The guys that Clamdigger mentioned Ray J,John Martini, Gary Corsetti,And a host of others Still catch just as many fish as you see in those pictures and still bring in many 40 lb Plus bass!!!

So Much for the theary of no more big fish!! John Martini Caught a a bass last season that weighed somewhere around 55lbs.

The fish are still there,you just need to know where and when to go.

I personally see no shortage at all.Last season I caught fish on just about every trip I made and got my share of 30lb fish and had a 42lb fish.Same as every single other year!

People in general should stop whinning that there are no fish and LEARN how to catch the multitudes of bass that are there!! When a guy does nothing but cast jigs and plugs in the daytime and then complains he isnt catching big fish,He needs to restructure his fishing habits!!

In the eighties when I started serious bass fishing I caught just as many fish as I do now and when I look back, It was not much different.Those old timers who tell you they had nothing but 40lbers every night (off the shore) are wrong.Its the same as now,there were good nights and bad nights,It still comes down to skill and learning the tides and winds and strutures,It takes years.Back then a good night was a few fish in the 20s,Just as it is now.One ,just one fish in the 30s is a good night.You either get caught up in the schoolie bug and counting numbers or, you hunt the big game.You learn what turns the big chicks on and you go get um!!

Everey year all thru the 90s I caught on average 12 to 15 fish in the 30 lb range.Just two years ago,Joe flip and I had a night on Block Island were between the two of us we had 37 fish of 25lbs and better!! Is that the old days?? No its the here and now! There out in the water as they have always been.Fish for them the right way and you will see things have not changed all that much only minds have changed.


Everyone wants to save the bass,They have been here for eons long before any of us and will carry on long after we are all gone...Bank on it!!

Go Eat some Bass!!!!!!!!!!!!1

I agree there are fish out there , but I don't share your same optimism about them not being wiped out again. It is nice to be positive but I will not stick my head in the sand. I don't trust the management of the fisheries, poor track record. If the menhaden are the next species to be fished near extinction then what will the bass be left with to fatten up? There is only so much out there , I know the will still eat and survive but it won't be like when you could castnet some bunker for the live well and the bass were all fat. It's kinda like the ol give em an inch , they take a mile saying when it comes to some commercial fisherman.

I agree about the part where you said people should learn to fish , well that's what is great about these message boards , they do help.

I agree that there are fish out there too and skill is a telling factor. But when the commercial bass fisherman on the Cape are taking longer and longer to fill their quotas for the year, boat and shore guys alike. This has been getting more apparent for three years now. A bad trend. Even if things are still getting better with smaller fish, it takes a while for that to make it's presence felt with the big gals. The idea is to stay a head of the curve so if something bad like a down cycle in the fish happens, it won't be as impacted by high pressure on the fishing side...

I also don't think you can judge how many fish are out there by your ability to catch them, now or in the past. You know where they will be and when, intuition and knowledge from being out there fishing hard for a long time. Also just because you are doing good in Rhody doesn't mean that its good in other locales as well...

John all in all we all just want to catch some fish, like #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& said , do you want to fish during days,or pay your dues fish nights , and at sometime get rewarded. Me Ive had my share of wet sleepless nights, I still go enough times a year to make sure I keep in tune and catch a few big ones, but I now gear down and plug alot for schoolies/// I have alot of fun with slugos and thats ok. #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& Joe FLip[ didnt know he became a surf fisherman], John R or anyone else that wants to chace the larger fish, great ' that what you enjoy // and isn't that whats fishing is all about// bACK WHEN ---one day my partner and I had 99 fish in the boat in the middle of the day in August --when if you believed what was being said--- there were no bass in the bay in the summer--we came in because we were taking waves over the side, did we have fun ? probably not , but it didn't matter, it was money. Like #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& said if you really pay your dues - you'll still do real well, the choice is up to you///

I disagree and don’t think things are the same. Yes there are numbers of fish out there; in fact my catch per trip has gone up since I started out years ago. A lot of that has to do with the fact that time on the water is the best teacher and everyone’s numbers should go up to a point. I'm not sure you ever stop learning, but at some point you reach a point where more time on the water isn't going to gain you all that much in number of fish caught. That plays a role in the numbers game certainly and should really show results in the quantity of larger fish.

I would expect my catches of big bass to go up if things were still the same. I'm catching more 15 lb or larger bass than I did back in the eighties, but not numbers of 30’s & 40's. I know 15 lb+ totals for 1999 would include a much higher percentage of fish in the 20's & teens and some in the lower 30's. I'm fishing more, my ability has improved 10 fold, and my understanding of the fish has improved; yet the numbers of big ones are declining, even if the total number of keepers is increasing.

