In Billy The Greeks book Night Tides he talks of going from a kill all fisherman to pure catch and release
How if at all have your views on Catch and Release changed over the years?
Do you think the decline of truly big bass is a result of the increase in pressure on the fish is or simply part of a natural cycle?
I was not in the surf fishing during the true hay day of big bass and would like to hear from those who were. Thanks, Terence

When I was younger, it was load the boat to the gunnels, full speed ahead(to the market). Still like to get a big bucket of macs but the allure of commercial fishing (scup, bass,blues,squet, fluke/flounder) from a small boat has losts its appeal (lost it the day "100 pounds + 1 fish" stopped).
The fish markets at Onset and Wareham were a fun place to stop and look at the "days catch".
I think there are much more persons fishing all up and down the coast "now a days", then there was 30 years ago. Even with limits, just too many guys/poachers.
Last summer saw many small bass in the canal (big ones too) in great numbers, but they were smaller sized fish than the huge schools of 34-35 inch fish that blitzed 10-15 years ago when the size was 34 & 36"

Stripers are still there --- bait is disappearing, hence not many shore fish as we would like. Big fish are still being taken off boats. Omega oil is having a field day with the bait.:devil:

I am only 42 so 30 years steady is out! I only started fishing stripers about....8 years ago!:uhuh:

I'm 50.. been striper fishing since I was 15.. took a few years off in the late eightes, was hooked on LMB and SMB for a few years..
Attitude changed for certain.. from everything goes in the cooler.. to put most all back..kept 3.. meybe 4 last year.
Truth be told.. I'd still rather take home one fat 16-18 inch fish a week, and put the rest back... they are to :drool: over...

I started in 1972, I used to fish for largemouth bass until.... that fatefull afternoonwhen a friend invited me to fish below the Lawrence dam.... an 8 lb striper changed my life... forever...

started fishing salt at 16...now 55....seen it when there was more life swimming in the water then there was water....more non-stop sand driving then one could possiably do in any one week.now compair today with back then,,there's almost nothing left...gave up the beach....boat only now..even then you have to fight for a few good fish...boy have times changed.

Been fishing for stripers for most of the last 45 years. Missed one season while in the military but the rest of my military time kept me in prime striper areas. Didn't target them much in the late 70s early 80s due to numbers and restrictions. Grew up in NJ fishing Sandy Hook and the bay. Lived in Narragansett, RI areas from 68 - 73 and have been on the NH seacoast last 26 years fishing NH, NJ and the Cape. When I was a kid everyone I knew sold fish. People used to come down to the boat ramps and along the beach asking if you wanted to sell your fish. No one really questioned it because there wasn't many restrictions on commercial fishing so why be concerned.

Now that I've seen many of the fish I caught in large numbers as a kid more or less disappear things have changed for me. Unless a striper is dead when I get it to the beach I let it go. I support protecting stripers by giving them game fish status. I saw many tackle shops and other businesses that supported fishing go down the sump due to the decline in stripers and other fish. We need to recognize that recreational fishing is a form of commercial fishing. When we regulate fishing it should be so that the largest number of people possible benefits from both a social and financial standpoint. The money and social gain from recreational striper fish far exceeds what we could ever get from a commercial harvest of stripers. We also need to recognize that the striper recovery was nothing short of a miracle. Out of the clear blue we suddenly had an excellent YOY group that became the bases for the recovery. Canada has been working on restoring the Grand Banks for 15 years with very limited success.

You are now in the new hay days for stripers, do everything you can to protect it. Also don’t forget fluke, cod, whiting, ling, weakfish, bunker, mackerel, herring ……..

My dad's been at it for 50+ non stop, and until the population crashed everything went in the box & to market. When the population crashed everyone switched light gear, buggy whips and eventually fly gear and he was alll C&R.

He's still all C&R now except for maybe 4 or 5 for the table each year..

I’ve been bass fishing since the late 1960s. It began as my hobby and quickly became an obsession. When I found out I could sell them I jumped into it with the enthusiasm of a teenager and sold every legal one I caught. So did everyone else.

