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Thread: Fishing for stripers remains a struggle

  1. #1
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    Default Fishing for stripers remains a struggle

    8/1/09
    Fishing for stripers remains a struggle



    By John Holyoke
    BDN Staff

    Each summer, Maine’s recreational saltwater anglers eagerly look forward to the northern migration of a variety of fish species. For a number of years, one of the most reliable species was the striped bass.

    In parks along the Penobscot and Kennebec rivers, and in private or for-hire boats, the anglers flocked to the state’s tidal water in search of stripers.

    And for years, those hard-fighting fish weren’t too tough to find.
    During the past two years, that trend has changed.
    The 2008 season was “abysmal,” according to Patrick Keliher, the director of the Maine Department of Marine Resources’ Bureau of Sea-Run Fisheries & Habitat.

    The 2009 season, he said, has been better … at times.
    “Mixed. Very mixed,” Keliher said. “What I am hearing across the board is that the season started off fairly well for most people. Reports from the southern part of the state all the way up through the midcoast were encouraging. And then came the rain.”
    Keliher said the regular rainstorms of June and July didn’t affect the stripers per se. It did affect their dining habits, however.
    “We had a huge pulse of fresh water and it seemed to change the habits of all the bait that was in-shore,” Keliher said. “I started to get the calls that the fish seemed to be disappearing. In some areas, it went from catching a dozen or more fish in an outing to zero, for two, three, four days in a row.”

    Keliher said that since the steady rain stopped, he has begun hearing more encouraging reports, and he hopes the trend continues.

    One of the state’s most respected saltwater guides agreed with Keliher’s assessment of the 2008 season. And he admits that 2009 has turned into a struggle as well.

    “Last year was a disaster. It didn’t turn out very well at all,” said Capt. Dave Pecci, 51, a guide who runs Obsession Sportfishing Charters out of Bath.

    Pecci spends a lot of time on the Kennebec River, and takes frequent trips onto the Atlantic to fish for tuna, sharks and bluefish. But anglers for striped bass make up enough of his business that he’s a member of the striper advisory panel of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

    Pecci said the struggling economy has hurt his business, and a second tough year of striper fishing hasn’t helped matters a bit.
    “I’m looking at a 25, 30 percent reduction of business this year [because of the economy] and on top of all that, the fishing hasn’t been that good,” said Pecci, who has been fishing on the Kennebec since he was 12 years old and guiding for the past 20 years.

    Pecci obviously doesn’t want to give up on a striper season that’s still under way, and upon which he relies for part of his yearly income. He doesn’t want to be a voice of doom and gloom.
    “We’re hearing anecdotal information that there are stripers offshore,” Pecci said. “The thing that’s the most frustrating to me is that we have a tremendous amount of bait along the Maine coast right now. But [the stripers] aren’t getting here. They’re just not traveling here. We’re seeing some stripers here, but not the numbers that we have in the past.”

    That concerns state officials, guides and anglers alike.
    Matt Boutet, 31, an avid angler from Saco, said he fished 105 days for stripers in 2008. This year, his total’s a lot lower. He’s still catching some fish, but not nearly at the rate he was four or five years ago. And he’s working a lot harder to find the stripers in the first place.

    “When I complain about bad fishing, it means that maybe I went out and caught five or six fish. Even as recent as 2006, I could go out on my lunch break and do that,” said Boutet, who admitted that during 2008, he had more than 30 days during which he caught no fish at all.

    “I fished with a guide on Wednesday, fished from 5 a.m. until about 11:30 [a.m.] and got about 10 fish. The thing was, we probably burned about a half tank of gas driving around Casco Bay before we found that pod of fish. And that was probably the first time in two weeks that I’d seen any fish.”
    Now, the million-dollar question: What’s going on with the stripers that many Mainers had grown accustomed to successfully targeting?

