Your Predictions on the Future of Fishing in NJ

[Eskimo]

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Based on my experience of almost 30 years of fishing in New Jersey, I'm postulating there are three things that will profoundly affect the future of fishing in New Jersey:
1) Suburban sprawl and population growth
2) Increased immigration of anglers who never practice catch-and-release and have little respect for game laws.
3) Disease and invasive species

Based on those three things, here are my predictions for the future:

1) More stocking of gamefish and few 'native-born' gamefish.
Increased fishing pressure and harvest will far surpass wild fish populations' ability to replace their losses. The resulting lakes will rely completely on restocking by Fish & Wildlife to provide any recreational angling.
I see this already at popular suburban reservoirs such as Spruce Run.

2) The extirpation of Largemouth Bass from smaller water systems.
I'm seeing this already in some park ponds that once had wonderful populations of big Largemouth Bass for no other reason than few people bothered to kill them. In the past few years, the local migrant laborers discovered this source of food and recreation and hammered away at the ponds every evening until there was nothing left but small sunfish.

In the future, big Largemouth Bass will only exist on private property and large water systems that require a skilled angler with a boat. Ponds and smaller lakes will only be able to sustain panfish and carp.

3) More fishing clubs and leased private lakes.
Just like we see with hunters today paying exorbitant amounts of money for leases to have sole hunting rights on a piece of land, I predict more anglers will respond to high fishing pressure and fewer big bass by forming fishing clubs that will lease lakes and ponds on private property.

4) The veneration of the Northern Snakehead
As native gamefish population dwindle, I predict people will begin to look towards the Northern Snakehead as a substitute for bass. The snakeheads grow big -the current record in the U.S. is 17 pounds. They hit bass lures and I'm told their fillets are some of the best tasting of any freshwater fish. Judging by the snakehead's defiance of all the efforts to exterminate them, it appears they are prolific reproducers, too. What's not to like?

I think it will be a long time before anybody calls a Snakehead a "gamefish", but I predict in the future it will happen.

What are your predictions?



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