My habits haven't changed much, still pull out of the driveway around 3am and am usually dragging an eel and casting some plastic well before 4. Doesn't matter that I'm not fishing exclusively after dark, because I never did and my habits are the constant in the equation. All things considered, I should be catching more 30's and 40's if the quality of the fishery hasn't changed. The reverse is true; I see more 20's & teens, with some fish in the low 30's. I didn't even see a fish in the 40's last year and only two 40's came on board the year before. Don’t give me the argument that I need to fish at night and sling eels, because I’ve caught plenty of large in the early morning, late morning and smack dab in the middle of a hot August sun. If my habits haven’t changed, I’m fishing more hours, I’m more skilled and I previously caught a fair number of 30 & 40 lbers each year, than where did they go if things are the same? Now if I never caught keepers and could catch nothing but schoolies, than I might buy the argument that I need to change my fishing habits and/or locations.

Don’t get me wrong either, like others have stated I’m quite content to catch the good numbers of 5-10-20 lb fish, with a shot at a bigger fish or two each day thrown in for good measure. My comment is not about size preferences, because let's be honest BIGGER IS BETTER. It’s that I do see things being much different than they were even 10 years ago.

Now these fish are cyclical in nature, as are their prey species, so maybe better times are ahead. I agree with Slipknot and I wouldn’t get too warm a feeling about the state of the striper fishery. Man is the great destroyer. Every second of every day species are added to the extinction list and the cause is MAN. I'm not saying the striper is in jeopardy, because the species as a whole seems healthy, but I think the "trophy" fishery kind of parallels what happened with the increase in popularity of Largemouth Bass Fishing. The pictures posted here the past couple days aren’t any different than the same thing I’ve seen for Largemouth bass catches from the “heyday” back in the 60’s and 70’s. There are still numbers of largemouth bass to be caught, but go try to find that same trophy fishing.

That’s my 2 cents for what it’s worth, tight lines.

IMO, the best indicator of the coast-wide state of the fishery is the price the markets are paying. When I sold bass for the last time in 1985, the cull was $3.25 to $3.50 a pound for mediums, $2.50 or so for large. I fished with some guys back then, at the Cape, who were real aces, guys who sold thousands of fish a year from the 60s thru the 80s. One of them, who fished 200 nights a year both from the surf and boats, tallied a grand total of 108 bass for the year 1983.

The price today usually ranges from 75 cents to about a buck and a half a pound. Adjust that for inflation, and the guys selling their fish for a quarter a pound in the 60s were doing better. I liken the state of the fishery today to that in the 60s, plenty of small to teen fish, enough big fish around so the guys who know their stuff and who can get to the "big fish" spots frequently can put up some impressive numbers. I think the real reason you don't see the big fish in as many places now as you did in the 70s and 80s is more related to the absence of massive schools of big bait. In the 80s, you had shoals of pogies in every tidal river between Fall River and the Merrimack, whiting in the Canal all summer, small pollock in the east end, too. Those forage species have been seined pretty hard and aren't around in the numbers, so the big fish aren't inshore in as many places.

One other factor--you had some really p***-poor YOY indices between 1982 and 1989. Those 15-20 year old fish would be the ones that normally would make up the bulk of the 20-40 pounders.

Find concentrations of big bait, or sand eels present in numbers to make it worth their while for the cows to come home, and you'll find big fish anytime.

This issue is not about fishing skill and its not just about stripers.

To say that things are the same... well, stripers were heavily regulated for years and are still regulated. And still, people, books, magazines all say "the good 'ol days" and "way back when" You wouldn't say that if the quality and numbers were the same.

There are tons of fish out there and after a few more years of experience, I'll be getting more than my fair share. But take all those regs away for the past decade or so... what would the fishery be like then?

On any given day, any idiot with a popper can go out and fill a garbage can with schoolies... we are all proof of that... and people would (and do even with the laws in place).

I agree that government is getting too huge and they do nit pick us head to toe... Hell, they steal a third of my income every day... but I think in some cases it is necessary.

Like Got Stripers said we are a destroyer. From fish to seals to whales to wolves to trees and everything in between. They are all an indictment to our nature to exploit and abuse anything for money, sport, whatever...

And I'm not claiming any moral high ground... If I caught a tuna that could pay off my house or my kid's education, I'd sell that SOB as quick as I could get to the dock.

I do what I can... I try to recycle, I don't litter, I release most of my fish... But I'm not going to go out and join Greenpeace or the Sierra Club anytime soon.

I just can't imagine what I would do without fishing (gardening? raise rabbits?) and I'd rather not leave conservation in the hands of each individual and hope that when I retire in 20 or 30 years that I'm not relegated to fishing for stocked trout and largemouth bass in a bunch of put and take fisheries.