    Perhaps, Boutet surmises, too many anglers have been successfully targeting them, and too many fish are being taken.
    “I just think we’re killing too many fish, coast-wide,” Boutet said, referring to the take of stripers all along the eastern seaboard. “If you look at the numbers coming out of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the spawning stock has been in a decline for a period of time now, and at the current level of decline we’re going to be at the overfishing threshold in a year or two.”
    Boutet pointed to statistics that indicate that recreational anglers are predominantly responsible for killing stripers — either intentionally or through injuring fish they catch and release. Commercial kill has remained steady, Boutet said, while increased recreational pressure accounts for 80 percent of the stripers killed each year.

    Boutet is concerned that fisheries statistics lag behind the decision-making process, so managers are always reacting to situations that existed in the past, and relying on data that was gathered a couple years earlier.

    Keliher said biologists still believe that there are plenty of striped bass swimming along the eastern seaboard.
    “The population of striped bass is in question, but the best available science shows that the population is still pretty robust,” Keliher said. “However, the fishery in Maine has been declining over the past five or six years.”

    Keliher said the variability of spawning success from year to year was a major concern and was contributing to a troubling trend.
    “What you want to see is a good representation [in the population] of year classes from all years,” said Keliher, who pointed out that larger fish, having faced more environmental and angling challenges in their longer lifetimes, are apt to be less prevalent than other, younger fish.

    But that hasn’t really been the case, he said.
    “There are a lot of slot fish [between 20 and 26 inches long, one of which can be kept per day in Maine] and fish above the slot, but very few small fish are being caught,” Keliher said.
    Pecci and Boutet used the same term to describe a possible scenario that may be affecting striped bass in Maine waters: “Canary in a coal mine.”

    Pecci said fisheries managers believe the decline in stripers caught in Maine is a migration issue, not a stock issue, in that the population level of stripers has not noticeably declined.
    “The thing that concerns a lot of guys up here is, is Maine the canary in the coal mine?” Pecci said. “We’re at the northern end of the migratory path. Does that mean that stocks are contracting and we’re seeing the beginning of that? Nobody has an answer, including myself.”

    Boutet is one of those concerned.
    “It would make sense that we’d be the proverbial canary in the coal mine. As the population decreases in size it would make sense that the range would contract,” Boutet said.
    Boutet said that possibility creates another potential problem: Since fishing is still good in southern states, he says it’s hard to get officials to make reforms.

    And all along the coast, the regulations on striped bass are different. In Maine, you can keep just one fish a day and it must either measure from 20 to 26 inches in length or longer than 40 inches. Many other states have more liberal bag limits, and stripers are likely to be targeted for longer periods during the year.

    Keliher said getting rules reforms adopted at the regional level has proven to be a challenge.

    “While we’ve got a seat at the table [when striped bass decisions are made], we have not been able to necessarily impact positive changes in management to allow the age classes of fish to fill in, so we’d see more fish and bigger fish,” Keliher said.

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by CharlieTuna View Post
    8/1/09
    Fishing for stripers remains a struggle



    By John Holyoke
    BDN Staff

    “I just think we’re killing too many fish, coast-wide,” Boutet said, referring to the take of stripers all along the eastern seaboard.

    “If you look at the numbers coming out of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the spawning stock has been in a decline for a period of time now, and at the current level of decline we’re going to be at the overfishing threshold in a year or two.”
    Boutet pointed to statistics that indicate that recreational anglers are predominantly responsible for killing stripers — either intentionally or through injuring fish they catch and release. Commercial kill has remained steady, Boutet said, while increased recreational pressure accounts for 80 percent of the stripers killed each year.

    Boutet is concerned that fisheries statistics lag behind the decision-making process, so managers are always reacting to situations that existed in the past, and relying on data that was gathered a couple years earlier.

    Keliher said biologists still believe that there are plenty of striped bass swimming along the eastern seaboard.
    “The population of striped bass is in question, but the best available science shows that the population is still pretty robust,” Keliher said. “However, the fishery in Maine has been declining over the past five or six years.”

    Keliher said the variability of spawning success from year to year was a major concern and was contributing to a troubling trend.
    “What you want to see is a good representation [in the population] of year classes from all years,” said Keliher, who pointed out that larger fish, having faced more environmental and angling challenges in their longer lifetimes, are apt to be less prevalent than other, younger fish.