I did that for many years until the striper swoon of the late 70s and early to mid 80s when my bass started to dry up. It was at that point that I “saw the light” started to become involved in the issues of striped bass management – I became “reformed” from my old ways and am proud to say I became one of the first “catch and release” crowd.

I became very involved in the Striper Wars of the 1980s. (Any avid striped bass fisherman of today that has not read Striper Wars by #^&#^&#^&#^& Russell is doing a disservice to themselves.)

This period was both very stressful and fulfilling to those who loved to catch striped bass. Runs of large bass were occurring on areas of the cape and block, some of which I was very fortunate to have taken part in. But at the same time there were very few bass on most of the mainland and almost no small bass anywhere. I had “seen the damage done.”

Lots of guys stopped fishing which was great because it cut down competition on the beach. The guys who knew what they were doing were still able to scrape out some fish.

Thankfully the conservative bass fishermen were able to lobby for very strict conservation measures of which I firmly believe helped restore the stock. If it weren’t for those that fought for conservation (along with the well timed PCB scare) many of you might be posting threads on a website for golf right now.

How’s the stock now? Science says it’s OK and we have much better science now than 30 years ago. Lack of cows now? From a beach perspective I think so – I still take some nice fish each season but I feel that my wealth of “knowledge gained experience” should provide me with better scores - IF the fish were there. I shudder to think of my success rate if I had my present day knowledge back on Block in the 80s.

The boat sharpies might disagree but they now have a HUGE advantage in finding bass with new technology. This better technology is no doubt a factor in the better catch rate of cows from a boat.

DZ

been fishing since the 60's

Caught my first fish in 1957 a nice blackback flounder, St pattys day Green pond bridge. Don't see many of them anymore. First striper 1964 Cotuit loop beach.

Wow, some great posts in here. I've never been an Activist but I believe strongly enough in the preservation of our fish to learn.
Aside from myself and teaching my kids respect what else can be done?

Steady no. (I lived out of state for 10 years) Did catch my first bass though back in the 60's when I was a kid.

Bassmaster, whiplash and Mac, has your fishing changed at all in terms of catch and release since then?

Been fishing the surf since late 40's- used to take all to the market, now put all back. Nauset .........back side ......those were the days my friend!

Bassmaster, whiplash and Mac, has your fishing changed at all in terms of catch and release since then?


depends on if I am hungry or not:poke:

Bassmaster, whiplash and Mac, has your fishing changed at all in terms of catch and release since then?

Yes it has, C&R back then was more like catch and cooler.
I think C&R is more now and good that alot of people do. I went through the dead years for bass and really wouldnt want to deal with it now.

Yes it has, C&R back then was more like catch and cooler.
I think C&R is more now and good that alot of people do. I went through the dead years for bass and really wouldnt want to deal with it now.

What years were the "dead Years"?

i would say the early 80's couldnt buy a bass. lots of blues to 23lbs though

Early 80's?.. Dude... c'mon now... rethink that 80, 81, 82???????????????????
couple years after that tho.... that's when I hit the ponds and fell inlove all over again with..

since the 60,S :bounce: :bounce:

the best I ever had was near the end of the moratorium [sp]

But I know a local charter / commercial fisherman that has more than quite a few large .. over 50# & 60 # and the majority of them were caught in the mortorim :lurk:

Early 80's?.. Dude... c'mon now... rethink that 80, 81, 82???????????????????
couple years after that tho.... that's when I hit the ponds and fell inlove all over again with..

cant rethink what i lived dude

First striper I caught I was probably 15 or 16, It was around the early fall of 71 or 72, I was fishing in Westport for flatfish with worms in an old leaky 10' jon boat. It was like a 24 - 26 incher. I remember being so proud of that fish when I walked in the door and showed my Mom

been fishing since the 60's

ya dave in your diappers.... do your math dave your not that old........ dz you hit it right on the head ... that was my start at real bass fishing ...it was for the money.... 1967 i got 25and 35 cents a pound at newburyport .... cash...on cape in 77 i got 50 to70 cents a pound at capt. elmers. in orleans. blues were 5 or 10 cents per pound... in those days i sold every i caught.. mostly for gas ,n hook and bait money. in the late 70s untill the bass crash, i made fare money at bass fishing, boat and beach, cod fishing too ...its a hard long day ...i find 10x more people fishing bass now and the miss managment of the bio mass of bait fish a huge problem...herrin, pogies ,macs whiting, etc........

