StripersandAnglers yearly coastwide fish stock assessment, state of the fishery

[DarkSkies]

Late Spring Recap
June is usually a great month for fishing ...some observations so far.....
(I'll try to post this in the S&A State of the Fishery thread when I get a chance)
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...of-the-fishery


1. The Northern activity in the Raritan bay/NY Bight.... (as had been predicted)....petered out as the Hudson Bass went up the Hudson to spawn....by some accounts it was one of the shortest-lived spawns in recent years....By May 16 bass were moving downriver.....and as of this date have moved on quickly.
Although some have remained in the RB/ NY Bight...in the usual areas....A large % of bass are now in the Western Sound....along with giant bluefish.....following the vast schools of bunker.




2. The BBay bass and blue action seemed to wane in consistency....but the inlets, and anywhere the bunker are...still seem to hold some solid fish.........




3. Weather is probably a big factor in that action, or more importantly the specific pattern....South and SE winds the last 2 weeks have brought the surf in Ocean and parts of Monmouth counties down to as low as 46 in some areas......It seems fish are being trolled out deep...also some action in that early pre-dawn window in bunker schools......but no one is jumping up and down and calling this the best year for bass ever......




4. Chesapeake/Delaware Bass.....The naive optimism of some puzzles me.....I recently was sent some internet comments about how most bass are "still" down South....

In some examples these are specific, concentrated cases..........what has happened is there are some usual hotspots....from Assateague Island to the Atlantic County NJ Area...where the bass will gather and feed for a short detour on the northern migration.
This year...many of the inshore hotspots seem to be where highest concentrations of bunker....and squid....have been found....
Bass have held in Southern NJ for far longer than they usually do.....again due primarily to high forage concentrations

Nonetheless, Chesapeake and Delaware bass are already being caught along the SS of LI and out east in Montauk.....
It seems some of them are again bypassing Central Jersey and migrating across the Mudhole,.





5. Chesapeake Bass.....2 weeks ago.....Pebbles and I were at a conference in Va Beach.....We came back over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge....20 miles of bridge, and not one striped bass was being caught....all the locals had turned their attention to Drum...
It was a sobering thought to me...that the vast Chesapeake....had been (emptied) of bass....

I'm sure a few could have been caught by some of us at night from the bridge pilings.....but the lack of striped bass was shocking....I sent some of you texts to remember that fact the next time a Charter Capt boasts there are "more striped bass than ever".





6. Striped bass can move quickly on their Spring and Fall migration.....documented as much as 10-15 miles per day......I have gotten so many comments this year..."Well we crushed em there yesterday and today it's like the dead sea".....
It's difficult to predict where they will be from one day to the next...when they are constantly moving....




7. Beach Replenishment......Dirty Water.....Loss of forage

The beach replenishment, and disruption of good bottom, has definitely changed the pattern of bass and other species hugging the beach on their migration....


However...to those who would say those bass have all simply moved offshore....I ask them to explain the presence of giant bluefish....in the very surf the striped bass are absent from....

No matter how you look at it....beach replenishment has changed some things for the worse...and it will be a long time before things revert back to how some of us remember...

Something to think about....

[DarkSkies]

The Jamaica Bay striped bass fishery....2014-2015

I have been following and formally documenting this fishery for 8 years now.
(and slightly longer than that...with informal reports from others....)

This is how robust it used to be...years back.....
The bay would go dormant during the winter...as many bays do.....

2 significant developments:

In the Spring....even before the NY striped bass season would open....

1. There would be fish caught in the bay area beginning in March.....
As the NY Harbor fish awoke from their suspended animation...they would venture out of the frigid waters of the Hudson....and into the nearby fertile waters of Jamaica bay....
I have often described Jamaica Bay as a world class striped bass fishery....the scores of creeks and lagoons carved out of its edges provide a nutrient rich forage base for many predators.......many varieties of bait fish thrive in that bay..


I have fished and kayaked Jamaica bay..some of its most isolated areas...and had a chance to meet some of the area's best fishermen......
I remember when I first got to know Elias....I think back in 2008.....we were out there at different times on the flats....sharing intel.....sometimes fishing pre-season....(catch and release) just to see if the bass were coming in as usual......

For the past 2 years.....these fish have not been there pre spawn...in the numbers they once were.....
So sparse, that for the early spring...until after the Hudson spawn is done....Eli has been coming over to NJ to fish......

