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

[bulletbob]

yeah I dunno... back in the 80's there was NO striper fishery for the most part... Just not enough of them out there.. However, there were a very few guys that would catch them consistently and they were big,, For those guys the stock was healthy, because they knew where the fish were, and how to catch them.. Thats does NOT indicate a good population.. It meant that a small population was figured out by a few good fisheremen..
These days there are guys that go out and limit on big tog every trip... All that means is they know where there are good numbers in certain areas that will bite.. It does NOT indicate that the fish are in good shape population wise.. Just means there are pockets of fish where a few guys know how when and where to catch them...


I never considered stripers a fish that could be exploited by hundreds of boats packed with fishermen on a daily basis, and remain viable long term.. I just keep thinking of the weakfish I knew as a younger man.. Those fish were everywhere, until they weren't. They were over exploited for years, went away, and just never came back.. If that happens to Stripers..... well,,,, bob

[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.

[dales529]

Originally Posted by bulletbob

yeah I dunno... back in the 80's there was NO striper fishery for the most part... Just not enough of them out there.. However, there were a very few guys that would catch them consistently and they were big,, For those guys the stock was healthy, because they knew where the fish were, and how to catch them.. Thats does NOT indicate a good population.. It meant that a small population was figured out by a few good fisheremen..
These days there are guys that go out and limit on big tog every trip... All that means is they know where there are good numbers in certain areas that will bite.. It does NOT indicate that the fish are in good shape population wise.. Just means there are pockets of fish where a few guys know how when and where to catch them...


I never considered stripers a fish that could be exploited by hundreds of boats packed with fishermen on a daily basis, and remain viable long term.. I just keep thinking of the weakfish I knew as a younger man.. Those fish were everywhere, until they weren't. They were over exploited for years, went away, and just never came back.. If that happens to Stripers..... well,,,, bob

Again when all the reports say that the hundreds of boats killed the bite and put the fish down how was the fishery exploited? "had to get there early as traffic killed the bite" "fishing shut down as soon as the traffic built" "had to leave the fleet to find a few fish" Netting depleted bait and stripers not recs
Stripers when saved ate all the weakfish!

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by dales529

Again when all the reports say that the hundreds of boats killed the bite and put the fish down how was the fishery exploited? "had to get there early as traffic killed the bite" "fishing shut down as soon as the traffic built" "had to leave the fleet to find a few fish" Netting depleted bait and stripers not recs
Stripers when saved ate all the weakfish!

I have no problem with keeping fish.. I would keep a smallish keeper striper myself without hesitation, and have in the past.. Not that big a fan anyway, to me they taste like a rag that you wiped your hands on after replacing a head gasket.

The Weakfish were more or less already gone by the time the Stripers came back strong.

Just saying the fish are not everywhere, they aren;t spread out evenly , and are getting hit hard.. Every for pay operation and every private boat are on those fish right now, as the only other inshore species is Tog, and many boats will stay on the Stripers until they leave or become too inactive to feed aggressively.. Then come April, that intense pressure comes to bear again as the fish head up the Hudson to spawn, and lasts into June when the Fluke start to show.

I don't have an answer- honestly, I am simply not that bright.. I do however personally feel that they just can't weather this type of extreme fishing pressure in a relatively small area, and that something has to give.. I really hope your opinion is valid, and mine is far off the mark.. I hope for everyone's sake[especially the bass!] that they are here to catch in big numbers every year . However at my age, I have simply seen the same thing happen to too many other species that I fished for all my life, and love to catch.. All still around to catch, not extinct or anything, but reduced to a tiny fraction of what they were historically, and what they should be in a sane world.

Problem is these fish make their home right in the middle of a population of over 30 million people that are within an hour or two drive away, and a lot of those people like to catch fish and eat them. So its the same old story really..

Simply too many people wanting to catch and eat a finite number of fish.. bob

[Capt Sal]

Originally Posted by bulletbob

I have no problem with keeping fish.. I would keep a smallish keeper striper myself without hesitation, and have in the past.. Not that big a fan anyway, to me they taste like a rag that you wiped your hands on after replacing a head gasket.

The Weakfish were more or less already gone by the time the Stripers came back strong.

