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

[Capt Sal]

Originally Posted by reason162

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.

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.

[hammer4reel]

Originally Posted by WESTWIND

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...

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
.

.

[AndyS]

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

[WESTWIND]

Originally Posted by hammer4reel

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
.

.

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 .

[WESTWIND]

Originally Posted by hammer4reel

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
.

.

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.

[dales529]

Originally Posted by AndyS

"There are also tons of big bass outside of the 3 mile line", how do you know ?

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.

[reason162]

Originally Posted by dales529

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.

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.

[bulletbob]

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

[Capt Sal]

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

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by Capt Sal

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

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