I just don't have that much faith in folks... call me crazy but history is on my side.

Mike you make a good point about the abundance of large bait, which would obviously make the larger fish more vunerable. Back in the late 80's when the harbors were so thick with poggies you could walk on them, if I didn't catch a large most trips out something was wrong.

Those days IMHO are gone. Do the same numbers of 30, 40 and 50 lbers still exist; I don't think so. Similar numbers of fish that large would need a food population of equal value, if not similar size. The bass the year before last, seemed to be running lean all year long, so if the schoolies aren't looking that healthy, I question if the food base is healthy enough to support the same numbers you had in the past.

Tight lines.

The only thing about bait supply and large Stripers is and I think #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& willagree with me . the fish in those pictures and many of the cows that were taken back when . Were not caught on mendedan ,they weren't even around in any great numbers here. ask the surf guys from NY that fished the Cape really hard and made good money what they used? it wasn't pogies. the late 60's into the 70's I fished Herring then right to eels if we still wanted big fish. you couldn't beat the old Cape Cod spinner w/clamworm, and at the same time the guides out of Westpory an cuttyhunk fished almost strictly the night tides in the rips with wire an big swimmers. How many times have you caught a striper on something you didnt exspect. be it bait or a fish .you were bringing in.DId you ever try it for striper bait? Ill never forget the time in October in Narragansett Bay when we were fishing cows with a bait tank completly full of live pogies/// and were smoked by a fisherman fishing the same place, same time ,different. HE wasnt lucky because this lasted 3 days in the same place on the same tide. on one of those days he won the old Newport Striper tournment with the largest fish of the 7 day tournment// I think porgy fishing made it easier-- no more nights , etc but it as\lso made some average fishmen or less into what thought were bass fisherman . boats with the family on it trying to bring in a good size striper without a clue how, but they snagged a pogy//there may nat be asmany fish as before or as large i surly don't know but I agree With #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& that if you know and adjust with conditions you'll still do better than ok. ive seen pictures of some commercial catches made the last two years in Mass. and if I didn't know better , it would have been the good old days///

I think the data that John mentioned showing more and more people taking longer and longer to catch the quota fish (larger size limit for commercials)says a lot about the fact that the big fish are fewer and further between.

Well my experiences indicate that the fishing for large stripers has changed dramatically over the years. In the 70s I had many days/nights when I caught more stripers over 40#'s than I caught during the entire 1990's.
Just to set the record straight. I know a lot of guys that fish commercially for stripers. They pretty consistently get $2 - $2.50 a pound. The regs that are currently in place tend to spread the harvest over a longer period of time (until the quota is reached). This allows the true comms a larger window of opportunity and keeps the prices more stable by avoiding gluts.
I would also characterize fishing in the 1990/2000 era as nothing like the 1960's. The 60s saw many fewer fish, but they were a lot larger on average.
In the 1960s and 70s, if you walked the banks of the Canal during good early morning East tides, you would see anywhere from a couple to a dozen or more fish landed by various anglers that were over 40#s. That was typical. Last year I saw ONE fish that might have been over 40#s.
You can get your picture in the local newspaper with about a 25#er, back in the 60s and 70's the minimum requirement was about 50#s.
If you tally up all the stripers over 40#'s that were caught last year from P-town to Chatham, it probably didn't even equal the number that a lot of guys caught in a single real good night in the 1960 -1985 period.
In short, there are a lot of stripers around. But there not a lot of large stripers around (depending on what you consider large).

I'm not a marine biologist but I'm wondering, wasn't there something or somewhere that noted a correlation between the volume of bigger and bigger bass getting taken and the down turn of the fishery? That you would see alot of bigger fish in times when the stocks were to just about to cycle down hard? Anyone recall that?

There does seem to be a alot of smaller fish out there but is there alot of big fish, 35 pounds plus, out there. I did not fish stripers during the previous bountiful times so I cannot personally compare it...

John,
I have read several times a theory which corresponds to what you have said.
Fish that exibit cyclical patterns of population seem to have a lot of large fish in the population in down cycles. I think that Frank D and others have espoused this theory.
Blues seemed to follow the same pattern.

