The Good Old days of Fishing......

[DarkSkies]

I was talking to a friend the other day.....he targets big fish at every part of the migration, and fishes Jersey and throughout the Coast to find them.....

He has had a frustrating year.....
Has been jumping between Jersey and LI lately just to find a decent bite.....

Now....our interpretation of "decent" might be different from other folks.....
We were talking about the spring and fall bites of a few years ago....

1. The sand eels coming inshore twice a year...
2. The fantastic peanut bunker runs we used to have......
3. The Spring runs we used to have where bass and bluefish pursued a smorgasbord of bunker, herring, rainfish, spearing, etc to the beach.....
4. Catching 20-40 fish per night, on a good night....(not just during the crab molt)
5. When you could realistically catch fish in NJ and LI for 8-10 months of a year, instead of the abbreviated Spring and Fall Seasons we now have....
Etc...etc......













We started comparing notes, him saying it was his worst year ever since the moratorium.......
It's been the same for me......

When the fish are available, he catches more fish over 30# from land than anyone I know....
And he has sat out there 2 tides in a row, just to get one larger fish........he definitely knows how to "find the fish"....

Lamenting how bad we see that things have declined.....
and talking about the "Good old Days....

[DarkSkies]

I then realized.....
The "good old days" we were talking about...were only 8-10 years ago......
When you could go out for a night of fishing.....and pull in 10-20 fish or more......

** Caveat......These "good old days" don't even compare to the fantastic fishing that existed after the bass rebounded after the moratorium, in the late 80's and 1990's.
But it occurred to me many of the newer folks out there fishing don't have that as a frame of reference.....

It also came to mind...
There is a lot of internet chatter about "finding the fish"
"The fish are there you just have to work for them"
"If you know what you are doing, you can catch regularly"
and other naive phrases..........

I asked myself how there could be a disconnect between the griping we were doing.....
And some of the bravado you see out there today on the internet?.....some of it ending up as "Well if you are not catching maybe you just don't know how to fish!"....and other ridiculous statements........

Was also talking to Monty yesterday as well....
He said something about...."Yep the fishing sucks....we know it....we just have to adapt.....
(which many people have done......)


I do think when we forget or minimize how good fishing used to be....we lose our sense of perspective.....
A 20lb bass......which ordinarily didn't raise many eyebrows in a tackle shop....becomes a "Cow" or an example of "epic fishing".













I thought I would ask the folks out there........
1. What the "Good old days" means to them......
2. And what they miss the most about them.....



Thanks for your opinions.....

[finchaser]

There gone forever on every fish species. I miss catching and eating whiting and cod. Now all that's left is fishing with a bunch of know it all assh_les and immigrants who don't respect the resources and don't know sh_t.

Period

[fishinmission78]

The "good old days" we were talking about...were only 8-10 years ago......
When you could go out for a night of fishing.....and pull in 10-20 fish or more......

** Caveat......These "good old days" don't even compare to the fantastic fishing that existed after the bass rebounded after the moratorium, in the late 80's and 1990's.
But it occurred to me many of the newer folks out there fishing don't have that as a frame of reference.....

It also came to mind...
There is a lot of internet chatter about "finding the fish"
"The fish are there you just have to work for them"
"If you know what you are doing, you can catch regularly"
and other naive phrases..........

I asked myself how there could be a disconnect between the griping we were doing.....
And some of the bravado you see out there today on the internet?.....some of it ending up as "Well if you are not catching maybe you just don't know how to fish!"....and other ridiculous statements........

ds you have to realize that 70% of the posters on the internet today grew up playing doom and other first person shooter games. There attention span is about 30 secs. I started to notice this last year with the cell phone crowd. Guy would fish 15 minutes and then check his cell phone for reports. My last very good years were 2002-2007. I also have caught up to 50 bass on a great night. It seems to me those days are long gone. The generation that fishes today considers 5 bass to be epic and is so self centered and lazy most will not work beyond 2 hours for one fish. They only come out spring and fall blitz time. Most stay home when its freezing like it was last nite which is ok with me. And the rudeness and mugging -saw that in the other thread don't get me started. One of these days I'm going to take a dump on some of these muggers heads. That might learn them some manners.

There gone forever on every fish species period

I agree. Some of the young guns have no clue how these fish used to be all over. You could pick any bridge in ocean or atlantic county and pick off a few bass for most months of the year except winter and very early spring. They just don't get it. Island beach with the exception of the sandeel bite in 2011 has been a vast wasteland and it gets worse every year. If fishing doesn't turn around with the new limits John from B&N could be out of business in the next 5 years.
Most guys gravitate toward the pocket because they know how bad the rest of it can be. I still catch because I know the cuts and troughs and re-scout after every storm. To catch more than one now you have to be on your game, not just on your cell phone.

[seamonkey]

I then realized.....
The "good old days" we were talking about...were only 8-10 years ago......

lol

[seamonkey]

Fin:
He tells me on a daily basis how they used to catch bass by the dozens, large, and in all year classes. Bluefish used to be so abundant they would fill 110Qt coolers with them to the point where people got sick of catching them. There was no idea out there that either bluefish or striped bass stock should be conserved. People used to fertilize their gardens with unwanted fish.

Then the stocks declined, slowly at first, until there was a noticable decline, and you were only catching fish in the "middle areas" (M&M theory). The edges of the M&M bowl were empty, and they instituted the moratorium.

He sees that same thing happening to the stocks today because people refuse to acknowledge that there is greater participation in fishing, more fish are being kept, and people are wasting plenty of large breeder fish just for the photo ops at the tackle shops.

He has seen wasted 40# bass that were left out in the sun, dumped into marina dumpsters. He may seem like he rants and raves a lot, but that's because he's passionate about these fish he loves to catch, and doesn't want to see history repeat itself. Pick his brain anytime ya want, he has the stats and figures to back it up!

As related by Finchaser:
Fishing before the moratorium:

"There were so many fish back then, it would take 3 or 4 days for one body of fish to pass by in the spring or fall. If you missed those, there would be another wave of fish right after that. That's why when people talk today about how they had fish for hours, it maks me shake my head. Fishing today is nothing like it used to be before the moratorium.

Fall run, 1980's:
A fall run back then was like a sustained fishing dream. Blitzes lasted for days, not 22 minutes. You could go fishing in the morning, catch some fish, go to work, come out on your lunch break, catch some more fish, go back to work, come home and eat dinner, and still go out to catch more fish, until your arms were really tired."

Wow I can't even imagine fishing that good!

[ledhead36]

Great recollections from past runs. Thanks for sharing that finchaser and stripercoast, I had some great years from 89-93. After the bass came back they were pretty strong. I know that some brag about catching a double digits in the bay in the spring. News flash, when you use clams you should be catching dozens. That population is way down. I know they say the hudson stock is healthy but that is what we target in the early spring and the fishing sucked early spring this year. We used to go through almost 2 bushels of clams on a night when the fishing was good. That was our crew, 4-5 guys. Between us we would land and release over 100 fish,so that was at least 20 fish apiece some nights more. Haven't had a night like that in years. just my .02

[fishinmission78]

Bump to the top for a great thread