    But that hasn’t really been the case, he said.
    “There are a lot of slot fish [between 20 and 26 inches long, one of which can be kept per day in Maine] and fish above the slot, but very few small fish are being caught,” Keliher said.
    Pecci and Boutet used the same term to describe a possible scenario that may be affecting striped bass in Maine waters: “Canary in a coal mine.”

    Pecci said fisheries managers believe the decline in stripers caught in Maine is a migration issue, not a stock issue, in that the population level of stripers has not noticeably declined.
    “The thing that concerns a lot of guys up here is, is Maine the canary in the coal mine?” Pecci said. “We’re at the northern end of the migratory path. Does that mean that stocks are contracting and we’re seeing the beginning of that? Nobody has an answer, including myself.”

    Boutet is one of those concerned.
    “It would make sense that we’d be the proverbial canary in the coal mine. As the population decreases in size it would make sense that the range would contract,” Boutet said.
    Boutet said that possibility creates another potential problem: Since fishing is still good in southern states, he says it’s hard to get officials to make reforms.

    And all along the coast, the regulations on striped bass are different. In Maine, you can keep just one fish a day and it must either measure from 20 to 26 inches in length or longer than 40 inches. Many other states have more liberal bag limits, and stripers are likely to be targeted for longer periods during the year.

    Keliher said getting rules reforms adopted at the regional level has proven to be a challenge.

    “While we’ve got a seat at the table [when striped bass decisions are made], we have not been able to necessarily impact positive changes in management to allow the age classes of fish to fill in, so we’d see more fish and bigger fish,” Keliher said.
    I think that says it all right there.

  3. #3
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    Default where are the bass

    There is a thread here called where are the bass. I think it has quite a few explanations for why this is happening. Every season more and more big bass are being taken. Maine is on the fringes of the bass migration, although I understand some do make it up to Nova Scotia. Some have said that's like being at the edge of a bowl of m&m's.
    http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...read.php?t=760

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    “I just think we’re killing too many fish, coast-wide,” Boutet said, referring to the take of stripers all along the eastern seaboard. “If you look at the numbers coming out of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the spawning stock has been in a decline for a period of time now, and at the current level of decline we’re going to be at the overfishing threshold in a year or two.”

    Sounds a lot like what Stripers Forever has been saying for years! People have been quick to dismiss what has been happening with the striped bass stock. If you avoid it and pretend it isn't happening it really isn't. We as fisherman need to be knowledgeable in this area so we can pass information on to fellow anglers.

    Bottom line is the 2008 year of the young index was lower than it had been in close to a decade. The recreational catch was the lowest it had been in over 5 years a 50% decrease from 2006 and close to 25% decrease from 2007. Commercial quota was not met in Massachusetts. Shocking considering they will give away a comm license like it is a yo yo at a county fair.

    Many things need to happen to aid the problem in my humble opinion.

    1. Party boats need to be limited to 1 kept fish per angler. There are party boats fishing off of block island three trips a day stacked with people going out and taking 2 fish per angler 3 times a day. For much of this year the fish have been averaging over 30 pounds.

    on the low end of 30 anglers per boat that is 60 fish over thirty pounds per trip which is the equivalent of 180 fish that will not produce young next year per day per boat. It is an absolute slaughter of breeding fish happening on these party boats.

    2. Slot limits need to be imposed on recreational anglers

    One fish 20-26" or one fish over 40" period. the 27-40" fish are the heart of the breeding stock and require protection.

    3. Complete and total shut down of the commercial Striped Bass fishery.

    Commercial fisherman are targeting 34" plus fish which are dollars to donuts female fish every fish taken never lays another egg.

    4. Impose tougher restriction on spawning area fish. I can't tell you how many times i have seen pictures of guys holding up fish from the spring run in rivers that are loaded with eggs. Sure the fish is a beauty but it will never spawn that season and it's eggs go to waste.

    If two of these four items are imposed preferrably one and three you will see a major recovery in the Striped bass fishery.

    I could literally go on all day long. I may seem a bit extreme, I am just not looking forward to fishing for Blues for the rest of my life.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jackbass View Post
    “Bottom line is the 2008 year of the young index was lower than it had been in close to a decade. The recreational catch was the lowest it had been in over 5 years a 50% decrease from 2006 and close to 25% decrease from 2007. Commercial quota was not met in Massachusetts. Shocking considering they will give away a comm license like it is a yo yo at a county fair.