40 years. So around 67 when I got out of the Service.

Caught my first "Rockfish" when I was about 6 or 7 then went for many years not going for them, fishing a bit of freshwater, then picked up bassing again 12 or so years ago.

Early 80's?.. Dude... c'mon now... rethink that 80, 81, 82???????????????????
couple years after that tho.... that's when I hit the ponds and fell inlove all over again with..

Karl, that haircut shows a defenite Flock of Seagulls influence.

I caught my first bass on the Scussett Jetty on a small diamond jig while fishing for polloock and mackerel with my Dad and Brothers. I was 6. I am 51 now. ( I still have that jig glue to a piece of wood paneling as a memento)

I went non-stop since then when I could while on vacation and such until I got my license then it was balls out.

Lots of changes. Too many theories. I was lucky to be part of a Worcester crew who put to sea in small tin boats to land on Monomoy, "the Promised Land" to me of the mid 70's early 80's.

The best fishing for big bass was then for me but the best overall fishing (though I spent most if not all of that time with a flyrod in my hand) was when the limit was one a day at 36 inches. In Barnstable on the fly we could average 6 a day over 20 pounds on the fly while drifting the flats on the east bar.

All fish are cyclical but there are numerous other factors that must be entered into any equation in determening population viability fo any one fish species. Certainly the most problematic in the Striped Bass 's case was the effects of fertilizers on them from run off of those massive corn/tobacco fields along the Chesapeake Bay shoresand acid rain, add in the low recruitment numbers because of this and the large amounts of big fish taken in nets, traps in states to the south and by rod and reel here in Massachuetts from 77 to 82 and the population dropped into the cellar.

In 1982 even though I fished the canal very very hard I only caught two bass all season. Tons of bluefish but only two bass.

There are enough fish now. In talking to the old guard the "old" days saw numbers and sizes of fish more like we are seeing now rather than the blurp in bass history we saw in the 77/82 period especially on the outer cape.

I don't like to eat bass bigger than 24 inches so I have been w/out a really good bass meal in a long long time. That's okay as long as they are there to catch and release.

I still get goosebumps when fishing in anticipation fo what I might catch. The outer beach has benn barren but it will come back sometime no matter if the seals or whatever are there. I beleive that, I have to.:uhuh:

steve i know we talked bout this but from 78 to like maybe 84 i was a filthy boo fisherman. the biggest blues I have ever seen. the north end in boston b4 the new locks went in was awsome. then the boats came in and netted them right up tight to the ctown bridge, horrible.
Stifftip, in the 60,s i was in my single years and so was the bass I caught, back then it was the sugar bowl southy powerplant canal plum island. plymouth and capt johns boat. along with Hull for cod flounder pollack and dad would take us to the river b4 gettin into hull for bass.
I also lived in hull:hee:

When I was very young , say 12 to 14 , I used to go fishing for fluke and cod , etc for food with one uncle. then i started going striper fishing with another and always thought it was a waste of time to catch all these small stripers just to thow them back.

Now I fish 90% catch and release. I still love fish but seldom can eat a whole big striper so for me , its more practicle and conservation minded to go to a restaurant for my fish dinners. if we are having a gthering or have people who want some filets , I'll keep some fish but mostly , regardless of size , they go back to swim and be caught again.

I'm 55 now, started in the mid-60's. For the table and freezer mostly. In the mid 70's fishing was a necessity.

I've fished plum island all my life, almost from infancy, I'm now 50, as I stated before ,I started in '72, schoolies mostly, I trapped eels and sold them to the local fisherman and bait shops, I dug worms and seined sand eels, I gill netted pogies,I made plenty of mad money on schoolies and bait, but wanted something bigger, I used my money to buy a 16' mirro craft to replace the 14' Amesbury skiff I was using... now I could jig cod in the mouth in the spring and fall ( some will remember that awsome fishing, that we will never see again) but more importantly I could now run the beach at night where the big ones roamed... I studied hard, slept little and won the favor of some of the sharpies that fished nightly, at the age of 17 I took my first "bull" it weighted 38lbs and was caught on a seaworm trolled via an electric motor along a grassy bank in Ipswich bay... I was on my way, a few years latter I got my first 40, it was on a goo-goo eye in the mouth of the river, my right arm and palm still bears the scar of the treble hook that "dead" fish sank into it...

