Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

Hey ASMFC- So your evaluation of the striped bass stock states that is low and must be cut back for future generations. Well it looks to me that you have never stepped on a charter or head boat from the NY Bight area. There are striped bass in the millions from Perth Amboy, to the Far Rockaways and down to Manasquan. Visit the captain helmarea and look at his fish finder. Today we had them stacked 15 feet deep all over our area. This is the biomass you are looking for. Right before you eyes. It seem to me that you must be sampling the Jersey coast in the middle of the summer when the bass have left our area. Get real, jump on any head boat or charter boat and take a gander at the fish finders and bent rods. What a joke...

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

Your kidding go on a boat to south jersey or delaware bay and see how many bass are being caught down their. I could probably count on one hand how many. Fish the surf and back bay and you will see not many big fish being caught. I'm sure I'll get bash for this reply. But if you think the bass aren't in trouble then I must be crazy.

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

nope you are correct. one biomass of fish that you can see on a boat/fishfinder doesn't mean all is well. thats the type of thinking that cause things to never change until it's too late.

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

Yep and there are millions of winning lottery tickets sold daily too .
Saw the pic in the paper .


Just having some decent days when fish are stacked up isn't showing you 1 percent of where else they should be .

And your also looking at the hudson strain in th st area which is reasonably healthy.
The chesapeake bio mass is the one that's is hurting .
No where near the amount of fish Oceanside there was even just 5 years ago .
And nothing like ten years ago .

Watch how little fish are caught all winter in VA where there used to be thousands caught a day
.

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Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

I went numb reading this post. Used to hear about Cape May rips all the time, that was at least 10 years ago.

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

This reading is a sampling of what we have been seeing since NOV1 on a daily basis. There are also tons of big bass outside of the 3 mile line. Seems like the big ones have developed a new rt south. The find the bunker off shore and stay with them. Please note, I am 100% in favor of releasing all bass over 38 inches. Have been for many years. If the bio stock is different areas, develop rules reflective of those areas. The bio mass for the Raritan Bay area is outstanding. The rules should reflect that. All of the Cape May bass and Va bass are migrating in a different pattern. That should not affect areas where the stock is extremely viable. On size does not fit all .

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

All I am suggesting is that one size does not fit all. The regs should reflect the bio mass in each area and also investigate the different migrating patterns in recent yrs. The hudson strain is extremely health...regs should reflect that. The big bass that Cape May used to have and Va also, now go 5 miles or more on their migration. Does ASMFC investigate that? Most likely no.

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

Some areas are hurting that is for sure. The Hudson strain that invades Raritan Ban and it's adjacent waters is extremely healthy. One size does not fit all. Let the regs reflect the quality of bass fishing in each area. Release all fish over 38 in.

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

Fisherman lol. Have a good run or season and the act like there is no need for the restrictions. Same with the sea bass. I’ve had plenty of sub par striper fishing in the ny bight area the last few years.

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

Many times we had to watch the three mile line. Coming in from tuna fishing there would be big bass on bunker pods seven even ten miles off the beach. Years ago we did not have a three mile limit and nothing to worry but. This is how we know. Many PB and charter boats are hurt by this. If you put one striped bass in the box at 7 am you are not allowed to cross the three mile line. So the inshore bass stop biting and you have 75 patrons on board and you can see the bass and blues under tons of birds but they are 100 yards past the line??? Your screwed and a bunch of unhappy customers. Walk in the shoes of a for hire capt and maybe you will change your tune.

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

yeah I dunno... back in the 80's there was NO striper fishery for the most part... Just not enough of them out there.. However, there were a very few guys that would catch them consistently and they were big,, For those guys the stock was healthy, because they knew where the fish were, and how to catch them.. Thats does NOT indicate a good population.. It meant that a small population was figured out by a few good fisheremen..
These days there are guys that go out and limit on big tog every trip... All that means is they know where there are good numbers in certain areas that will bite.. It does NOT indicate that the fish are in good shape population wise.. Just means there are pockets of fish where a few guys know how when and where to catch them...


I never considered stripers a fish that could be exploited by hundreds of boats packed with fishermen on a daily basis, and remain viable long term.. I just keep thinking of the weakfish I knew as a younger man.. Those fish were everywhere, until they weren't. They were over exploited for years, went away, and just never came back.. If that happens to Stripers..... well,,,, bob

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

Andy, really? Like a charter Capt ONLY fishes for striped bass and ONLY fishes within 3 miles. You have to pass that for ling, flounder, cod etc. Many well known for hire and private boats have seen all the bass outside 3 miles without fishing for them as have I .

