StripersandAnglers yearly coastwide fish stock assessment, state of the fishery

[skinner]

time to sell all my sh_t

What would you do if you sold it. play golf? From the posts of yours I have read, you don't seem to be the sort of guy who likes golf (not that there's anything wrong with that, I don't play golf either)

[finchaser]

What would you do if you sold it. play golf? From the posts of yours I have read, you don't seem to be the sort of guy who likes golf (not that there's anything wrong with that, I don't play golf either)

Your right i don't play. Golf is for guy's who can't catch fish

[DarkSkies]

^^ Vintage Fin, shoots from the hip, no diplomacy needed! :laugh: :clapping:



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Island Beach State Park, N to Manasquan Inlet

I thought about putting Island Beach State Park in a separate category. It is a region unto itself, with the Barnegat Jetty, Sedge Islands and sodbanks in the back, and quick access to the channels of the Barnegat Bay that can hold fish on all but the hottest or coldest days.

Generally speaking, the structure at Island Beach is shallow, sloping, with ever changing cuts, bowls, and outsucks. This differs from some of the structure slightly N, around Mantoloking to Point Pleasant, where the beach structure is generally a little deeper.

For simplicity's sake and to treat this whole area as a reqion for ongoing assessments, I will be talking about this as one whole area. Barnegat Inlet to Manasquan Inlet.









To begin with, the elimination of the bunker boats that had been crowding inshore was hailed as a victory for fishermen, and it was.

It may not have been the ultimate victory for the biomass, however. A higher % of large bass are now caught in the Barnegat to Monmouth Beach stretch than at any time in past NJ history since the moratorium That allowed the migrating schools of bunker to wander leisurely following the beach line, and for migrating bass and gargantuan bluefish to seek out these plentiful schools at random times during the day. The fishing became so good that NJ's spring run "along the beach and jetties" became legendary. People from many surrounding states, and from as far away as Canada, come to NJ to fish the spring striped bass bunker blitzes.

The fishing is truly legendary, and can be exceptional, when the fish are feeding on these bunker. One of the issues is that during this time, the chances of getting fish any other way is reduced as all the bigger fish in the area are drawn to these bunker schools.










Island Beach has for a few years been in the forefront of this action. The starting gun for this activity usually begins around Mothers' Day. It's been so consistent that you can set your fishing calendar by it......

Unfortunately, this year, that fishing, also known as the Mothers' Day Massacre, never fully developed at IBSP.

In the weeks after that, it really didn't come together for that area either, save for some sporadically productive blitzes centered more around Seaside and parts North of that.

There was a well-publicized blitz on a Monday in June. If you were there you would be telling a different tale, of fish after fish in the 40# class being taken by surf guys and boaters alike....along with a few other memorable dates. Some 50# bass were taken close to the surf line, and by guys with kayaks and in boats.

Realistically, when taken into a complete perspective, the fishing for IBSP was much poorer in Spring 2011 than in previous springs. So much so, that hardcore fishermen known to be at IBSP at those times in the past had to leave their fishing grounds and travel to chase the fish, both on land and by boat.










In all fairness, there could have been several reasons for this....

1. Structure has changed. The sloping beaches of IBSP have been hammered by coastal storms in the past. There is now a 2nd sandbar throughout most water in the park that is wider and more extensive than in the past. This makes it harder for the fish to come closer during all tides. There are still some great cuts and highways. Those in the know who fish there regularly will tell you that the productive fishing "spots" are way down in proportion to total beachfront.

2. Bass Migration has shifted... Bass follow bunker. It's not brain surgery. You could make the argument that bass were not following bunker, and were offshore feasting on the sand eels and other forage. This has happened in the past. However, bunker are a great protein snack for the biggest bass and can be the easiest to eat when schooled up by the thousands. Bass will traditionally follow bunker over other, smaller forage. Just ask any charter capt as he targets bass in the bunker schools.
I put this possibility out there, but if the migration has truly shifted, more people would be talking about it. I don't see this as a realistic possibility.

