captains charters and customers what are they saying

[seamonkey]

Betty and Nicks posted this today.
1/16/14 UPDATED 4:27 AM It's the dead sea again as far as I can see. Not one bluefish or bass caught in the tourney yesterday and even the night bite was bad last night. Unless we get these fish that are still north and some sandeels quickly, this will be one of the worst Fall runs I can remember.

Now I don't feel so bad for skunking out.

[fishinmission78]

Unless we get these fish that are still north and some sandeels quickly, this will be one of the worst Fall runs I can remember.

X2 I have got some nice fish but overall this fall has been terrible for me.

[fishinmission78]

SM there's no real reason to make the trip north as the great action has slowed to a trickle. got 2 dinks this morning and I mean dinks. Biggest was 18".
B&N's latest report -
"11/23/14 UPDATED 4:39 AM Dead and participation is at all time low."

[seamonkey]

^^^ Wow considering all the postive rallying that guy usually does that is depressing. Thanks for the heads up fishing mission.

[surfstix1963]

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.

[DarkSkies]

1. The surf has been dead for the last 2 years.

2. Yes their are some fish caught hardly banner fishing.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. Small blues are 40 miles offshore we were catching them out seabass/cod fishing on Saturday.

6. I have not fished the surf much this year(due to many factors) and what I have caught was dismal to say the least.

Took the liberty of numbering your points, Surf....hope ya don't mind....

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......

[clamchucker]

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."

[nitestrikes]

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.

[dogfish]

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



__________________
Captain Jason Colby
Little Sister Charters

[7deadlyplugs]

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.

[williehookem]

Read this by an older fisherman. Thought it was a pretty interesting comment.

"I fished thru the late 70's and 80'sand into the moratorium years and at a time even though the size limit was only 16ins there wasn't too many little ones around .You put your time in and ground out the bite you were waiting for.Even though its in my opinion nowhere near as bad as before the shutdown something with the population is not right."

[surferman]

Some of these capts are now posting pics of grilled and broiled bluefish and saying how good they are and sharing recipes on the internet. Do you think they would be doing that if striper fishing were that great?

[finchaser]

With the new regs and far less fish which is from past years gluttony. These so called pro's can't put a catch together with out large bunker schools with fish big enough to eat them committing suicde. One of the so called self proclaimed expert Captains was in the shop the other day inquiring about how to troll spoons on wire. A hero to zero in a year pretty pathetic if you ask me.

[buckethead]

2 recent comments by charter captains-
This one from point pleasant."As you can tell, the fishing has been tough for us with all the time wasted looking for the Stripers. Pretty bad ratio..... Fluke soon!"

"I give you a lot of credit honoring your charters wishes to fish for stripers when they are few and far between. We marked them real good after we saw you the other morning but didn't have any livies at the time. Found the bunker then couldn't find the bass...go figure right."

[fishinmission78]

read on a fishing reports site
There are no fish out of Barnegat Inlet. There are no stripers, no fluke, a few small blues. There aren't even any crabs or skates, nothing. Its like fishing in a desert. Its so bad the party boats are fishing around the rocks in the inlet for small blues and I saw nothing caught. And the commercial guys are taking whatever bunker they can find. Shut the lights, close the door, its over.
Sun June 14 2015

I agree with most of what this guy is saying above. The only thing I would disagree is we have had some great action in the bay and inlet for blues this year. The best in years. That is cause of the bunker tho. The blues have been on those bunker for a long time. Finally started to die down cause like the op says when they net a lot of bunker the fish go elsewhere.
Also blowfish and croakers are now around in some good numbers too. that will bring a lot of fish in.

[williehookem]

2 reports I read on the net recently-

"If I had to rate the spring run in the western sound (west of Captain's Island) so far this spring, I would rate it a F+ to a D-.
Fishing has been very inconsistent and the bigger fish are just passing thru the area and a few lucky boaters are picking at them in the middle (not my style of fishing).
There is no consistent bite on the pieces, reefs or any structure other then small 15"-34" bass. Spots that have been great for over 12 years, are holding nothing but rats."



