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Thread: News stories about fishing the moratorium

  1. #1
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    Default News stories about fishing the moratorium

    I found another thread on here where guys who fished during the moratorium, talk about what it was like.
    http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...e&daysprune=-1

    I thought it might be interesting to research articles that were published during that time and talk about how the fishing was. Here is one I found from 1998.



    As Fishing Season Starts, a Surge in Striped Bass

    By CHARLIE LeDUFF

    Published: May 9, 1998





    The striped bass are running. That's the word at the bait shops around town. They are coming in from the ocean, and this year they are abundant. They are running into New York Harbor, some feeding in Jamaica Bay before swimming up the mouth of the Hudson and East Rivers to their home streams to spawn.
    The striped bass is clean and wild, as any experienced angler knows, and now is the only time of year when there is a reasonable chance to catch one from shore.
    But before you think about going after this year's surprising bounty of striped bass, be forewarned: You must get up two hours before dawn, boil your coffee and prepare your gear. You will need your rod, a reel with good strong line -- the mature bass can easily weigh 30 pounds -- assorted lures, a warm jacket, a sound thermos and perhaps cigarettes. Then you wait for your buddy to show up.
    This is the way it has always been, the pinhookers say, and this is the way it must be done.
    For the New Yorker who either prefers to fish in territorial waters or is prohibited by lack of income and good fortune from making the occasional journey to fresher waters, these are halcyon days not witnessed in decades.

    Striped bass season officially opened yesterday, after moribund years in which few fish were caught and the species was thought to be on its way to extinction in local waters. Biologists and people who fish, however, are now reporting that the highly esteemed game fish, with the wits of a mongoose and the characteristic black stripes along its sides, was being caught in large numbers as early as last week.
    The Roccus saxatilis population has rebuilt itself, said Byron Young, a marine resources specialist with the State Department of Environmental Conservation. He said the estimate for the total catch of striped bass last year was in excess of 1.3 million fish in New York State. Compare that with less than 200,000 a decade ago.

    ''The fish are back,'' Mr. Young happily announced. ''It's still being fully exploited, but because of good management techniques, the species is thriving.'' Mr. Young credits this year's bounty to strict size and catch limits on the fish that were begun in the mid-1980's. Today's New York angler may take only one striped bass a day, at a minimum of 28 inches in length.
    The striped bass season lasts until mid-December but peaks this month as the fish head back to sea after depositing their eggs and milt. The recent winter was mild, which should have left plenty of food for the fish, according to anglers.
    And the men and women who plumb the waters of Jamaica Bay point out that New York's water quality has drastically improved, making it much more hospitable to the fish.
    It used to be said that the waters of Jamaica Bay were so foul that they could be bottled and sold as poison. But things have changed. Garbage dumps surrounding the perimeter of the bay have been capped, and raw sewage that used to be pumped directly into the water is now treated at new plants in Rockaway, Bergen Basin, Coney Island and Starrett City. ''The bay has gradually come back,'' said Don Riepe, chief of natural resources at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. ''We're not all the way there yet, but give it 20 years and we might have it solved.''

    On the Big Egg Marsh of Jamaica Bay, known to those on land as Broad Channel, the effects of fishing's decline in the last few decades are all too evident: There used to be more than 30 full-service fishing stations a few decades ago, but almost all of them disappeared as the fish left the bay and and property values became too prohibitive to run a mom-and-pop fishing operation.

