Weakfish, bass- I've seen this before, its happening again

[DarkSkies]

1. Berkeley Tourney and the Lack of Abundance of fish along the 2014 NJ Shorline:
On a side note, I know a lot of the anglers who ended in the top spots.
Now that it's over, I can report that half the large fish entered, came from one particular area in New Jersey.

For those who say
"Stripers are not in danger, they are as abundant as ever"
"Stripers are still being caught, you just have to work for them"

I would say the above statements are inaccurate and misleading.

http://www.city-data.com/states/New-...nd-extent.html
"New Jersey's total boundary length is 480 mi (773 km), including a general coastline of 130 mi (209 km); the tidal shoreline is 1,792 mi (2,884 km). "

With 130 miles of coastline in NJ, and 1700 miles of tidal water, it is sobering to think that the majority of these fish came from one small area of our coastline.
There are bass available in other areas.....but larger fish are few and far between.
**My point is that in the first 2 weeks of June, prime time for bass fishing in NJ, there are so few opportunities to catch bigger striped bass from land, (and not including bridges) that to, me, it is sad, and is another indicator of a deficit in the striped bass biomass.......

I only need to go back 8-10 years, when I remember a few dozen places this time of year where you could catch larger striped bass from land.....this is evident as well, to any seasoned fishermen who have been fishing for more than a decade and know how and where to target larger bass at night.....they are just not there......in the numbers they and places they used to be found in....









2. Another Example- Monmouth Beach Cartoppers Contest - June 2014

From Al Ristori's column at www.nj.com
"Joe Melillo is proud of this weekend's win by the small-membership Spring Lake Live Liners over bigger clubs in the Monmouth Beach Cartoppers contest. He said the Asbury Park club was second.Melillo nailed a13 9/16-pound striper on a swimming plug in the Point Pleasant surf, and Mike Commune of Brick plugged a 13-pounder there. Gerald CeCe of Point Pleasant plugged his 17-pound bass at Bay Head, where Terry Martuscelli of Brick fished a chunk to beach a 17-pound bass. Mickey Sweeney of Howell fished clams in Bay Head for linesiders of 11 and 13 pounds."


Results of the Monmouth Beach Car Toppers Tournament.

Spring Lake Live Liners 83 Points
Asbury Park Fishing Club 36 Points
There were no other weigh-ins.

Congratulations to Bob Matthews, for the Largest Bass, 20 pounds.
Congratulations also to Gerald Cece
Terry Martuscelli
Joe Melillo Sr.
Mike Comune


To put this in perspective, each pound was worth one point....the total points for the contest were 119.....meaning out of all the clubs involved, fishing all the holes, cuts, points, inlets, and back bay sloughs they know very well, and have caught countless fish from before....
The best of the best, the old salts from these clubs....some with over 60 years of fishing experience....could only manage to find and catch,

119 lbs of fish.....for the whole weekend....

To me....that says a lot....about the reality of how poor our striped bass fishing (from land) is, right now.....



Thanks for reading....

[SharkHart]

Looks like the first year in 12 or so where there won't be a June Pencil season.

[storminsteve]

^^^^ yeah and all the club guys won't be able to come running down when they get the text "Get down here now its on!!!!!!!!!!"

[SharkHart]

and yes the Berkeley winner was 4 feet to my right when he caught that winning fish

[J Barbosa]

Weakfish 2014

I know this was started as a bass thread but the weakfish deserve a mention too. I know we have some great weakfish anglers in this thread who actively target and catch them.

Personally I don't target weakfish but I am very happy whenever I catch one as by catch. I do catch a few while bucktailing with gulp for fluke.

I've slowly watch the latest weakfish in this "cycle" start to grow up.

For the past three years I have noticed a trend...each year the predominant sized class seem to be a little bigger and there seems to be less of them.

So far this year I've only seen one caught and heard of a few in Northern NJ.

I am starting to get a little worried that I am not catching more of these as "bycatch".

Are too few of these being released back safely?

[ledhead36]

^^^^^^^^ I think whenever they begin to make a comeback netters like the belford pirates smash the population to smithereens by picking up all the stragglers. I forgot what the limit is maybe someone here knows. Go to the belford co op around the late fall and they have small spike weakfish for sale. When all the little ones that got born that year are streaming out of the bay those damn pirates net and intercept them. there might be other boats out there too. I do know the belford boats do it for a fact because I seen the weakfish in the glass case there.

[jigfreak]

Salty tours is the guy you want to look at who is raping them in ocean county. He's worse than a pirate. More like a scab or a carbuncle.