^^^ Wow considering all the postive rallying that guy usually does that is depressing. Thanks for the heads up fishing mission.
Senior Member
^^^ Wow considering all the postive rallying that guy usually does that is depressing. Thanks for the heads up fishing mission.
Senior Member
The surf has been dead for the last 2 years.Yes their are some fish caught hardly banner fishing,last year in the fall the boats hammered the bass heavily this year they are paying for it the charter/party boats have seen the worst bass fishing in years.I know quite a few Captains from the Captree fleet one is my neighbor so I'm getting my info straight from the horses mouth despite what the reports are saying.The fish have been leaving deeper each year mainly because they have a good food supply there so they have no reason to run the beach when the main body of food is not there.Small blues are 40 miles offshore we were catching them out seabass/cod fishing on Saturday.I have not fished the surf much this year(due to many factors) and what I have caught was dismal to say the least.
Cranky Old Bassturd.
Administrator
Took the liberty of numbering your points, Surf....hope ya don't mind....Originally Posted by surfstix1963
1. This is what many folks don't understand.....if they are catching fish....how can the surf be "dead" ?....Many would argue with your point here....saying....."Oh the fish are there but you just have to move around to find them"......Yep....we know that.........during the crab bite of Winter 2011....I caught up to 30 fish a night from the jetties.....
stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?8168-Winter-Fishing-Thread
some others who lived closer were hitting numbers up to 50 a night.....Yes that was a truly special bite....but for me, to catch those fish....I had to move up to 8 locations a night....try walking out on 8 jettys and jetty areas for a night's fishing.....and compare it to 10-15 years ago when you didn't have to do that......that's where I agree with ya, Rich......and get irritated by the new age fishermen who don't have an understanding of the whole picture....
2. Go back 8-15 years....the fishing today doesn't even compare...I agree...
3. Some real honesty here, Rich, thanks for posting it.....most Capts would agree in private conversations...Fin has these conversations with his Charter Capt friends all the time..
unfortunately there are still a handful of Raritan and Sheepshead Bay Captains putting out the propaganda that "Striped Bass fishing is better than ever!" because of a financial agenda...
4. I would agree, and add that as the bass biomass has shrunk, these fish that are "now offshore" have contracted in size......compared to prior years when there were more, and their range was more diverse...
5.......
6. Agreed....the fishing was so specific that unless you were willing to drop everything and rush out exactly when there was a good bite....or travel all over the state, and in come cases the East Coast, to areas which were hot for a week at a time....(for the record, there was no prolonged sustained Fall run even in the Montauk surf this year, of the magnitude that existed in years past).... Yes...some 50's were caught on eels at night by surfcasters who put in a helluva lot of time and effort...but if you honestly put in more than a few years fishing Montauk and out East...you would see that the numbers of fish available passing through have shrunk to a fraction of what it used to be......
Senior Member
Here is something I read on the world wide web today. It was mentioned here that some folks have no perspective because they don't have time on the water. That is a good point as well. I have been fishing for over 60 years and have seen the ups and downs.I agree.
"I surf and boat fish and there were many days (the majority actually) where there were just no bass around at all. This spring was the worst I've seen in over 10 years also, maybe 13 years actually.
The mad dog bite around Halloween and some decent jigging at the mouth of the Bay does not constitute a good year.
If you fished off Monmouth County on 10/30 and then Ocean County on 10/31 you would have thought stripers were falling from the sky. But that wasn't the way the rest of the fall went.
Those boat fleets you see with boats so close it looks like you could walk between them are a funny thing. I liken it to a dwindling resource, like a herd of wildebeasts around the last watering hole in the Serengeti. A ever shrinking biomass of fish concentrated into smaller and smaller areas (usually a specific bunker pod these days in NJ). It's desperation fishing. Meanwhile there's miles of open ocean with no bass.
Everyone knows a few guys that had some good days out there, or had a couple good days themselves hopefully, but that doesn't indicate a healthy stock of fish.
The indicator of a 'good' season is a consistent bite with good fish for weeks on end. There was a time when the fall was like that. Not a one hour blitz in the morning where Joe Blotz catches his first 40 lb striper ever so the captain can post its the best fishing he's ever seen.
Stop in and talk to guys like Ricky Donofrio who has been at the boat game for a real long time, much longer than any 5 year charter captain telling you how great striper fishing is now (while claiming we don't need striper regulation changes). He'll tell you it's bad, and getting worse, much like a lot of guys up and down the east coast will say."
Senior Member
From a recent report. the action at montauk was very spotty this fall. Unless you were fishing at night.
Hardly any reports of fall run from montauk to smiths' point\Jones/south shore like past years. Nothing like the fall runs in early december from 3+ years ago. Anything I missed or is this the new normal? Fall run is dying these years, unless you do the eel night thing in M i guess. Not much when i went during the days in Oct.
Senior Member
Capt Jason Colby from Quincy. I agree.
"I started "whining" about the decline in bass numbers in 2006 or 2007. Many of my statements were made on this site and here, as well as other places I was told that "I am imagining things", "I'm crazy", "it must be something local to where I'm fishing", etc.
I strongly disagreed with all of these things (except the 2nd one) because I was out there every day fishing the exact same way and places for years on end. You tend to be able to recognize "a trend" and that is just what was happening....
To add that in the 70's, I thought that "tough fishing" was the way it was. I was quite content to catch a few fish a week as they were averaging well over thirty pounds apiece. In 1981 when I moved "full time" to Montauk and I started getting into 400 and 500 pound nights I thought I had died and went to heaven. From where I was standing I couldn't see anything coming!
....JC
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Captain Jason Colby
Little Sister Charters
Senior Member
My buddies fish montauk almost every week for stripers. Some of them got large by tossing eels late night. There were some nice fish. Nothing like it has been 5 or 6 years ago tho. Stripers don't just disappear from montauk unless there are less of them. There is no special place they hide. They have to pass by the point. When they don't you know there is something wrong.
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