Memories of our changing times

[Dino]

Originally Posted by bulletbob

I started using bucktails for fluke 40 years ago.. Really there's nothing new under the sun there.. Whole squid always worked for big fluke even decades ago.. We weren't worried about "catching keepers".. Everything was a keeper, and there were always way more than enough to go around.. However fishing pressure in NY/NJ has quadrupeled since then.
Back in the day, we used mackerel chunks/strips for whiting and ling.. Clams were never used... The Mackerel worked GREAT back then and I bet would work just as well today for ling, but few guys use it...

Weaks, was a sandworm on a 3x3 rig.. Drifted.. Deadly,, Later on we stretched the bait supply by using a sand worm with a big red plastic jelly worm.. That worked well.. If your sand worm was broken, or small and sickly, the weaks would smell it and still hit the jelly worm..

We would catch tons of cocktail size blues in the 80's using tea spoon handles, butter knife blades, pieces of car radio antennas filled with nails, and drilled for split rings and hooks.. That junk worked very well..

Flounder, we never bought bait when I lived in union beach.. We would walk the shore at low tide, dig clams, bloods, tapes, pick mussels, whatever.. Crack a few mussels. or clams, and 2 pounders started flying into the boat... year after year, anywhere in the bay. until they got decimated by draggers, IMHO...

We didn't fish much for stripers, there weren't any.. Well a few, but a 30 pounder made all the local papers...
We never missed them anyway.. Lots of other stuff to catch.
In May just around the Hook, you had a mixed bag of winter flounder and ling on the same rigs.. Imagine catching 1-2 pound flounder, and big fat ling, right near the beach, on a 1 handed rod with 1 0z of lead???
Or baseball bat whiting mixed with masses of ling, right between the channels off sandy hook.. Thats what we did in spring... Mackerel were everywhere as well.. As I said, we didn't fish for stripers much, but never missed them...
In those days, we didn't see that many porgies.. We caught them, but they were small.. Actually I think there are more and bigger porgies today... Didn't matter, the sea bass were everywhere, and easy to catch.. We didn't miss porgies really..

Triggers were few and far between.. I caught one on a wreck in Raritan Bay in the 80's a BIG one, maybe 18 inches or better.. Never saw one before that day.. All I remember is, it fought like hell, filleting it was akin to filleting a catchers mitt, and it was VERY good to eat...
Oh yeah eels.. eels by the hundreds, thousands, anywhere,, ANY salt or brackish creek, any salt or brackish river, any bay, anywhere all year except winter.. You COULD catch 100 on a good night, on ANY bait, just in Morgan Creek or someplace like that.. Big ones too... No more, at least from what I understand... No Croakers those days either.. We did have Spots some years, others not, Kings some years, others not, Blowfish some years, others not....
I dunno, times change, fisheries change.. I no longer live there, but when I did, I never noticed the intense every day pressure I see these days... I used to fish on week days mid summer, and any time before about 7 am, I was alone out there.. Today, there are armadas underway coming from every direction at 5 am.. No one to blame.. Just a LOT more people all after the same fish these days, and more commercial pressure as well..
We didn't need regulations 30-40 years ago, to be honest.. Sadly we do need them today... So many people out there..... bob

enjoyed reading this-- thanks Bob