It's most likely legal but that's a lot of fish eggs :( ....


Good, bad or indifferent, here is a link to some bass fishing going on right
now. The cows look like they are ready to drop their eggs.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rogers, Kevin [SMTP:KRogers@CCBN.com]
> Sent: Monday, February 25, 2002 12:14 PM
> To: Chuck Casella
> Subject: Outer Banks North Carolina Poacher Sportfishing
>
>
> Go to the link below and check out some of the postings w/camera icons.
>
> Outrageous! Talk about waste! No wonder big fish are so hard to come by
> up
> here....they are getting slaughtered down south.
>
> http://reelbuzz.com/buzzboards/poacher/index.cfm
>
>
> <<Outer Banks North Carolina Poacher Sportfishing.url>> <<Outer Banks
> North Carolina Poacher Sportfishing.url>>

A couple of comments...

What scares me most about this is that guides in NC don't rely on Striped Bass for their livlihood. I imagine they target red drum, trout, king mackerel, cobia, spanish mackerel, albies, and others resident species.

What motivation would they have to practice catch and release with stripers? The bass are there for a couple months in their off-season. I don't mean to say the bass are "our fish", because that is wrong, but they are the northeast's primary inshore gamefish. Without stripers, we don't have a heck of alot of options... so I feel like those are our fish. It doesn't seem right that they can have a free-for-all on spawning fish.

My second comment is unrelated and is in regards to the name of their guide service... Poacher guide service? I know its cool to buck the man, but not many recreational fishermen find the poaching of gamefish to be humorous. I think they are trying for that "jolly roger" pirate image. Its not working for me. Maybe Jack-@ss guide service would work better.

I have been following this guys message board for months after my Dad who lives in NC told me about it. Apparently this service will keep whatever is caught regardless to size or qty limits inposed but unenforced in NC. The whole fact of the mate and captain keeping their quota is ridiculous.

When I was down there last season I went to a Bridge area around Manteo, NC. There were guys there at night with mega spotlight dangling off a bridge shining into the water, they had a portable generator to power it up. The light would attract the bass, and these guys would bring schoolie size bass up by the dozens with nets, and keep them. I think a keeper sized bass in inland waters there is 16". Apparently the whole enforcement aspect down there to fish and game does not exist, as fishing profits from tourism along the Outer Banks is all that matters.......

:smash: :gf: :faga: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :af:

The family that fishes together.
http://reelbuzz.com/upload/caton/feb25_05.jpg

Before you start screaming....know that in NC, that the Captain and mate get two fish each( 28" min.). This is from a different boat than the MSBA e-mail, same deal.

To be fair to NC, if you believe the ASMFC (your guess is as good as mine JOKE) numbers, we kill alot more Bass in Mass. These folks are fishing within the law for their area.

Ox - I know it's within the law. What irks me is the timing of it. For the NC guys to catch these bigger fish - this time of year - they're gonna be females with eggs. These gals will be soon heading inland to the rivers to release those eggs but a lot of them won't...

I wish there was a better way but it could be wastefull, even though it is purely legal...

You're right about Mass having the highest pounds of large bass but it's still relatively small compared to what MD/VA/Potomac are allowed of small fish.

It makes me sad John, but all the footstomping on the planet isn't going to change it, if we don't change the regs. First thing we need to do is convince the Bass to stay in the Northeast. ;)

hehehe

OX - with all this global warming, you might just get yer wish...

It's just a lousy situation. The breeding fish are large females. The guys in NC get a crack at some nice large fish, but being females, they're often loaded with eggs. I'd like to see a better C&R effort down there but I'm really less worried than the NC Charter keeping fish than the netters setting up just outside the inlet on a dumping tide to be honest...

Here that!

ya that's some website they have there. I don't know what happened to the post I put up earlier , also the one Chuck Cassella put up, but now I don't see them ???:confused:


John, I understand the frustration of a large female full of roe about to spawn not given a chance to but ya have to look at their point of view as well. that fish managed to not get caught and killed up around Cape Cod or something but now is their chance to catch some trophy fish. I also see no reason for there not to be a little more conservation going on with the sportfishing charters but there's money in it and you and I know what happens when money gets thrown into the equation. :(

Man! Those are some tiny, tiny fish! Sure those guppies made 28inches??????:confused: :confused: If those are the kind of fish there callin keppers down in NC, We are in some deep trouble.they never get a chance to grow up and make babies.Those fish look like they came off the west wall in march
:confused:

The sad part Bill is that there are other pictures with the dock covered with 20-25# fish that appear to be full of Roe. This is their season and unless the laws for their area change, these are the pictures they're gonna post.

Thank god their season isn't any longer than January, and Febuary. We need one set of guidelines for everyone to follow. Not individual ones for each state.

Maybe we should all get together and find a point of contact in NC to voice our concerns too. I am not sure if it would be the D.E.M, of Fish and Wildlife Dept.