One thing I have noticed is the larger bass that are over 34" or so seem to weigh less than the ones we caught twenty years ago. I see lots of fish in the 40" range that only go 23 lbs. give or take a few lbs. The canal in the last few years gives up tons of fish but not many over thirty. When I started fishing there 25 years ago there were lots of bigger fish but not many Schoolies. The bait then was whiting, herring,sqiud and eels all good sized meals. Now its mostly herring then peanut bunker with the numbers of bass higher. JMHO

Now wonder how much of this is attributed to reduced amount of larger bait north of Montauk. I always hear that 20 years ago there USED to be pogies/bunker/menhaden in Maine and Boston harbor in big numbers and bigger sizes but it doesn't happen like that today. It seems like no big numbers of large menhaden make it north of parts of Rhody and nothing like the schools I've seen in Eastern CT waters in the sound... Now where alot of these fish reside during summer in the cooler waters from Montauk to Plum Island (the one with the Sox fans) and they don't have as much of the big forage fish, that must have an impact too, right??

Clamdigger, do you see alot of big schools of big menhaden in the Bay? You're out there alot so you'd probably know....

Thanks...

I caught a fish with John last year that was 42.5 inches long and weighed just a few tenths below 26 pounds. Thats almost off the striper growth chart on the low end and that was late in the season when the fish should be fat. Average would have been nearly 34 pounds. The fish are skinnier these days.

I can remember when the menhaden were so big that if you snagged one , you had to be careful not to break your rod tossing it back out to liveline it. Now its all tiny little bait fish around here. A biggie is the size of the palm of you hand. I do see some big ones from time to time that have been netted locally and sold to the bait shops but I personally have not seen those big bait fish close to shore in a long time.

oh great...another board to waste my time with instead of working...oh well, might as well jump in...
43-1/2", 29lbs and 43", 26lbs taken out of plymouth harbor in last 3 years. very thin fish because the big pogies have basically vanished from the harbor. in fact, the 29lber had a belly full of little crabs...not alot of calories there. in the early 90's everyone livelined pogies for big bass...i haven't caught a big pogy since '95.
the big fish may still be out there, but they're skinny and hungry.

Welcome aboard JettyJockey18!! Geez, I wonder what inspired you to have that name. eh?? Yes, you've found another work productivity s#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&g black hole...
I only took home a few fish the last couple years and the bellies have been pretty empty. Now that could have been for different reasons but not very encouraging and yeh, alot of those fish were skinny...


Later

John R, the first place they [pogies] come in every single year /no exception is New England power in Somerset,unlucky for them the pogy boat ties up a couple of miles up the Taunton river/// so they work Mt hope bay first before they come over to our side. Last year when I was fishing inside of the hurrancane dam /early April-- they were there //last year to my knowledge the pogy boat . worked the providence river for less than a week./ yet I know for a fact [even thou it was a very few]I have a good friend who fish commercial the entire season in both mass and ri and for t..he hell of it when both states were closed.he used fish pogies only and they came from narragansett Bay.He caught them himself but it took twice along as it took him to catch his fish. //// John pease drop me a e-mail when you have a chance, I have a question to ask you and I dont want everyone else to laught// Thanks

The most common food in the stomachs of the stripers I bring home is lobsters, unless the mackeral are still running strong. Even when the mackeral are running and are easy pickings, the ones I live line are catching small bass for the most part. Sometimes I switch back to plastic, even with a livewell full of nice live makeral, because there just aren't any large to be found. The plastic catches those smaller fish much more readiliy and it's a lot more fun and less mess.

Tight lines.

Canalratt1 (02-08-2001 13:18):
One thing I have noticed is the larger bass that are over 34" or so seem to weigh less than the ones we caught twenty years ago. I see lots of fish in the 40" range that only go 23 lbs. give or take a few lbs. The canal in the last few years gives up tons of fish but not many over thirty. When I started fishing there 25 years ago there were lots of bigger fish but not many Schoolies. The bait then was whiting, herring,sqiud and eels all good sized meals. Now its mostly herring then peanut bunker with the numbers of bass higher. JMHO


I tend to agree with canalratt1. Last August I was with my dad and he caught a 42" 23lb striper. pretty thin, 1/2" shorter then Saltheart's and 3 lbs. less.

Got Stripers, lobsters in their bellies? what did you expect look where you fish, I'm surprised you are able to navigate with all those pots out there in those rock infested waters. :D

Slip, that reminds me of Schoolie Monsters keeper razor herring-striper, 28.5 inches and weighed THREE and a half pounds Sorry Greg - had to put that in...

Did it get bluefished? ... as opposed to sharked.

No, just the Ally McBeal of stripers, so skinny....

Remember that fish I caught from my uncle's boat in Nantucket when you guys came down for the weekend... that fish was about 38" and darn skinny and full of those little crabs.

What about that theory of another strain of bass... a slimer, faster, more streamlined fish from the Chesapeake or something. Didn't I hear something about that last year?

I remember, that fish barely tipped 15 pounds. I also remember your uncle driving by braile and driving my rod tip into the pine trees :P :o >( }>