3. Bait Migration has shifted... What I mean by this is that other than bunker, bait has been notably absent from much of the NJ surf this year. The sand eels that are usually abundant are offshore, from 3-50 miles out. They usually make their transition into the surf zone in the early spring, and the early to mid-fall. This hasn't happened to any reasonable extent in NJ this year. It HAS happened in LI S Shore beaches, and to a large extent on many of the N Shore beaches. Them not being available in the NJ surf could be merely a seasonal abberration. This is also mirrored in othet small forage fish, which didn't show up in the NJ surf in large numbers until June this year.
Out of all the explanations here, this lack of surf bait is one that I'm most wiling to accept now for the lack of consistency in NJ surf fishing for the first half of 2011. I know in my heart that the bass have declined as well, but want to leave no stone unturned in the quest for accuracy here.

4. We have become more efficient at catching big bass..from the Internet to better electronics, and cell phone chains where 75 guys can show up within minutes of finding big bass in a particular surf area.... :kooky:we have become more efficient at finding and harvesting these big bass.
There are no stats as to how more efficient we have become, that would be hard to quantify. Some look at reported catches to see how many bass are being harvested. I can assure you, there are many more fishing than the reports you see on internet and tackle shop sites. Many guys catch fish and have no interest in reporting it, ever.

5. More people in the sport...There are more people fishing salt water, either via surf or by boat, than at any time since the moratorium. Even if the majority of these don't catch fish, many will.

6. Maybe the answer is in the shrinking biomass... If any of the above possibilities don't fully explain it, then we are left with this possibility. There are those out there who would claim that this statement is totally untrue, their bass fishing is better than it ever has been....but the majority of folks I talk to claim the opposite. :learn:

[DarkSkies]

I have fallen behind on this thread. Other things have kept me busy and I slacked off.


After Fin let me know of the ASMFC ruling not to make any changes now until another assessment (at the urging of Tom Fote of the JCAA) .....
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...own-in-numbers...

I now know I must push on with these assessments.

As opposed to the "scientific" assessments, these are anecdotal assessments, gathered from my fishing results and the hundreds of fishermen I've met and talked to out there. The average fisherman who talks to me has been fishing 20 years or more, so I feel there is some breadth and weight to these assessments.

I could have broken this down to the Shark River Inlet as the halfway point, but decided not to. For consistency I will continue to report this way.










***************
Fishing from MI to SH for the first half of 2011 followed part of the usual pattern where the fish showed up when the bunker were there. Before that, isolated quantities of bass were caught on clams and artificials. This seemed to be a slow season to start because for the longest time the ocean temps stayed close to 50.

Beginning the 2nd week of May, and ending with the last week of June, this time span of 6 weeks is arguably the most productive for NJ surf guys, as the temps rise and bunker schools migrate along the surf. This is the time when anyone and everyone has a shot at a 50lb surf caught bass. in fact, several bass over 50 were caught from the surf in that region this year, the biggest I saw recorded was 52#.








There are some who will say this was the BEST surf season ever for NJ big bass in that time period. I would tend to agree with that statement.
Some would also ask me...Dark if you agree with that, how can you say the numbers are down?

A few points....

1. The bass were highly concentrated, save for a few "epic" days when they were distributed through both ocean and monmouth counties. This concentration meant that if you were on the "red x" as the OFFC has coined the term, you were into big fish. If you were 1 mile away, you were wondering where the fish were.


2. This great concentration of larger fish was a similar pattern of catches right before the moratorium was instituted in 1982, and as such, parallels can be drawn.


3. Although some fish in the 50's were landed, there was a notable lack of fish in that year class, and in the year class for 20lb fish and under. Surf fisherman after fisherman was marvelling that these were among the biggest fish they had ever seen, such were the glowing reports on the internet sites and gained from my personal interviews.


4. I believe there were also less 50 lb fish caught this year than at any time since guys have been getting fish in the NJ surf during these blitzes. It was said that the 30lb bass became the "new 50", because that was the year class that the majority of fish harvested seemed to represent.


5. So, if we are wiping out the 50's and the 40's, and there are a noticable lack of fish under 20#, this might indicate to an astute observer that there are certain year classes of striped bass, that are poorly represented. They are just not there.

This is not scientific, but scientific ASMFC historical evidence does tend to support a disparity in certain striped bass year classes. And, although not scientific, the reports and data I used to make my assessments here are from hundreds of fishermen, many who fish several times a week. Most of these guys were happy with their catches this Spring season, yet,,, many of them grumbled that they had to run farther and hit more locations (whether by boat or surf) to find the fish that in previious years had been described as like "fishing in a barrel of big fish".

