captains charters and customers what are they saying

[DarkSkies]

3. With all the bass we saw in front of us today, there is no way rod and reel fishermen could put a dent in the striped bass fishery!


Another common mis-conception.
A good friend got into an intense argument in a tackle shop with a party boat mate who made that statement. His assessment was there are more bass than ever before.....followed by the above statement.





This fails to take into account, the fact that there are severe gaps in the striped bass year classes.

1. Many of us on the northern NJ beaches have noticed a lack of smaller ocean fish in the fall. In the past, even before the "fall run" was officially declared, many of us could catch a few small bass, salvaging the trip. Lately, that isn't the case.

2. In the last week, some smaller fish have moved inshore....these are commonly known as the "death rats" because the smaller fish, being more tolerant of colder water, generally signal the end of the run..,,this is a pattern we have come to rely on every year......

3. However, the fish in point 2 above are not the ones I am talking about.....it seems that many of our resident fish in NJ, are no longer there in numbers.....
To learn more, do a google search for
"NJ's resident bass, why have they abandoned us?"

4. This decline in smaller fish, correlates with a decline I have been noticing for the last 6 years in my fishing logs.....and a decline in YOY totals for each of the last 6 years, except 2011.

[DarkSkies]

This fails to take into account, the fact that there are severe gaps in the striped bass year classes.

.

4. "Can't wait to catch my next trophy bass! Looking for a 60 lber!"


The grim truth is....many of those bigger fish are dead........
With the heavy emphasis on catching trophies in the last few years....fever over Greg Myerson's record bass from the CT rockpiles...we, as Americans, still have the "bigger is better" mentality in a lot of things we do.....

Bass fishing is no different....
Weighing in a 25 lb bass or posting a pic on the internet....garners some praise.....
But we all know...that weighing in a 40lb, or posting the pics......gets much more attention...

So much attention that fewer and fewer bigger bass are being caught regularly....
We have "over-harvested" that segment of the striped bass population.

Don't believe me?
Do a search of fishing reports of headboats, charters, private boats...on any major fishing site.....
Even at Montauk, you will see the average size of the bigger fish being caught is 20-25 lbs.

Are there bigger ones caught?
Absolutely....but if you fish regularly, you have to have noticed the average size is declining every year......
One reason being that we are over-harvesting the big girls......and they are not being replaced quickly enough.......it takes a 35lb bass an average of 15-20 years to mature to that size.....many folks are not understanding that part of the equation.....they are not like Doritos...ya just can't make more......

[DarkSkies]

5. "There are no bass inshore because there is too much bait offshore!"


There are times when the above statement makes logical sense.
It would also make sense to say that the bass are not close in some areas because of the extensive beach replenishment.

However, this statement doesn't take several instances into effect. The years 2011 to 2013, some areas of NJ coasts had miles of bunker just 1/4 mile offshore for several late Spring months into Summer. In some cases these vast schools of bunker stretched for up to 20 miles.

Bunker is arguably one of the best and most desirable food sources for striped bass....and a preferred food source.....









**For the above statement to always be true, the converse - that when there are miles of bunker in close, there should be thousands of bass on them - should be true as well....
For parts of 2011- 2013, it was not.......what we had in the late spring, after the first wave of bass moved north, was a dead sea filled with miles of bunker.....and not many bass at all under them........

This fact supports the statement that the biomass is declining......and I offer it as proof in the argument here in hopes that some who don't get out there to fish a lot, will begin to re-assess their thoughts and think of the other possibilities why they are not seeing bass in front of them......

Thanks for reading.....