    ''Besides, today's fishermen don't like to get wet,'' said Jimmy D'Ambrosio, 55, who runs one of the last remaining fishing stations, on the bay off Cross Bay Boulevard with his wife, Dolores.
    Their shop, called Smitty's, is open early, serving the last-minute fishermen who had elected to drink the evening before opening day instead of obtaining the necessary lures. Mr. D'Ambrosio, who was a construction foreman before buying the Prohibition-era shop, not only dispenses bait and lures but also rents boats at $70 a day. The advice, however, is free.
    Mr. D'Ambrosio, a Brooklyn native who grew up in Queens, calls himself the king of the crabbers.
    ''Ten years ago, people said the bay was dead,'' he told some customers. ''It isn't dead. It's alive.''
    But business is nevertheless suffering this spring, because the weather has been rough.
    ''I did better in high-rises,'' he said of his former job, as the rain fell in buckets yesterday morning.
    Just past 8 A.M., after the high tide had come in, two of the most hardy fishermen pulled up in their skiff. The water was rough and running back to sea, and their boat drifted with it.
    John Walsh, 35, snagged his line, and lost the lure. This was O.K., because the day was as much about camaraderie as success on the seas, with the discussion of family as important as the talk of fish. Spring, after all, has come to New York, and the horseshoe crabs are beginning to nest on the sandy shores.
    Despite the cloudy skies, the nearby Cross Bay Bridge was already crowded with fishermen hungry for the striped bass. With the Manhattan skyline in the distance, the close-up view was a stark contrast: it resembled more the wait for cod from the industrial docks of Shanghai or tuna in San Felipe, Mexico, or whitefish in Cross Village, Mich.
    By 9 A.M., the rains came, and Mr. Walsh and his friend, Timothy Brighton, headed back to dock, since playing hookey may be all right for schoolboys but not for working men. The fishing wasn't all that great anyway: they had got up late, thrown away a lure, drifted along for two hours and then got soaked to the bone. And the only bite they got all day was back in town at the cafe. But that's O.K., they said, because the fisherman knows there is always tomorrow.


    http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...56C0A96E958260

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    Thanks for this thread Crosseyedbass. Although for most areas the moratorium existed anywhere from the early to mid-80's, it was a trying time to fish.

    Many of the new fishermen out there don't have an understanding of how it was to go for weeks without getting bass from the surf. A while ago I interviewed Billy the Greek on this subject. He said he was still getting fish by boat. And because he's an exceptional, fanatically dedicated fisherman, I believe him.

    But the surf guys really suffered. Many gave up in disgust. They turned to bluefish and fluke, with striped bass as an occasional unexpected bonus when ya got one.

    I think these experiences, although contained as well in the other thread you linked, need to be shared to continue to raise awareness of what most anglers went through at that time.

    So if any of you find articles mentioning the moratorium and how things were, feel free to post, even if not written in the 1982-1988 time frame. Please be sure to cite the source as well by posting the link. Thanks, people.

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    Default Memorable fishing stories from the past, what can you find? nostalgia time

    I see that crosseyed bass put up a thread about fishing articles during the moratorium.
    http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...the-moratorium
    I applaud that. If you have not lived and experienced those meager fishing years you cannot really understand what is like to almost lose striped bass to extinction. This really happened folks, it is not just a collection of rumors. I posted an article for the weakfish thread, and realized there might be other articles out there that fishermen could identify with.
    So, with Darkskies' permission, I hope this different thread, focusing on the good times of fishing will allow folks to see things differently, as they were back then.

    This is a story that is about the weakfish, and how plentiful they used to be. I don't know how many folks remember this, but in the 70's they were so plentiful in the Delaware Bay that folks filled up trash cans with them. Many of them were wasted, but that was the norm back then. We never really thought that there could be such a thing as species extinction.
    We have truly learned a lot since those times.

    Here is the link to the article.
    http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...53/1/index.htm

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    Thanks for postng that clamchucker. I think a lot of this had to do with the netters, and still does.

    "
    Although weakfish have historically been subject to cyclical fluctuations in population, nothing like this slump had ever been recorded. Part of the blame fell on trawlers netting so-called "trash" fish off the Carolina coast for the pet food industry; these vessels swept up huge numbers of the young, which were pulverized for the house cats of America

    Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...#ixzz1IrGPUUg4
    "

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    Interesting. I have never caught a weakfish in the Sound, but I would love to. I can't imagine that fishing being so abundant like they were talking about.

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    Wow taking a look back was pretty cool. Thanks for sharing

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    This is something Roddy sent to me.....

    http://www.scottchurchdirect.com/ted...r-recovery-not

    Thought some of ya's might like to see, this perspective and thoughts about the moratorium...
    Written 12 years ago.....in 2002
    Talks about bass fishing in the 70's...
    Was the sky falling then?
    Or was there some ring of truth in the cautions that were being mentioned?