I fished real hard after that, and back then EVERYTHING went to market.. in 84 a huge scool of big bass hung out in the mouth of the river, they never left, incoming, out going, no matter, if you had a boat capable of sitting in the rip and 300' of wire on an outfit capable of delivering a goo-goo or danny to the bottom , you were sure to get into some big fish, several '50's were caught, and I wanted one bad,that fall I bought the boat I have now, an 18' jon dory, it was the perfect battle wagon ( and still is) despite weeks and months of hard fishing my fifty eluded me, there were others caught, but not for me...in July of '86 on a full moon night, on a teacup calm sea in the last curl of the wave along the plum island shorline, my efforts paid off, a 61lb striper inhaled my eel and ended my quest for a 50.... there's been a few since then but none as memorable or satisfying as that one (or as large) the picture of that fish (as well as a few others ove the half century mark) hangs on the "big boy" board at Surfland B&T on plum Island..

fishing now is as good as it gets, I still spend 30-40 hours a week on the water in peak season, I no longer sell them, there are enough big fish being caught that I hope one last school of mobies makes around the tip of the cape and up to plum island before I loose my night vision....it's enough for me to keep going out lookining for one more behemoth bigger than my first...
My .02
Roc

Yes it has, C&R back then was more like catch and cooler.


C&R back then = "catch and retail".

I've only been seriously fishing the salt for about 15 years, but have studied the fishery a bit. Decline of big bass can not be natural cycle. If you have large numbers of small fish, they grow to be big unless they die. When lack of reproductive success occurs, maybe part of the cycle, you get a shortage of smaller fish which takes about 10-20 years to gradually shift that shortage up through the size range to eventually cause a shortage of larger fish. The smaller fish disappear first. That's exactly what happened with the striper crash. Large fish were still being caught, fewer and fewer smaller fish, then none (large nor small).

Early 80's?.. Dude... c'mon now... rethink that 80, 81, 82???????????????????
couple years after that tho.... that's when I hit the ponds and fell inlove all over again with..

Dude/Stud , pic waay to kewl. :btu:

First striper ever in 68, Narragansette Bay, boat. Dad took us boys out fishing from friday night to sunday night. All day all night!
Many nights spent sleeping/fishing eels on the boat between Prudence and Patients Islands.

How many here remember a Bluefish blitz, (according to the old salts of the time, "like nothing seen before") in 72-73, that filled the whole bay from end to end that lasted for hours. The sound of fish thumping against the hull woke us to witness an event that was a little too surreal and somewhat scary. You didn't have to even cast your line, just drop it over board and twitch. The thumping got so loud at times I thought the hull would break.

My point for bringing this up, has to do with a belief that a natural cycle has as much to blame for the Stripers demise at the time, as does the damming of spawning grounds and PCBs. Imagine all these causes coming together within 10-20 years, as it seems, they did.
Blues alone will eat anything that moves, including schoolies. Lets say the school of blues I witnessed, was twice the size of the bay and thrived for several years eating all the bait, up and down the east coast. This would produce one very large gap in not only the food chain, but any indigenous frie, especially the already depleted Striper hatchlings.
Bottom line, it was a tough decade for these fish that are loved enough by too many to sit around and speculate their demise so certain people like Bob Pond made it a priority to save our sport through raising, research and releasing frie.
In honor of their hard work and my love of fishing these impressive predators, I catch, photograph and release. "CPR"

Stripers are still there --- bait is disappearing, hence not many shore fish as we would like. Big fish are still being taken off boats. Omega oil is having a field day with the bait.:devil:

:claps:

started 6yrs. old fresh water at a local pond . It was easy walking distance so we fished every day just about ,.. Very primitive.. We all had bait casters except one kid had a spinning reel and outcast us all . The baitcasters we had weren't Big Dave reels.. Didn't start salt until after High School . 1972.. A friend taught me ,,his uncle taught him . 1st place I fished was the east end jetty, mainland side CC canal . 1st Saltwater fish I ever caught was a Sea Robbin .. Thats one screwed up looking fish if you never saw one before . Just kinda floundered around between the band, girls, fishing, having fun and puking on myself . Always came back to fishing .