    I could literally go on all day long. I may seem a bit extreme, I am just not looking forward to fishing for Blues for the rest of my life.

    Jackbass, it seems like you have given a lot of thought to how you prioritized the suggestions there. I agree with the reasoning behind them, but differ on the overall recomendations. Here's my reasoning:



    1. Party boat limits - We absolutely should have conversations about limiting party boat catches, but at the same time not end up putting the guys out of business. Many head boat captains are barely scraping by. The biggest and the best fleets out there are cleaning up, $$$ I'll give you that. But the majority of party boat guys are hard working solo operators who are killing themselves to keep the business afloat.

    I agree 100% with what you said about Block Island, though. It's a slaughter up there right now. The big bass are highly concentrated up there because of optimal bait, temp, and structure, and every day more breeders are slaughtered.

    If anyone doesn't see something wrong with that, or that there is real damage being done to the biomass up there, then they either have not been fishing for that long or are not willing to look at the big picture.

    I think part of the party boat problem is that with the tight fluke restrictions you have in NY, if a guy wants meat, he's going to take a boat out of Montauk or RI to maximize the "meat" yield. He can't do that with fluke, so for the dollars he's spending, he will get on a bass boat, or hit a cod trip in the winter, filling the cooler.

    I think the "fill your cooler no matter what" is a short-sighted mentality that is also hurting the bass, but how do we address this for the future?

    You can't put all the blame for that on the party boats. That's like if I as an alcoholic blame a liquor store for selling me liquor which I then drink, and crash my car into a wall.

    We as fisherman need to all look at what we are doing. Some guys aren't interested in that, they consider it preaching. So we will never reach all anglers without them thinking WE who talk about conservation are delusional.

    I think the best strategy is to put information out there, try to educate people one at a time, and let them make their own informed decisions based on solid data that is available.





    2. Slot limits: (standardized)
    I think it would simplify things if we had a coastwide slot limit that was the same in ALL Eastern states. Too many small bass, and large breeders are being killed before they have a chance to spawn. I don't know if that's realistic, though. It would take a lot of compromise from people who aren't used to compromising. There would be movements, protests, and rationalizations as to why certain states should be exempt.

    That's one of the large problems managing a species that is highly migratory. If you use the logic they use to manage tuna catches, with standardized regulations through the East Coast, that system seems to work, albeit with it's own set of problems.

    It is a workable framework. Call me naive, but from a business owner's sense of efficiency, I feel that some coastwide striped bass standards would save millions of dollars by standardizing regs, make reporting and enforcement easier and more accurate, and eventually be accepted by all. I may be living in a delusional bubble about this, and it will probably never happen, though.



    3. Shutdown of the commercial fishery
    - I know Gunny, Jake, and Stripers Forever are pushing hard for this. In some areas it makes sense, particularly in Mass where it seems they will give anyone a commercial license, and the enforcement and reporting methodology seems very sloppy to me.
    However I think that too many people use commercial fishing as a scapegoat. Put up a video of commercial guys harvesting bass and dumping them in pickup trucks, and everyone is in an uproar.

    What about all the recreational boats that go out and get their limit of bass when they're available, every time, "because they can".

    You don't have to be Einstein to see that every year more and more recreational boaters take up the sport of fishing. The numbers are changing, the catches are going up, and the attidudes are staying the same that this fishery is sustainable forever as long as we manage the biomass. But with more people participating, the biomass is not being "managed".

    Fisheries managers are trying to manage kill statistics for maximum yield, which in my view is a far cry from scientifically managing the biomass for a healthy future.

    So taking this all into account, I believe commercial fishing is part of this probem, but not the largest part, and not the largest harvester of striped bass. In my opinion, and using the NMFS stats to back it up, the largest harvesters of the striped bass are the recs, and we need to take collective responsibility for that instead of blaming others.