The same pattern happened this year....Jamaica Bay is now filled with bass...but what happened to the bass that used to be there in March and April?

(Again, keep in mind that this winter was terrible....one of the most severe in a long time....)
But that does not account for the fact that for the last 2 years....this pattern of these bass being absent...has started to develop.....










2. The 40 and 50 lb bass of Jamaica Bay- where did they go?
I only have to go back 5 years in my logs and observations to see a distinct shift in the pattern and size of fish caught....
5 years ago....every week someone would report catching a 50 during prime season after spawning.....
and sometimes in the month of April as well....

I ask the readers here.....how often has that happened in recent years?
Within the confines of Jamaica Bay, and not out in front of the Hudson River?

Rarely....




This concerns me...as it should you....
When the numbers of bass are less......
a. we notice gaps in certain year classes...
b. and gaps on the edges.....

Food for thought.....

[seamonkey]

Thanks for this thread. Some feedback for the delmarva area I found on the net-
Seems IRI and AI are mostly dead this fall. Makes me wonder why.

"The fish at Assateague are not there and that is where most of the board members fish. More than sixty days fishing this fall not a single striper. It was not unusual to have a 40 fish fall season (35-50 inch) in times past....but not in recent memory. I shall not re-hash the many theory's about why this is so, but it is fact."


"I fish IBSP and north 2->3 days a week Sept to Thanksgiving. Then I'll pick rats until it gets too cold. One evening we had a nice pick of 26->30 inch fish. I got 3 a buddy got 5 and another buddy 1. Two other guys next to us did the same. That was the entire season for me. My buddy fished maybe 10 other days. He picked one 18->20 inch fish a few times and a couple blues. Boats had a better shot and did OK.
I've been at it since I was 20. I'm also 67 now. In the 80s & 90s there were blitzes every 3->4 days. Most lasted between 1 to 4 hours. Some lasted almost all day. The beaches were litered with bait that beached itself. On Columbus day we would drive to Sandy Hook and almoat always catch Albacore. Lots of them.
The Epic NJ bass blitzes this fall lasted between 5 to 30 minutes. I would guess there were about 5 of them. I haven't seen a bluefish blitz for about 10 years.
What's left of those NJ stripers are entering Del area now. Hopefully they'll come close for you."

[captnemo]

Nice write-up on the Hudson Stock today by Capt Al Ristori on his nj.com blog.

After watching too many spawning-size striped bass gaffed in Raritan Bay during the unprecedented summer bite there in 2014, I wasn't too confident about whether the Hudson River stock would once again provide us with striper fishng much better than most other coastal states. Fortunately, with N.Y. still protecting those bass due to concerns over PCB contamination, the Hudson linesiders came through for us with flying colors.

The Raritan Bay spring fishery didn't get off to a good start as there were few early schoolies to be caught clamming in the back of the bay -- but an abundance of bunkers eventually led to fine action with larger bass. When I fished the bay along with Nellie Greer of Bethlehem Pa. on Chuck Many's Ty Man out of Gateway Marina in Highlands on May 4 we ended up with a release total of 50 stripers up to a 34-pounder plus two of the just-arriving bluefish.


Those blues complicated the striper fishing, and when we fished the bay two weeks later it was a problem to release only 13 bass among the hordes of choppers from Ty Man. The blues were then a problem for all in the Manhattan Cup on May 15, though I was fortunate to release stripers of 32 and 38 1/2 inches fork length while fishing aboard Tom Adami's Just Enough from Great Kills in a contest where I'd rarely had any luck with stripers on the boats I was assigned to over the years.


The Hudson River came through on my birthday trip despite a forecast of rain and northeast winds. Many ran up there on June 1 and quickly marked fish that we anchored on to chunk bunkers. The Ty Man total for Many, Greer, Greg Prestosh from Pa., and I was 27 stripers up to 28 pounds with only seven blues. While there was flooding in Newark, we never had more than drizzle a few miles away.


The biggest surprise of the early summer was the discovery of a body of exceptionally large stripers off the mouth of the bay. Capt. Vinnie Vetere, of Katfish Charters in Great Kills, was one of the first to discover those bass that provided him with his first 60-pounder while another 60 was boated and several anglers also broke into the 50-pound club by being at the right spot when those bass turned on to live bunkers briefly around dusk. During the one evening I fished there with Ty Man, Many weighed and released a 44-pounder for me before reeling in his 43-pounder -- and then it was over.