Just saying the fish are not everywhere, they aren;t spread out evenly , and are getting hit hard.. Every for pay operation and every private boat are on those fish right now, as the only other inshore species is Tog, and many boats will stay on the Stripers until they leave or become too inactive to feed aggressively.. Then come April, that intense pressure comes to bear again as the fish head up the Hudson to spawn, and lasts into June when the Fluke start to show.

I don't have an answer- honestly, I am simply not that bright.. I do however personally feel that they just can't weather this type of extreme fishing pressure in a relatively small area, and that something has to give.. I really hope your opinion is valid, and mine is far off the mark.. I hope for everyone's sake[especially the bass!] that they are here to catch in big numbers every year . However at my age, I have simply seen the same thing happen to too many other species that I fished for all my life, and love to catch.. All still around to catch, not extinct or anything, but reduced to a tiny fraction of what they were historically, and what they should be in a sane world.

Problem is these fish make their home right in the middle of a population of over 30 million people that are within an hour or two drive away, and a lot of those people like to catch fish and eat them. So its the same old story really..

Simply too many people wanting to catch and eat a finite number of fish.. bob

The weakfish were gone when the stripers came back back strong?? You have no idea of what you are talking about. Capt.Rich Swisstack landed the world record off Great Kills in the early the 2,000 period. the next day on my charter we had four weakfish over 14lbs. This was the height of the Weakfish run and the striper fishing was strong in Raritan Bay. After the bass run was over we concentrated on weakfish. We would be booked everday and there were plenty of weakfish in the 23-28" class with a limit o 14 per angler.The large weakfish were landed on live bunker! This is fact and and in the log book.

[Blind Squirrel]

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...

This guy used a similar methodology in Washington DC to disprove decades of global climate change research in February, 2015...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E0a_60PMR8
I'm guessing you weren't trying to find striped bass in the same areas back in the '70s, '80s, & '90s...

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by Capt Sal

The weakfish were gone when the stripers came back back strong?? You have no idea of what you are talking about. Capt.Rich Swisstack landed the world record off Great Kills in the early the 2,000 period. the next day on my charter we had four weakfish over 14lbs. This was the height of the Weakfish run and the striper fishing was strong in Raritan Bay. After the bass run was over we concentrated on weakfish. We would be booked everday and there were plenty of weakfish in the 23-28" class with a limit o 14 per angler.The large weakfish were landed on live bunker! This is fact and and in the log book.

Sorry my friend I was there.. In the early 80's I lived in Union Beach and lived right on the bay.. It was NOTHING, to go out at night and catch 10 + pound weaks all night one after the other.. A good fisherman could catch 50 or more... By the time I left NJ for good in 1991, the weakfishing was nowhere near what it had been 10 years previous... Yes they were still there, and yes the charter guys could still catch them, but the numbers were way down by hat time in comparison, and the fish were smaller.. I went fishing for them quite often in the 90's and they were targeted by party boats still, but I recall a day my son won a big pool with a weak about 17 -18 inces.. the fish were so much smaller it was ridiculous.. By the mid 2000's the weakfish had all but collapsed, and the stripers were coming back better each year.. You might be a captain , you might be a good fisherman, but I was there as well, I have had articles published in NJ Fisherman magazine about fishing spots and techniques in Raritan Bay, so there are other besides yourself that know how whan and where the fish are and how they're caught.. By the time the Striper fishing was getting solid in Raritan Bay and the NY Bight after decades of being dead, the weakfish were in big trouble not only in N Jersey, but
Delaware Bay as well.. You are not the expert you perceive yourself to be I'm afraid, because I was there, lived right where the fishing was, and was a part of it... A few impressive charters or party boat catches does not mean a fishery isn't in decline.. I recall those years well as the Weaks started to falter..
Everyone was in denial- " Hook and line can't hurt a salt water fishery".. Until it did.. Something did thats for sure..

If you think it can't happen to Stripers because of a few good reports on this forum, you are in denial like too many others were before you.. bob

[reason162]

Originally Posted by Capt Sal

Walk in the shoes of a for hire capt and maybe you will change your tune.

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.

[fishunt]

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.

well said!

[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.