Below is from capt gene of montauk sportfishing. I read his reports every week and def think he makes a lot of sense.


"Besides the charter boats not sailing the way they should, there doesn’t seem to be the amount of boats out fishing that you would normally expect to see at this time of the year. The owner of the boat that I run isn’t here yet, so I haven’t been out on the water much, but I have been taking a drive out around the Lighthouse on occasion.

This Saturday at mid-day I only saw four boats fishing. A little further along I stopped where I could look back and see boats fishing the Elbow, and there might have been a dozen or so boats there. Later on coming back from the boat in Devon, coming down the hill into town I could see only two boats fishing, probably off Ditch Plains.

Most years I would see what looks like the Blessing of the Fleet. From the road I couldn’t see how many boats were fluke fishing between the Radar and the Point and I wasn’t going to pay the $4.50 parking fee just to count the boats.

Then I took a ride around the marinas, where I saw a couple of old-line charter boats that I wouldn’t even think about calling if I needed a boat for a weekend, sitting in. Weekdays are a lot worse with boats tied to the dock.

May is already a wasted month and now June is looking to be almost as bad. And, it’s not just the boats in Montauk. The boat I run is docked at Devon Yacht Club, back in Gardiners Bay. It’s 75% sailboats with a couple of outboards and my boat. It looks like only about half of the slips have boats in them yet, and there is a list of members waiting for slips there, so it’s not that there are no boats to fill the slips as much as it is there is no hurry to get the boat in the water."

[voyager35]

"Safe to say the worst OCEAN spring Bass run in 15 yrs..Conclusion - second yr of a declining ocean run season. Weather patterns continue to plague the eastern seashore - 2 yrs running.
My data doesn't support nor negate the negative effect of prior years cull limits. While I support freedom of choice and to each it's own, I have the same line of thinking to the state of the fishery and the effects of consumption."

^^^^Just read this today. I agree 100%. The spring run is nothing like it used to be. It used to be a no brainer to take a run to the shrewsbury rocks and pull a full limit from there with several fish over limit, only keeping limits or less. I have only gotten stripers at the shrewsbury rocks twice this year.

[nitestrikes]

Fire island beaches have been loaded with bunker, not that many bass. this was posted earlier-
"Got out early 5am to the bunker pods. Found all the bunker you want in 29-35 ft of water...Bunker were all over!! No sign of bass. Didn't see anybody on fish either. I guess they were off the bite yesterday or they have moved on"

[plugginpete]

Subpar Bass Run...

Definitely the worst spring bass run in the western sound since I started fishing it hard (15+ years).

Very inconsistent and fish not setting up on structure or pieces. Just some rat bass (20"-34") on the pieces. Small body of bigger fish moved through the middle, but even that was much worse then previous 10+ years.

Last year was slow also. Hopefully, it's due to the very cold March and Aprils we've had.
If not, then the Hudson stock is also struggling now.


I found the above online. He was talking about mid LI Sound.

[finchaser]

Subpar Bass Run...

Definitely the worst spring bass run in the western sound since I started fishing it hard (15+ years).

Very inconsistent and fish not setting up on structure or pieces. Just some rat bass (20"-34") on the pieces. Small body of bigger fish moved through the middle, but even that was much worse then previous 10+ years.

Last year was slow also. Hopefully, it's due to the very cold March and Aprils we've had.
If not, then the Hudson stock is also struggling now.


I found the above online. He was talking about mid LI Sound.

It's going to get worse they wipe them out and now they cry they can't catch them. Not weather related
You can't believe how many can't catch a fish with out bunker and blitzing fish even the Great Johnny Buck tails is silent
Fisher Price an occasional post
Some even come in the shop and ask how do you troll wire and what do you troll for bass, pathetic self proclaimed experts what a joke