    4. Spawning areas:
    we need to have continued conversations about the spawning areas, although in some circles talking about limited closures in these areas would get you death threats. There are millions of dollars in revenue, countless jobs, many marinas, tackle shop owners, and "self-entitled" fishermen who don't care anything about conservation, who would protest loudly and vigorously if there was a move to curtail fishing during spawning.

    Although protests would be huge, there are key people starting to realize that maybe there is a better way of doing things:

    a) There is a NC charter captain, Capt Aaron Kelly who is now speaking out that we need to look at our striped bass fishing, and the season and ways in which we do it. As he has years of experience catching bass and has seen many up and down cyles, more people are starting to listen.
    http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...p?t=760&page=2
    (post #18)


    b) There are also captains who make their living fishing the East Coast spawning grounds who are starting to provide anecdotal evidence that these catches are down. There was also a great article by Ted Williams in the above highlighted thread.

    I'm not against people keeping bass, I love to eat them myself. There should be no shame in saying that.

    Unfortunately on some internet sites there is a lot of negative feedback a guy gets if he catches and keeps a legal bass, while others out there never keep their bass, and are strictly C&R. So we need to figure out where the balance is, without chastizing people for keeping something they are allowed to keep under the law.

    Education, dissemination of factual data, and sharing of stories detailing our real experience out there is critical. We won't win converts by telliing people we are right and they "have" to listen. Many people don't have the same sense of urgency we have.

    However, if we can show them things that they're not aware of, perhaps they will understand. I have found when putting a point across, the most effective presentation is when people come to that realizaton on their own.

  6. #6
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    DS your points all make a world of sense. My points were not neccesarily meant to be 1 2 3 and 4 respectively. Any one who knows me knows what my number one priority would be.

    I empathize with the solo party boat operator scraping to get by. I really do. I just have to wonder how many of the breeder bass are being removed from the water just for the sake of keeping a bass because you can.

    I am in no way saying that individuals should not be able to take a fish for the table. It would be un-american in my opinion if you could not hunt and fish and provide food for your family from the earth we live on, if you choose to do so. I will never chastize an individual for taking a couple of fish per year. I just feel some anglers do it excessively because they can.

    Coast wide slots would be extremely helpful in protecting the valuable breeder fish. In all honesty the 20-26" fish is probably a better fish for the table than the 40" plus.

    I don't want to ramble I feel you have many great points. It is this type of discussion that promotes thought and may get others that are reading it thinking about the future of the fishery which is all we can really ask for.

    I certainly hope we see some change in certain areas of Striped Bass stock management. I am afraid of what could happen if we don't

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jackbass View Post
    I don't want to ramble I feel you have many great points. It is this type of discussion that promotes thought and may get others that are reading it thinking about the future of the fishery which is all we can really ask for.

    I certainly hope we see some change in certain areas of Striped Bass stock management. I am afraid of what could happen if we don't
    Jackbass, I didn't read any of your points as rambling. What I get out of your posts here is that you are truly concerned with the future of striped bass fishing, and somehow, either through personal experience or older anglers you know, have a good feel for what went on in the past.

    "Those who do not recognize the sins of the past are condemned to repeat it."

    If just 20% of all anglers had the same drive and initiative you had, I don't think the fishery would be in as much trouble as it now is. I see by your posts on Stripercoast Surfcasters that your committment shows. You write letters and get involved.

    The % of anglers who are actually committed to get involved in an issue beyond an internet thread or conversation at a fishing spot, is very small. I commend all who want to become more informed, because young and old, you guys are the future of fishing.

    There are no right and wrong opinions here, they are just that, opinions. To me, having an opinion, and letting someone else speak out for you, is not participating in life.

    We all deserve to be heard, if we truly want to be part of the process.

    And it is only through this process that others will be able to learn things they weren't aware of. So keep it going guys and gals, all opinions welcome here.

  8. #8
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    I just hope to someday bring a kid fishing for the Greatest Gamefish on the planet In my opinion.

    I won't sit back and say someday where did all the fish go? Or remember when like I hear others do now. I just feel we are at a critical juncture right now. History is repeating itself. The numbers and size of fish being caught offshore right now are eerily reminiscent of a time not too long ago.

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