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    ^ Rich I think in 2002 it was noticable as well. Just starting to decline.
    An article from 1977. 5 years before changes were being made--

    FISHING: Striped bass population threatened by extinction?
    Montgomery, Monty
    Jun 5, 1977; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Boston Globe (1872-1982)
    pg. 95
    http://nycflyfishing.com/1977%20Striped%20Bass%20column.pdf


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    http://www.si.com/vault/1984/04/23/6...on-the-striper
    Something from Sports Illustrated 1984. They blamed it partially on the water quality.

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    Here is an interesting piece that says if scientists would have listened to fishermen they could have avoided some of the great fishing downturns throughout history.

    IRELAND - The knowledge of fishermen, which could be referenced to help prevent the catastrophic ecological collapses we are seeing in our lakes and oceans, is rarely being valued by fisheries scientists according to a recent review of over 500 scientific publications spanning nearly 100 years.
    The study, published this week as Editor’s Choice by the ICES Journal of Marine Science shows that if scientists from Canada to Kiribati had worked more closely with fishermen over the last 100 years they could well have prevented infamous events like crashes in regional cod populations, as well as some of the rapid degradation we are currently seeing in tropical coral reef environments.
    - See more at: http://www.thefishsite.com/fishnews/....2nEMq6kE.dpuf

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    Thanks buckethead. It kind of makes me mad to read something like that. Now we have fishermen saying the same thing about the stripers. The scientists seem to think they know it all. Or they know better than we do. SMH

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    Striper Gold. By Lou Presti of NJN. This must have been filmed back when I was still living in Jersey. Probably around 1989. Not an article but a snapshot none the less.

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    bump for a good thread

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    We could use another one before the snag and droppers finish wiping them out

    Pay attention to what history has taught us or be prepared to relive it again

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    Quote Originally Posted by finchaser View Post
    We could use another one before the snag and droppers finish wiping them out

    ?uck the snag and droppers..... I am anti-snag and drop.
    It seems people are so desperate to catch a larger bass that they go right to the skilless form of killing bass at every chance.... at least it seems/sounds that way.
    White Water Monty 2.00 (WWM)
    Future Long Islander (ASAP)

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    Quote Originally Posted by finchaser View Post
    We could use another one before the snag and droppers finish wiping them out

    ?uck the snag and droppers..... I am anti-snag and drop.
    It seems people are so desperate to catch a larger bass that they go right to the skilless form of killing bass at every chance.... at least it seems/sounds that way.
    White Water Monty 2.00 (WWM)
    Future Long Islander (ASAP)

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    Seems like thats what they were catching the big boys on the last couple of days, didn't want lures?

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    Not exactly a news story - A real recollection by someone who fished back then. His name is Frank Theo. He made these comments on youtube. I agree.

    " I disagree with the bass biomass of yesterdays versus today's stats. I use to go out and fish on my friends brothers boat. He used to commercial fish for bass during the 1970's and he'd take us out on his Mako 22.

    He was averaging 500 to 1000 LBS of bass a day at 75 cents to a $1.50 a pound. He was making $500 to $1000 a day catching Striped Bass boxing and selling the fish to restaurants and the Fulton Fish Market. The legal size was 17 inches per fish and no limit on how many you can keep.

    During the 1970's through the early 1980's when I was I kid I'd fish tins off the beaches here in NYC and catch tons of snappers mixed with schoolies. Back during the 1970's through the 1980's, only charter boats fished for Stripers. The majority of party boats fished for bluefish out of Sheepshead Bay. Nobody targeted bass the way they do today.

    The thing that helped the bass population for a short while was in 1981 the DEC stopped bass fishing by restricting anglers one fish per man @ 36 inches. The fish were taken off the market for human consumption because bass are a polluted fish and have a high level of PCB's. The fish are contaminated from all the nickel cadmium buried and dumped under ground by the GE plant in the Hudson river where the bass breed."

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