It couldn't hurt.

179 - I doubt that would do anything... The only changes that will happen will probably be a coastal plan in the upcomming Ammendment 6 : http://www.asmfc.org/PUB/Public%20Hearing%20Documents/Striped%20Bass%20Am6%20PID.pdf

The NC fishing regs are a little weird and I thought I would post a little blurb about it from another board.

"All is not as it appears when it comes to NC striper fishing. There are TWO separate striped bass fisheries in NC and each is regulated separately.

The coastal migratory fish are found off the NC coast during the late fall and winter. These are the same fish you see in MA during the summer months. They originate in Chesapeake Bay. The
recreational limit on them in NC is 2 fish per day at 28 inches minimum size.

The other striper fishery in NC is for fish that are of NC origin. They spawn in NC rivers like the
Roanoke and the Neuse. The adults from this population spend part of the year in coastal bay/sound areas (Albemarle Sound). They don't get very big and they do not migrate north. Since they spend their entire lives in NC waters they are managed separately from the coastal migratory stock. If you check the NC fishing regs you will see that the striped bass regs are different for Albemarle Sound and the Atlantic Ocean.
Striped bass with similar life histories that spend their lives in a single river/estuary system are found in SC, GA(?) and along the Gulf Coast. They live in areas where water temps in the
ocean get too warm for them during the summer, so they need to live their entire lives in a single
estuary system where they have access to cooler river water during the heat of summer."

Hopefully most of the pictures you see on his site are of the NC resident population (you are allowed 3 at 18" per day), but with this guy you never know. It's a shame that there are so many people like this in the world.

Eugene.

Welcome to S-B!

Yep - they get to double dip, as does MD & VA with several different zones & regs for fish. I'm just not too happy about the egg-laden females there...

They're also pretty quick to pull the plug on any negative posts, eh? I see Slip & Chucky got yanked pretty fast as well as some other guy from a couple days before....

That's gotta be easy to regulate.

Yes, these are fish of the migratory stock... yes, I have my PHD in marine biology and you can tell by looking at the third stripe from the dorsal fin.

Are you kidding me? That's silly.

Its definitely a tough issue. Like I stated earlier, everyone deserves a shot a these fish. They don't belong to us. But when a certain state doesn't enforce the screwed up laws they have, it affects us all.

Without a doubt, a universal limit up and down the coast with proper enforcement and strict penalties makes it fair across the board.

ps.. I still say that they have half a dozen inshore species to target so got off my bass.

Thanks for the welcome. I've been an observer (lurker sounds so ominous) for a while, and figured I would finally chime in.

Yeah, it confuses the hell out of me? How do you determine whether a fish is migratory or part of the resident population? They never mix? Resident Stripers never go into the ocean? Migratory Stripers never enter the estuaries? :confused:

This all seemed kinda familiar, so I browsed some past issues of SWS and found an article regarding the stripers' troubles in NC. It covered alot of this and as John mentioned, there are some really scary bycatch statistics.

I can't remember how they put it... bycatch discard.

And what they meant was dead fish tossed back into the ocean.

Anyway, I was trying to find the article on-line to provide a link. SWS' site doesn't have past issues and articles so I entered a search.

NC striped bass conservation.

The 3rd site on my search results was Poacher Guide Service. Kinda turns my stomach.

If anyone is interested in the article, let me know and I can check which month it was... or even fax the article to you if you want.

John, if you'd like I can post a synopsis of the article next week some time. Let me know.

Greg - please do that... I'm interested

Thanks,

John

Here is a link to a thread started by the guy who runs the site in question I believe. He is explaining a few things, or trying to.

http://www.flyfishsaltwaters.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/003161.html

john if i'm not mistaking the legal size for striped bass in the north carolina inland water ways is only 16" i'm gonna double check this and will edit this if it is otherwise.
north carolina
Size Limits
Minimum length limit: 18 inches
AND
No striped bass between 22 inches and 27 inches in length may be possessed at any time.
south carolina has no size limit

Red - like Echang posted above, there are several fisheries in some of the mid-atlantic states that allow for a variety of regs like when, where, size & how many...

Slip, thanks for that link - that's not the same jack-ass as the guy over at "Poachers". Unfortunately, some people did you nasty language at the Custom sound charter's site...

I went to flyfish saltwater and read that thread . Man I hate to see that stuff , people getting really out of hand over opinions . I have one , you have one , we all have one and they all stink ! asses and opinions !
I give that capt rick a hand for the way he handled himself after someone bashed his family and family tree . which I think is out of control and fighting words ! I learned at a very young age no matter how mad ya get DONT bring family into it . It always gets nasty and someone gets hurt or dead . Ive seen both happen .

The truth of the matter is what they do down there as much as I dont agree with it is legal , just they need to change their laws and thought processes .
I hate to rehash but I didnt want to miss out !
all the good stuff happens when I am off line or off a site for a few days .