A new twist (not directed at you Andy but all anglers) is just go and fish if its a 1 fish limit or whatever to keep the for hire fishermen in business as its their way of life and should be respected. Its also a Seg-way to our ability to fish without owning a boat and would be sad to see it go away. If we cant agree on the regs, the management of the regs or anything than we as anglers should agree on the right to and the passage to fish. I dont want to see a world without party boats, 6 packs and 15 packs inshore or offshore and just kayaks ( i have nothing against kayaks) .

I grew up on boats, watching boats go in and out of the inlets, and taking my wife and kids to see the same. We are losing that and once its gone its gone.

So just go and pay some karma to someone else way of life even if you dont have a 'bag' of fish at the end of the day. We all spend on worse.

If it comes to that Catch and release isn't worse than cancer. BUT it should be regulated properly and we know its NOT.

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

Again when all the reports say that the hundreds of boats killed the bite and put the fish down how was the fishery exploited? "had to get there early as traffic killed the bite" "fishing shut down as soon as the traffic built" "had to leave the fleet to find a few fish" Netting depleted bait and stripers not recs
Stripers when saved ate all the weakfish!

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

I have no problem with keeping fish.. I would keep a smallish keeper striper myself without hesitation, and have in the past.. Not that big a fan anyway, to me they taste like a rag that you wiped your hands on after replacing a head gasket.

The Weakfish were more or less already gone by the time the Stripers came back strong.

Just saying the fish are not everywhere, they aren;t spread out evenly , and are getting hit hard.. Every for pay operation and every private boat are on those fish right now, as the only other inshore species is Tog, and many boats will stay on the Stripers until they leave or become too inactive to feed aggressively.. Then come April, that intense pressure comes to bear again as the fish head up the Hudson to spawn, and lasts into June when the Fluke start to show.

I don't have an answer- honestly, I am simply not that bright.. I do however personally feel that they just can't weather this type of extreme fishing pressure in a relatively small area, and that something has to give.. I really hope your opinion is valid, and mine is far off the mark.. I hope for everyone's sake[especially the bass!] that they are here to catch in big numbers every year . However at my age, I have simply seen the same thing happen to too many other species that I fished for all my life, and love to catch.. All still around to catch, not extinct or anything, but reduced to a tiny fraction of what they were historically, and what they should be in a sane world.

Problem is these fish make their home right in the middle of a population of over 30 million people that are within an hour or two drive away, and a lot of those people like to catch fish and eat them. So its the same old story really..

Simply too many people wanting to catch and eat a finite number of fish.. bob

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

The weakfish were gone when the stripers came back back strong?? You have no idea of what you are talking about. Capt.Rich Swisstack landed the world record off Great Kills in the early the 2,000 period. the next day on my charter we had four weakfish over 14lbs. This was the height of the Weakfish run and the striper fishing was strong in Raritan Bay. After the bass run was over we concentrated on weakfish. We would be booked everday and there were plenty of weakfish in the 23-28" class with a limit o 14 per angler.The large weakfish were landed on live bunker! This is fact and and in the log book.

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

This guy used a similar methodology in Washington DC to disprove decades of global climate change research in February, 2015...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E0a_60PMR8
I'm guessing you weren't trying to find striped bass in the same areas back in the '70s, '80s, & '90s... :cool:

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

Sorry my friend I was there.. In the early 80's I lived in Union Beach and lived right on the bay.. It was NOTHING, to go out at night and catch 10 + pound weaks all night one after the other.. A good fisherman could catch 50 or more... By the time I left NJ for good in 1991, the weakfishing was nowhere near what it had been 10 years previous... Yes they were still there, and yes the charter guys could still catch them, but the numbers were way down by hat time in comparison, and the fish were smaller.. I went fishing for them quite often in the 90's and they were targeted by party boats still, but I recall a day my son won a big pool with a weak about 17 -18 inces.. the fish were so much smaller it was ridiculous.. By the mid 2000's the weakfish had all but collapsed, and the stripers were coming back better each year.. You might be a captain , you might be a good fisherman, but I was there as well, I have had articles published in NJ Fisherman magazine about fishing spots and techniques in Raritan Bay, so there are other besides yourself that know how whan and where the fish are and how they're caught.. By the time the Striper fishing was getting solid in Raritan Bay and the NY Bight after decades of being dead, the weakfish were in big trouble not only in N Jersey, but
Delaware Bay as well.. You are not the expert you perceive yourself to be I'm afraid, because I was there, lived right where the fishing was, and was a part of it... A few impressive charters or party boat catches does not mean a fishery isn't in decline.. I recall those years well as the Weaks started to falter..
Everyone was in denial- " Hook and line can't hurt a salt water fishery".. Until it did.. Something did thats for sure..

