Quote Originally Posted by yardvillejimmy View Post
It is an accepted notion that there are natural up and down cycles in the population of various species of saltwater fish.

Fishing both boat and surf since the 1970's I have experienced the good times and bad times when pursuing various species of salt water fish.

I have seen the years of fantastic weakfishing in Delaware Bay, Raritan Bay and Barnegat Bay. Only to see a total collapse of that fishery in current times.

Overall the fish population in Raritan Bay seems to be on a steady decline.


The following is an excerpt from an article which I believe we should all take into consideration.

CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY

APRIL 21, 1997

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES, WILDLIFE AND OCEANS

(from Jersey Coast Anglers Association) May 1997 Newspaper

In the ocean, the study of ecosystem management becomes much more complex. We cannot easily see the changes in stock in the same fashion that we observe changes in the number of lemmings, foxes and owls. For years, menhaden have been a major part of the striped bass and bluefish diet. There are studies to confirm this relationship. When we overharvest menhaden, other species like squid, sand eels and mackerel have historically made up the difference in the diets of striped bass and bluefish. The stocks of these species have now declined and have left few alternatives for supplementing the diet of striped bass and bluefish. For the last thirty years, NMFS has continued to declare some species, especially forage fish, as "underutilized." With the collapse of historical fisheries, many commercial fishermen have begun to harvest these "underutilized" species. There has been a dramatic increase in the harvest of bunker, herring, squid, ling and whiting. Some people do not consider ling and whiting as forage species, but bluefin tuna feed on them regularly. We are totally destroying the delicate ecological balance of nature by our unchecked overfishing and the result will be a dramatic shift in all predator/prey relationships in our oceans. We have seen what happens on land when we upset the balance of nature. Flooding, global warming, loss and contamination of potable water, extinction of species, and other man-made catastrophes all take place. When will we ever learn? It is my sincerest hope that the process will begin with this hearing today. }

Yardville, I know you and the OFFC have decades of experience seeing the rise and fall of fishing, the good times and the bad. I was hoping that one of ya's would chime in here. Thanks for the post, very informative.