Whales in NJ.....

[Monty]

Whale and seal hunts

yep they are feeding on the precious bunker,guess we need a bill or fund to ban whales from the Jersey coast or maybe give them a limit.

[Shorelady]

There were off of Asbury all last week. I think it was last Thursday, I just watched the two of them feed and feed. The ocean looked like it had a paved road going through it from Allenhurst to Asbury as the nervous bunker got tighter and tighter. It was one of those days I will never forget.
So much for even wetting a line that day.
Haven't seen them this week, but the amount of bunker has not been what it was last week.

[DarkSkies]

yep they are feeding on the precious bunker,guess we need a bill or fund to ban whales from the Jersey coast or maybe give them a limit.

Why stop at that, we could have "watch boats" to monitor their bunker intake. Any whales caught gorging more than their RDBA "Recommended Daily Bunker Allowance" would be electroshocked to cough up the extra. There are plenty of out of work people who could use a job as a whale monitor.

Blame it on the whales that there are less striped bass, hot diggety.

[wish4fish]

put the whales in jail,lol

[storminsteve]

Hey while you are at it you might as well legislate against the threshers too they eat a mighty lot o bunker!

[ledhead36]

Anyone else see this whale, washed up today by the jetties S of the Spy house?

[buckethead]

Sad for the whale, I remember last year one was at IBSP. Maybe it got hit by a prop, but there are no marks on it in that picture.

[storminsteve]

A few more days in the sun and that carcass is going to stink! Looks like belford btw.

[gjb1969]

thats a sad thing to see

[Pebbles]

How terrible. Why do whales or other animals beach themselves anyhow?

[clamchucker]

There are endless possible reasons., Pebbles. They could have a malfunction with their sonar. It has been said that in the area of the Earle Pier they sometimes test new sonar ops for the submarines. This could affect them too. Some times they are hit at sea by the prop of a ship. This may not be enough to cut them but can cause internal injuries. Then, they make their way to shallow water and die, or die and then wash up. Yes it is sad to see this happen, but it is part of nature.

[finchaser]

Next the save the bunker people will want the 2 whales feeding on the bunker off of Bayhead killed to save there precious bunker. There are bunker from Delaware to LI some places miles wide. The bass could never consume that many. As the dwindling schools of bass spread out the I can only get a bass snagging crew which are mostly clueless say there are no bass because they are starving,not that they are being wiped out again by there efforts.

[storminsteve]

They killed all the foxes and some other predators at Hatteras to protect the plovers. Check it out, it's true. And the fishermen are barely allowed there now. So if the whales are eating the bunker, following this logic it makes perfect sense. Kill all the whales, seals, and thresher sharks that eat bunker. It's a valuable resource. Can't have it eaten by anything other than a striped bass.

[DarkSkies]

We really have had an exciting year for whale watchers in NJ. Generally they come in close to feed on the bunker.


That's nothing new...







Back when Finchaser and some of the other old-timers here used to fish the Long Branch Fishing Pier, whales used to come in close in the Winter to feed on the whiting....

Some great stories then (I think I remember one of the old-timers relating a story where someone hooked a whale by accident off that LB pier...)...as well as now....
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...anch+back+time

[DarkSkies]

LBI Whales - courtesy of Joel and Susan Schirmer.......


Hi Everyone,

Susan and I would like to share the following photos with you of 2 Humpback Whales we saw and photographed off of LBI on Sunday. Each one was well over 40 feet long and dwarfed our boat. We were lucky enough to get the most amazing photos with the LBI Brant Beach Tower in the background. Photos include the whales within 50 feet of the beach and breaching through schools of bunker.

· Photo 0020; Whale near the beach with a school of Dolphin
· Photo 0037 Bunker scattering and airborne to get away from danger below (this alerted us to a possible breach)
· Photo 0039 Humpback open mouth appears from below the water
· Photo Brant Beach Tower: Mouth full of fish and you can clearly see the whales tongue and the Brant Beach Water Tower is in the background.
· Photo Dual Breach: Final Leap as they traveled back out to deeper water (about 1 mile off shore) through a school of bunker (you can see the bunker in the air next to the 2 whales as they breach)

This was truly one of the most spectacular things we have ever seen in our lives! We understand these photos will be in the Asbury Park Press on Tuesday.

Regards,
Joe & Susan
Joe & Susan Schirmer

[DarkSkies]

If you have any more feel free to post...citing the author or photographer if you did not take the pic....thanks.....

[finchaser]

Kill the whales save the bunker

[speedy]

bait was there for a bit this morning.. then 2 big whales showed up around 7:30 am time to go home lol.

[DarkSkies]

^ Hey bro whales gotta eat too....

The other morning I was fishing one beach at sunup....it was foggy and overcast....
I thought in the distance I saw a drunk guy sleeping it off after drinking too much the night before..

It was hard to see shapes in the fog....eventually realized it was a seal...pretty damn big one too....size of a guy....
I saw it move laterally along the beach.....Eventually a fishermen came along and it shuffled back into the water...

Pretty cool to see...
but I could see how fishermen get upset when there are a lot of them....friends in MA rant about them all the time....
It's part of the cycle of Nature....all creatures gotta eat and have their place....

[storminsteve]

then 2 big whales showed up around 7:30 am time to go home lol.

Yep if I seen those whales I would have gone home too!