Though the summer striped bass fishery in Raritan Bay wasn't up to the previous year's standards, Many always managed at least schoolies -- and usually some large bass as the Hudson River stock bailed us out after another spotty ocean fishery on bunker schools with the coastal migrants.


The fall fishery started off in mid-October with big bass under bunker schools along the Shore such as we had wished for in the spring when it was usually lots of bunkers but few bass. Many anglers had their best striper days ever as those coastal migrants fattened up for their long journey to spawning grounds in Delaware and Chesapeake bays -- often hitting popping and swimming plugs or shad lures as well as live bunkers.


That didn't mean the Hudson River stock wasn't also storing up fat for the winter. There was some great action on live bunkers in the back of Raritan Bay all the way back to the Outerbridge Crossing where one afternoon there were bunkers flipping from one side to the other and every one snagged was quickly inhaled by a large bass.


That set up fishing for the Hi-Mar Striper Club 40-hour Tournament on Oct. 24-25 when I joined Many and his crew (Greer, Dave Donahue of Readington, and Matt Calabria from Hazlet) on Ty Man to fish both the river and bay to win with a two-bass total of 71.6 pounds -- both of which were released after the weigh-in.


On Nov. 5-6, the same crew stayed in the Hudson to fish the Staten Island Big Bass Shootout where we released 175 stripers up to the winning 31 1/4-pounder that was also released.


It took some time for the school striper run to develop. On Nov. 18, Capt. Hans Kaspersetz and I ran down the beach with Sheri Berri from Baker's Marina on the Bay in Highlands after a northeaster only to find not a thing for Joe Blaze and Dave Cheli from Brielle before a call from the Sea Hunter out of Atlantic Highlands got us into a massive showing of birds diving over stripers up to 31 inches feeding on peanut bunkers off Atlantic Beach.


Those fish didn't get to the Shore quickly, and we were worried that the lack of sand eels would result in them moving on. Fortunately, the peanuts held them -- and swim shads became the hot fall lure. Bluefish were also abundant during the schoolie casting, and I got a big surprise on Dec. 5 when a 26-inch, 7-pound long-out-of-season fluke hit my Tsunami shad off Ocean County.


Instead of leaving quickly, big blues got even more aggressive as sea herring showed up in December. Casting pencil poppers to jumbo blues off Sandy Hook on December 12 with Mark Roy on his Century 31 from Raritan Marina was a rare thrill. Though those fish seemed to disappear, there was an even more unusual end to the year when surfcasters got into a blitz of both stripers and big blues in Ocean County after Christmas.











http://www.nj.com/shore/blogs/fishin...rt_river_index

[DarkSkies]

Time to add a little to this....will come back when I can. Thanks to everyone who has shared their experience and anecdotes.
I posted this earlier-"There are a few encouraging signs out there:
2. lots of little striped bass from the robust 2011 and 2015 YOY classes.





#2 above has become a prominent feature many have been noticing last year and this Winter. Small 2nd through 5th year class striped bass seem to be everywhere.

Although I try to keep up with the Coastwide striped bass populations, thanks to a few hundred contacts I've met over the years, I need to add to it, that this is the first time I have felt some positive signs in a while.....The robustness of these small fry year classes does look well for the future of the fishery....
a. given the fact they need a couple years to reach maturity,
b. and folks don't lose sight that there are serious gaps in many of the breeder class years...

** Bear in mind that this is only the chart for the Chesapeake strain. There are different things going on with the Delaware and Hudson River strains. I have personally experienced the ups and downs of fishing all those areas. However, I believe these robust year classes can help us overall.

Very positive nonetheless...and something to be happy about...."

[captnemo]

Agree about the small stripers. I started noticing that last year. They seem to be stacked in the bay but showed up at places like the shrewsbury rocks and sandy hook channel as well.

[captnemo]

Seems that Capt Al Ristori agrees with what has been said as well. He posted this yesterday on www.nj.com report

Sportfishermen are generally happy today after the ASMFC, at their meeting in Alexandria, Va., voted down a motion pushed by commercial interests in the Chesapeake Bay states to increase the striped bass quota by about 10 percent. Surprisingly, N.J. voted with Va, Md., De., and the PRFC in favor of the increase.
The migratory run of stripers from the south has been well below the standards of the years following the recovery of the fishery, -- and this year's run has been both very late and almost nonexistent so far. In recent years, it's been the healthy Hudson River stock that's been bailing out anglers in the Metropolitan area.