That wasn't the case this year, with the exception of some of the charter boats that were able to dial into about 2 weeks of very consistent action as the fish seemed to be holding on some patches slightly N of Manasquan Inlet. all the way up to MB.

And now we'll mention Sandy Hook as a special case. Fishing Sandy Hook for years, it's one of my favorite places. This year, with the exception of a few good weeks in the early Spring when clams were king, and a week when bunker dumped out of the bay, the fishing has been terribly inconsistent. It's nothing of the sort that it was even 3 short years ago.

One of my long-ago mentors, who fished Sandy Hook almost every day during the season, for decades, has now abandoned Sandy Hook in search for better structure at beaches South of there.







Summary:
For the majority of guys chasing the bass, the big bass were few and far between except for a very productive 2-3 week period.

Even the "bunker pod strategy" used by many boaters was at times ineffective.
At times, there were miles of bunker, up to 12 miles in area, of bunker, with no bass or bluefish under them.

Anyone who wants to talk about how the bass are not under-fished, would be hard pressed to completely explain the above lack of bass under those miles of bunker.

Some might point to the water temps as the reason for absence of bass toward the end of June. During most of the time when the bunker pods were without any bass on them, the ocean temps were in the low to mid 60's. These temps are at the point where they are starting to become warm and naturally cause the bass to seek out cooler water.

However, certainly not hot enough to push the whole biomass of bass north, if there was food to be eaten here.

[DarkSkies]

I don't know how many people appreciate my page-long dissertations in this thread.

I'm trying my best to present these mini-assessments to help folks understand the big picture. I feel if they have no knowledge of the areas I've been to and fished, it becomes hard for them to form an opinion.

Therefore, I try to be as detailed as possible. I want them to have this information before they decide whether striped bass are overfished or not.

I want folks to see that these are not just the rantings of "Chicken Littles" or "Conservation Zealots", but matter-of-fact observations from people who fish a lot.

I don't want to lose the reader with overdone assessments, though. These things need to be brought up, but sometimes too much info can overload folks' brains and they turn off.....






In hopes of keeping the interest stirred, in some posts I'm going to ask folks who specialize in those areas to give their assessments. I hope you will bear with my wordiness and try to learn something here.

[hookset]

If it is taking so long to get things done that are so obvious I'll bet some of the people on the asmfc have to be taking bribes.

[DarkSkies]

Raritan Ray, Raritan River, Twin River System, and NY Bight


Lord, I'm so behind on this thread,, time to get crackin before it's time to write the assessment for the 2nd half.



Raritan Ray, Raritan River, and the Twin River System

It's well-known among fishermen that Raritan Bay and the deeper channels leading to NY Bight are staging grounds for a lot of NJ/NY resident fish. Some small ones don't make the yearly migration till they reach a certain size, feeding on the crabs, shrimp and mollusks off the piers, pilings and rocky structure.

These resident fish, while fluctuating in number, are cause for concern in years when they are not abundant, because they can be either --
anecdotal supporters of NMFS YOY figures, or show that the figures are incorrect.

I'm mentioning this because for 2 years in a row, the smallest bass have been absent from the Raritan Bay area, compared to the numbers we are used to seeing.

I know they are there, I can catch them in a yak from places you would not think of looking. And the hundreds of bait fishermen along the banks can confirm as well. However, the numbers are dwindling, I don't have a scientific reason why.


Early Spring Raritan Bay fishing is temperature dependent. This year it got off to a late start because we had a harsh winter with a lot of runoff.

Early season bass fishing in this bay is primarily a bait fishery.
By several accounts of those who fish for bass regularly, the numbers of bass were down.

The "bright spot" was the bunker.
Those who know how and where to find the bunker in their usual places managed to find bass up to 25lbs, a few larger, but most from 10-20lbs. These were mixed in with bigger bluefish, as is usually the case.






Bridge fishing for big bass
I'm going to do something here I don't usually do, to prove a point, and hope it doesn't backfire....