If you think it can't happen to Stripers because of a few good reports on this forum, you are in denial like too many others were before you.. bob

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

So much confidence based on anecdotal sightings of offshore bass.

If you're wrong and the stock collapses, everyone goes out of business, right?

You depend on a public, natural resource, and no one forced you to go into the fishing business. Honestly, you guys ought to be the most "conservative" when it comes to management, yet every single time the data shows constricting biomass you grasp at straws --- offshore bass, female fluke --- fighting tooth and nail to kill more fish.

It's as if the prior striper collapse never happened.

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

well said!

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

I know I sound like a broken record but perhaps giving customers a lasting memory in the form of digital media is something the for hire fleet should look into.

6 packs can mount a couple of gopros, party boats could have mates wearing them on their hats. Clients catching a fish of a lifetime could have their footage Dropboxed to them.

I bet this paradigm of party/charter boat customers needing to kill and eat stripers is far, far outdated. People want a record of their catch, they can load up on porgies during the season for food.

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

Last thing I want to do is argue, get told i don't know what I'm talking about, or saying something like that to other members here that I respect.. I just have a feeling that the pressure thats put on the Hudson bred stripers each spring and fall is not sustainable.. they are taking the place of several other species now that are MIA.. I never even missed them because there was year round fishing of a caliber I fear will never happen again.. at least in my lifetime.

All iIknow is the stocks had BETTER stay solid,stable , and sustainable otherwise the only available species inshore in April, May, OCT,Nov,Dec will be Blackfish, and there's no way they can withstand the pressure either.. My hope is to see a solid return of Whiting, Ling inshore, Flounder, and Mackerel in spring and fall to take some pressure off Blackfish and Stripers.. Fish can and do make comebacks.. Porgies are strong these days in summer and early fall,BIG ones. Better than they have been my whole life. Summer macks were good past few years, bonito were strong, Albacore too, better than I have seen in a while,... Spanish macks too. Its the cold/cool water species that seem most hard hit, outside of weakfish.
I hope for the best like everyone else here... bob

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

You are a good guy and i know you care but???? You think you know more tha n Charter and PB Capts. Get your facts correct. Have a good TURKEY DAY BOB

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

No I certainly don't know more than a professional fishing boat captain. I am not that bright to be honest. However I do know that weakfish were fading fast by the time stripers started to recover well.. They peaked in the late 70's, to mid 80's.. Still there for a decade after,yes, but the writing was on the wall.. The incredible spring runs in the Peconics and Delaware Bay, just got worse and worse each year, and then the summertime fishing in the Raritan/Sandy Hook complex which fared ok for a while, started getting slower each year as we got into the 2000s... fish were still around, and still targeted, but the fish themselves got smaller each year, and the numbers were fading as well..
They were netted relentlessly. I recall the pound nets in sandy hook Bay very well. Then while there were still decent numbers of them around, but smaller in size they were targeted relentlessly for several years by the party/charter boats in the Sandy hook area.. boats from NY came over as well.. Weakfish/Porgies were the order of the day, except for the boats that were strictly fluke fishing.. By that time I had moved to NY, but much of my life was still in NJ, family etc... Its an old story.. Too many were taken by net and by hook to be eaten. Its really that simple.. I just don't want that to happen to Stripers, because if it does, there's just nothing to fall back on in the cool months.. Party and charters will be relegated to a 6 month season... Not saying its going to happen at all.. Just that it could happen if we aren't careful.. My experience tells me that it will happen again.. Many smart folks saying how great the stocks are, with almost as many equally smart folks sounding alarm bells... As I am a more typically pessimistic type. I side with the alarm bell types, ONLY because i have seen this song and dance too many times before.. It happens up here too in the big Finger lakes.. Good eating white meat species decimated because too many fish taken and eaten for too long. Too many guys denying it as long as they can still catch a few however. There are a lot of anglers that would be happy to catch and eat the last of a species before someone else could catch and eat it.
Human nature prevails... bob

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

What is it you are trying to say?Your post makes no sense.For hire Capts care about a ''public'' resource. Public being the key word.If we didn't care we would't donate to Save the Summer flounder foundation or attend meetings.Than again we are fighting tooth and nail to kill more fish??Were do you get this from?Are you blaming charter and party boats for the decline in the striper population?You must really hate people that fish for a living and pass on a tradition to our children." ANECDOTAL" LMFAO Big words i am so impressed.

Re: Asmfc- striped bass stock low?-jump on any charter or head boat
 

There won't be anything to pass on if the stock collapses. Maybe try and think long term? You guys got what you wanted in the 28-35 slot, but you're here talking about mythical offshore bass.