighed in this year, than in any recent year prior. (Something to think about)
Ocean County Beaches, LBI
LBI frontside enjoyed a fairly decent spring run if you were fishing the bunker pods from a boat or the surf. Chunking bunker or snag and drop worked for most of these fish, although a few were caught with pencil poppers.
I believe fish to 49# were caught from the surf, as registered in the Spring LBI tournament.
I don't believe they registered any 50's from the surf, although a few were caught slightly off the beach by boaters.
The surf in LBI never really got into gear with any consistency for smaller bass, or big bluefish. Most of the bass were caught among the bunker schools. Other than that it was slim pickings.
It's been said that the big bluefish have been feeding offshore (5-50miles off) on the abundant bait (sand eels) that usually comes closer into the surf zone. This year 2011 that did not happen for the Spring run, and there is still some hope things will be different for the Fall. The normally abundant small forage (spearing, rainfish, etc) did not show up in the surf and jetty lines until June. This was about a month later than it usually shows up, and seemed to be the case for many areas in the NJ surf.
Ocean County NJ, bayside...
Barnegat Bay, Barnegat/Manasquan Inlets, Manasquan & Toms River, PP Canal, etc....
The back side of LBI, docks, marinas, bridges and sods, traditionally produces some good early season fishing. This year the Spring waters remained cold for quite longer than usual. This probably contributed to a difference in the catches back there. I and a few others have traditionally done quite well starting in mid-March to the end of April with small bass. Traditonally the "resident" fish that have wintered at Oyster Creek start to spread through the bay as the temps warm and the small forage, chiefly spearing and grass shrimp, begins to be more prevalent.
This spring, that fishing was poor, with less numbers per trip than in past years. There were several trips where I didn't mark any early season forage at all, and eventually I turned to other areas to fish. I do have contact with some anglers who did OK in the back of LBI, but the feedback I heard from them was that fishing numbers for bass on artificials and bait at night were down from the past. It was so poor that around mid-April, some of the most active LBI fishermen left LBI to search some rivers and creeks for better action.
Of course, some nice fish to 20# and larger were nailed bayside this spring. Fish that big usually come from bridges and similar structure. The guys who fish these structures regularly, claim that the fishing has been pretty inconsistent even in those areas. And, as mentioned in the Toms River assessment, there were some early schools of schoolie bass roaming the bay.
Toms River-
Toms River actually out-produced a few other spots in that general area this year. The bite held for a few weeks. What was interesting about the Toms River bite was that there was an abundance of schoolie bass 10-20". These bass were conspicuously absent from many other areas, and it was a glimmer of hope to see them active in that area.
Barnegat Inlet -
Once the water warmed up a bit in late April, the bluefish action was pretty predictable. Fish were feeding on the incoming tide to high the majority of time, and guys who were there at the right time enjoyed some good bluefish action. However, the action was with mostly smaller blues, as the monster blues people were accustomed to seeing at this time remained offshore. Bass action in Barnegat Inlet for those who fished from the jetties was sporadic, and some might have said it was poor, save for some nights when the switch was turned on. This inlet traditionally produces a good number of smaller bass to the mid teens in the spring. I don't see where any reported catches this year equaled the numbers of years past.
** Caveat...as with all areas, there are many folks fishing other than ones who report to tackle shops. I know this, and have tried to develop an extensive network of guys who fish frequently and have no need for the internet. So, in these assessments, I am taking to account both the posted reports and the ones of guys who never post, but provide me with intel.
Admittedly, not as scientific as it could be, but I hope these anecdotal short assessments will help to give folks out there a clearer picture of fishing as it actually is for the areas they fish in.
Manasquan Inlet, Manasquan River, and Point Pleasant Canal -
There are folks I know who fish these areas every day, in season. They fish from a boat or from the rocks, or from the pockets, or from the bulkheads on the sides. This year, they were pretty consistent in their grumblings...that this has been the worst year in their recent memory for spring fishing.
These grumblings came even from guys who were fishing live herring, aka bass candy. Some of these guys would fish the inlet or canal for weeks at a time with herring. Logs from past years would show that these guys had hammered striped bass consistently around these times using herring, and artificials. This year, less than a handful of nice bass were caught by those drifting herring in these back areas.
The same "late spring" conditions of cold water that affected other areas also came into play here, and should be noted for consistency. Also, the forage numbers were way down. Large numbers of bait didn't show up till mid-May. Even then they were not holding to any particular area, merely passing through. When the numbers were large, there were times guys got good numbers of fish in these areas. More often than not, guys did poorly in spite of all the hours put in.