Some of the biggest fish come from the bridges, because they are the highways the fish must use to traverse the rivers. Traditionally, when the clubs have their spring tourneys, the biggest tourney winning bass will come from a bridge deep in the night when bait is present.

That didn't happen this year.
Why?

In part because there were access issues caused by some selfish people, who were warned by the police, and then allegedly proceeded to file a formal complaint alleging they were racially discriminated against.

For the most part, bridges had less fishing access, and less fishing man-hours, put into them this year, unless you fished from a boat near them.

Even with all that drama, I know some folks who still managed to put in some serious bridge time, whether on foot or by boat. Live eels, rubber, bunker, the standard presentations that get it done from those bridges and have given them trophy fish in the past.

Hardly any trophy fish (any fish over 30lbs and up) was caught from a bridge area in the spring.

Ask most hard-core bridge fishermen how good their Spring catches were,,,, and if you can get an honest answer out of them, they'll say.... "This Spring at the bridges sucked, where are the fish?? "








The rest of Raritan Bay and the NY Bight, up to Breezy Point

Many bass winter over in the deepest channels. Unfortunately, there is limited access. A guy who can pull a 20lb bass regularly from a deepwater area during his lunch hour, because he has access in that restricted area, is not going to talk about it with the NMFS or on a phone survey. But he will talk to me, and scores of folks do as long as I promise their anonymity.

They are not getting the big bass from the deepwater channels like they have been. They are still catching, but the best stories I've heard happened 3 years ago, and longer.

In the areas where there is public access, Great Kills, for example, the lack of larger, fat healthy bass this Spring over 20lbs was dismal.

There are always exceptions. I know of a few 55+ class bass that were caught right off Great Kills this year in a channel. I would assume there are some more, unreported, every year. There are a few "sharpies" who target and catch big bass in this area every year, and you will never hear about it. There are also a few kayakers who have gotten in the middle of the schools at low light and landed some fish up to 30#.

However, the numbers are not there.... not like in previous years.
Without trying to overwhelm folks reading this, Great Kills and the NY Bight is a very special area to me. It's the area where the world record weakfish was caught in May 7, 2008 by Dave Alu with Rich Swisstack guiding.

If you fish a lot, it's definitely one of your early season hotspots.
In 2008 and the years prior, almost every night there would be a few fish landed on the beaches from 25-40lbs.

How many times did this happen in Spring 2009?
2010?
Spring 2011? Virtually none



Where have these big bass gone?
If they are not overfished, why would they not be there feeding on the bunker, which are never too far in the Spring from Great Kills?

Schools in the thousands, plenty of food for the biggest bass to eat, and yet not many bigger bass to be found under those schools.















I bring this up because it's a crucial rebuttal to folks like Tom Fote and others from the NMFS and ASMFC who say there is no evidence of overfishing for striped bass......gents, feel free to take yourself to any of these areas for a span of 2 weeks deep in the night around high slack tide.

See for yourself, the guys just aren't catching any numbers of fish or big fish from them anymore....


No scientfic data is needed for this assessment. Those who fish a lot just know it to be true, because they see it happening in front of them. They are out on the water more than most, and it's plain as day to them.

[DarkSkies]

I appreciate all feedback on this thread.
Your opinions, reflective of your experience, will help to make this as accurate as possible. Thanks.

[DarkSkies]

Some people are afraid to discuss the realities.
They feel this is ammunition for NOAA to eventually shut things down, as they have done for other fisheries.

Although I would not like to see this happen, and would still fish despite any ban they put out there, I feel if we are not decribing things as accurately as possible, it's not possible to see the big picture with any clarity.

[ledhead36]

I'm mentioning this because for 2 years in a row, the smallest bass have been absent from the Raritan Bay area, compared to the numbers we are used to seeing.

. And the hundreds of bait fishermen along the banks can confirm as well. However, the numbers are dwindling, I don't have a scientific reason why.

There are also hundreds of illegals, asians, mexicans, russians, fishing docks, piers and bridges and keeping every striper they get their hands on, that may have something to do with it too.

[jonthepain]

around here, the illegals take everything they can possibly get with their cast nets, and mama cita cleans it and puts it in a bucket the second they drag it on shore.

they tell me it's a cultural thing.

they've wiped out just about everything around here, and the authorities don't do a dam thing.