Quote:
Originally Posted by Capt. Frank
This was what 1980's? You'd have to catch them on an industrial scale daily to do that.
The whiting disappeared up here too and so did the weakfish.
Migration patterns change. Whoever heard of large Drum in RB? Or the yearly visit and spotting of a huge Sturgeon that no one fishes for. But there's not 1000's of Sturgeon either.
Nature has a cycle.
Even crabbing up north in Shrewsbury and Navesink Rivers stunk the last two seasons with smaller crabs all season long.
We can blame the Evil Commercial Empire as they are convenient scape goats on a Rec fisherman site. But that is very suspect too.
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I'll agree with that when it comes to flounder.. However it was commercials that destroyed the Whiting/Mackerel/Weakfish, no doubt in my mind.. I still recall the pound nets in Raritan Bay killing untold numbers of spawning Weakfish every year, until they were pretty much gone...
Flounder had more issues than just commercial pressure, and yes, we recs took WAY too many back in the 80's... I too recall when the party boats abandoned the rivers back in the day, and I was right in the middle of them in shallow water in Union Beach where I lived at the time, not 1/4 off the beach in my 12 foot rowboat, everyone catching massive blackbacks, until they were gone too.. Once the rivers were not producing flounder it should have set off alarm bells.. It didn't.. They just went to where there were still fish to be caught... until there weren't... No it wasn't all commercial guys, we recs did plenty of damage too.. However, they are at least as complicit as we are for the bad situation we are in with flounder, and are certainly the main cause of the disappearance of other species... bob