Been at it 45 years. Took about four years to catch my first Striped Bass, had no one to teach me. In retrospect I wouldn't have it any different. Nothing as important has ever seemed as hard since.

I've been at it for a while as well. (Below is me (Orient Point) in 1964 I think). Like most kids, my dad got me into fishing. He would boat fish 3nights/week for bass in season and I would go whenever he let me. If the tide was real late and it was a school night I had to stay home..those were the most difficult for me esp when the bite was on. (this was all on eastern LI) I would surf fish any chance I got, sometimes sitting on a rock all day with rod in hand all by myself. My mom thought I was nuts but I was not getting into trouble so she allowed it. Its what I still like to do too. We never sold a fish. The bass limit was 16" with no creel limit. We released anything we didn't eat. We rarely took more then 2 bass home from a trip. We also fished for fluke, weakfish and bluefish too and released any fish we were not going to eat as well.
I didn't start selling anything until the late 70's and even then it was sporatic when I did sell. By 1981 I stopped selling and started C&R releasing any fish not headed for the table and still practice this for the most part today. Part time fishing for money is not going to change your lifestyle significantly (no matter how good you are) and therefore I reasoned it is better off just letting them go. Besides, you feel pretty good about it. If you want money, get a real job, part time comm fishing is not a real job in my view.

IMO the today's fisheries "count" of what recs actually take does not accurately measure the amount of catch and release going on today and therefore recs are "blamed" for killing lots of fish that they really don't.

Also, MA does more harm then good by allowing Recs to keep a foot in both rec and comm fishing but they are so caught up in the politics of it all they get see the real problem. They need to shut fishing down it if is a problem and they just cant do it...ie codfish...20+ years of "management" and it is worse off today then ever but they still let you have a shot at taking breader and small fish, they continue to let the comm guys take limits but recognize the species is in danger...huh? SHUT IT DOWN for a decade and build the stocks back up. Jesus, it is not that hard. Screw the commerical interests...who the heck told them to go fishing in the first place? When I went comm clamming and something happend to the water quality, they shut it down and put hundreds of full timers out of work. The same should be for the fishermen. If the stocks are hurt'n, shut it down. We should care more for the health of the fish stocks then what a comm fisherman puts on his 1098 form.

Started the salt in mid 50's upto late 60's. Even spent 5 days of our honeymoon fishing BI in Oct 61. Started a family and went over to trout until 1993 when i went back to stripers and never looked back.

In answer to your questions, used to kill every fish i caught/ young bragging rights etc.Over the last 20 years it's all been release. They say you get soft in your old age about killing, but i think it's a new found reference for life.

Imho, cycles have a big affect, but the fishing pressure of surf, high tech boats,party boats, especially over the last 8-10 years, has taken a very heavy toal.

My earliest memories of fishing are around 1959 fishing for flounder and fluke in the GSB of LI.i was 4 years old at the time.my father gave up the surf the year i was born and brought a boat. i started surf fishing about 10 years ago.i can always remeber the old timers saying that when there were blowfish around the weakfish would disappear,so i guess they must have thought that fishing was cyclic.we never sold fish but keep everthing we caught. we ate fish 2 to three times a week year round. i am the youngest of seven and had plenty of relatives that we keep in fish.evertime i hear people complain of overfishing i think of all the species of fish that have disappeared that were not fished for commercially or recreationally.i think water quality had as much to do with it as overfishing.i think today that C@R is much bigger on the internet than in real life. sure the guys that post on these forums might practice it but most people i see on the beach or in boats keep there limits Sandman funny thing that every area on the south shore of LI that was closed because of pollution to clamming were opened at some pointeven though i doubt the water quality improved. maybe because it was cheaper to wipe these areas out then police them.maybe keeping fish should be banned for recs if they are doing it for fun and have a commercial fishery , rod and reel only for all species.i bet that would never happen