Memories and musings.

[Billfish715]

The "memories" thread has been a great thread for us who are sitting inside dreaming about the warm months ahead and reminiscing about the good old days. Here's a few more. Nobody has mentioned things like: The Giant Tuna in the MudHole, Yellowfin Tuna at Little Italy, Dolphin(fish) around the inshore pots off Long Branch, FlyingFish in the same area, Skipjacks, Football Bluefins at the Klondike, the concentration of White Marlin at the BA buoy, the occasional inshore Wahoo, or tarpon or cobia,or the Spanish Mackerel, and False Albacore in front of the Manasquan Inlet. These were not normal occurrences but we'll remember them as the good old days.

Did anyone mention the fantastic fishing for big blowfish many years ago both in the surf and in the bays? Who talks about kingfish anymore? When was the last time anyone saw sardines inshore of the Mud Hole? How about butterfish?

Things change. They always do. Maybe one day the conditions will be right for some of these things to happen again. Until then, make due with what we have. There will always be fluke, seabass, bluefish, blackfish, and ling. There always have been. We complain because we can't keep as many as before, but before, we kept 14" fluke. Now, we toss them back and keep the 18 inchers and complain that we aren't allowed to keep more. The fillets from two 18" fluke might equate to the weight of four to five 14 inchers. Compared to today, back in the good old days we had to keep more fluke to make a meal. So, yes, the fishing was much better back then because there were more racks on the cleaning tables but not much more "meat" on the plate.

There were always big striper "cows" to catch, but there weren't as many boaters either so the pressure was not as great as today. That was when the size limit was 18" and we were happy to worm some around the old bridge abutments by the Highlands Bridge. Enjoy yourselves with what we have today because that's all we have. Don't talk it down. Pass the tradition along so our kids can talk about today with their kids.