What fishing used to be like, Stripercoast1 aka Gunny:

(Gunny runs www.stripercoastsurfcasters.us a growing group of hardcore surfcasters with an eye on conservation, aligning themselves with www.stripersforever.com and other groups in their fight to preserve the striped bass fishery.)

"When people talk about striped bass fishing and how they had a "blitz" for an hour, I realize there is a lot to teach people out there. We used to fish Cape Cod and the Mass area many years ago. Those were the nights when you were careful who you told about the fishing. There would usually be a small group of us dedicated guys out there for any given night when the bite was on.

And on it was! We would have times in the spring or fall at Race Point when the striped bass "blitz" stretched for 7 or 8 miles. We would have huge bass right in the surf at our feet. If they were on heavy bait concentrations, all you had to do was toss out a bucktail, or pick up a piece of fresh bait as the fish pushed the bait ashore. Toss out your bucktail, or that fresh bait, and you would have a fish in a matter of a minute.

These blitzes would last for a day or more sometime, and we all got our fill of fish. Sometimes I realize it was too many, and that probably contributed to the decline, because everyone acted the same way."



Fishing as it exists today:

"Guys are killing a lot more of the big breeders. For example, this summer there was a huge concentration of big bass off Block Island. Guys were taking out the 6 pack charters as much as twice a day, and coming back with their limit each time. These are 40 and 50lb bass we are talking about, taking up to 20 years to reach that size. Yet guys killed them day after day. Huge numbers of these bass were taken out of the biomass from Block Island this year. I have to believe that will affect the biomass and future spawning numbers. There's no way it would not affect the population.

In Rhode Island where I fish a lot we have always had good seasons for catching big striped bass from the surf. The bays, rivers, and estuaries hold tremendous amounts of bait, many varieties, shrimp, small whitebait, bunker, huge amounts of squid, and lobster. Yet we noticed the fishing was off, there were less big bass around.

I have seen the decline of catches with my own eyes. It's only a matter of time before it shows up in the official numbers. If we don't do something about it soon, we will be definitely be facing another moratorium on striped bass fishing."