There are a lot of charter boat captains, and others, who claim the NJ striped bass fishery is as strong as it ever was. Here's the simple truth...if the guys who are fishing live bait, herring, are not getting numbers of fish like in years past, in areas that have been consistently productive in that time frame, this is an indication of a serious problem. http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...cons/icon3.png
You put a live herring in front of a bass, and it is genetically impossible for the bass to resist that herring. That's why so many guys have grown up on the herring bite. If the fish are there in numbers, you are almost guaranteed a fish.
But what if the fish are not there, in numbers.....? :huh:
Manasquan Inlet to Sandy Hook, first half of 2011
I have fallen behind on this thread. Other things have kept me busy and I slacked off. :beatin:
After Fin let me know of the ASMFC ruling not to make any changes now until another assessment (at the urging of Tom Fote of the JCAA) .....
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...own-in-numbers...
I now know I must push on with these assessments.
As opposed to the "scientific" assessments, these are anecdotal assessments, gathered from my fishing results and the hundreds of fishermen I've met and talked to out there. The average fisherman who talks to me has been fishing 20 years or more, so I feel there is some breadth and weight to these assessments.
I could have broken this down to the Shark River Inlet as the halfway point, but decided not to. For consistency I will continue to report this way.
***************
Fishing from MI to SH for the first half of 2011 followed part of the usual pattern where the fish showed up when the bunker were there. Before that, isolated quantities of bass were caught on clams and artificials. This seemed to be a slow season to start because for the longest time the ocean temps stayed close to 50.
Beginning the 2nd week of May, and ending with the last week of June, this time span of 6 weeks is arguably the most productive for NJ surf guys, as the temps rise and bunker schools migrate along the surf. This is the time when anyone and everyone has a shot at a 50lb surf caught bass. in fact, several bass over 50 were caught from the surf in that region this year, the biggest I saw recorded was 52#. :d
There are some who will say this was the BEST surf season ever for NJ big bass in that time period. I would tend to agree with that statement.
Some would also ask me...Dark if you agree with that, how can you say the numbers are down? :don't know why:
A few points....
1. The bass were highly concentrated, save for a few "epic" :rolleyes: days when they were distributed through both ocean and monmouth counties. This concentration meant that if you were on the "red x" as the OFFC :HappyWave: has coined the term, you were into big fish. If you were 1 mile away, you were wondering where the fish were. :huh:
2. This great concentration of larger fish was a similar pattern of catches right before the moratorium was instituted in 1982, and as such, parallels can be drawn.
3. Although some fish in the 50's were landed, there was a notable lack of fish in that year class, and in the year class for 20lb fish and under. Surf fisherman after fisherman was marvelling that these were among the biggest fish they had ever seen, such were the glowing reports on the internet sites and gained from my personal interviews.
4. I believe there were also less 50 lb fish caught this year than at any time since guys have been getting fish in the NJ surf during these blitzes. It was said that the 30lb bass became the "new 50", because that was the year class that the majority of fish harvested seemed to represent.
5. So, if we are wiping out the 50's and the 40's, and there are a noticable lack of fish under 20#, this might indicate to an astute observer that there are certain year classes of striped bass, that are poorly represented. They are just not there.
This is not scientific, but scientific ASMFC historical evidence does tend to support a disparity in certain striped bass year classes. And, although not scientific, the reports and data I used to make my assessments here are from hundreds of fishermen, many who fish several times a week. Most of these guys were happy with their catches this Spring season, yet,,, many of them grumbled that they had to run farther and hit more locations (whether by boat or surf) to find the fish that in previious years had been described as like "fishing in a barrel of big fish".
That wasn't the case this year, with the exception of some of the charter boats that were able to dial into about 2 weeks of very consistent action as the fish seemed to be holding on some patches slightly N of Manasquan Inlet. all the way up to MB.
And now we'll mention Sandy Hook as a special case. Fishing Sandy Hook for years, it's one of my favorite places. This year, with the exception of a few good weeks in the early Spring when clams were king, and a week when bunker dumped out of the bay, the fishing has been terribly inconsistent. It's nothing of the sort that it was even 3 short years ago.
One of my long-ago mentors, who fished Sandy Hook almost every day during the season, for decades, has now abandoned Sandy Hook in search for better structure at beaches South of there.
Summary:
For the majority of guys chasing the bass, the big bass were few and far between except for a very productive 2-3 week period.
Even the "bunker pod strategy" used by many boaters was at times ineffective.
At times, there were miles of bunker, up to 12 miles in area, of bunker, with no bass or bluefish under them.
Anyone who wants to talk about how the bass are not under-fished, would be hard pressed to completely explain the above lack of bass under those miles of bunker.
Some might point to the water temps as the reason for absence of bass toward the end of June. During most of the time when the bunker pods were without any bass on them, the ocean temps were in the low to mid 60's. These temps are at the point where they are starting to become warm and naturally cause the bass to seek out cooler water. http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...cons/icon3.png
However, certainly not hot enough to push the whole biomass of bass north, if there was food to be eaten here. :learn: