After the canal bite
 

Once upon I time I was told that three days after the canal shuts down Cutty is the place to be. I'm just sayin'.

Unfortunately most of the canal fish did not escape.
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seems to many are being dragged up

👍 They can't just blame the commercial's for this massacre. I don't think people let anything go anymore.
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Prof M did they ever ????/

Ever what ?
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Let anything go,,, post #4

Mike, I answered for u, no charge $ :)

If that was his question I probably let at least 50 plus commercial size fish go this week. I sold my allotted amount. I could have sold many many many more.
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that,s you paul , but from the beginnig of time , people fished for food . then money , then bragging rights &&&&&&&&&&&&&&& nothing went back .....YES there is more conservation now ..but to offset that .. there is the , internet , &&&&&&&&& FACEBOOK ................ but above all of that >> as a marine speaker told a group of fisherman of all kinds at a marine seminar .............. the fish don,t stand a chance ..................... there are a million more fisherman & just not enough fish ><>
I have fished once since RI commercial striper fishing ended at the end of JUNE ><>& not missing it :fishin:

My hope is that people are spoiled by so many easy quality fish and lose interest in working for 'em.

Mike the price of the lb is what really fueled the frenzy this time around plus the fact the boat guys were having a hard go of it. I saw so many die hard boat guys at the canal this week. If the price was very low I doubt the amount of guys fishing around the clock would have been way less. It is very true George. Spoiled is an understatement. This past week will go down in the books. I was hoping it would end by Wednesday and has slowed down but the crowds are still there. Once it ends it will be a ghost town. The internet has fueled the mass histeria. Saw so many out of state plates. 10 years ago that was a very strange occurrence. I am looking forward to a long lonely walk on the shore catching maybe one fish to slap me back to reality
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paul, I was on vaca all week down there, it was one for the record books for sure. Matt fair

Hey Matt. Best I have ever seen in 30 years there
for size and quantity. The crowds were not that bad if you did not go to the easy access spots. A bike cured all issues.
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I stayed put all week. Across from the mass maritime beach, my grams house. No crowds at all.

Yeah I was west myself. Only ventured east enough to the rink last few days. It was good though out but much less crowded west.
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I am certain that is what will happen.

had a guy a couple of Sundays ago stop in when he was in town with his daughters and his friend asking where to go fishing on the island etc....conversation went like this.."we got big fish at the canal, I catch a lotta big fish, where are the big fish around here?"...me- well, I can suggest a few nice spots where you can take the girls....."you don't got big fish around here?...tell me where the big fish are and what do I gotta use to catch them?" me-thinking- is this a joke?...is there a hidden camera somewhere? "the girls wanna catch scup, what do you use for that and I wanna catch a big bass so tell me where we can go???"

he was irritated that I couldn't/wouldn't tell him exactly where he could go and exactly what to use, I was a little dumbfounded

it went like that....it was 1pm on a sunny Sunday afternoon....about the time that most big bass are usually caught locally by day trippers with little girls in tow from the shore :confused:

I passed on it- totally hate crowds and carnage. Of course I should of thought it out better and joined bruce at night...

I tell my friends the canal is just shooting fish in a barrel .. aside from the poachers its a 1 fish limit .. I see the concern but dont really understand it ... to me its a Commercial day crowds with all the madness with one big difference.. you see the carnage in open view on the banks and parking lots and it can be ugly.

I am not against Commercial guys I would prefer to see a slot system to protect breeding size fish and the same for rec guys a slot system

You know, when I read this thread, part of me is disappointed I missed this bite....but I am not a canal fisher, except 30 years ago when I was at MMA. And just got home, not wetting a line this year yet but.......

The other side of me is saying some of you guys are acting like snobs. It is too easy, the fish are too big, too many people keeping fish. It gets old fast. So let me see, if one of you guys went to your favorite spot at o dark thirty, all alone and bang a 30# on your first cast, and then a 33 #er and on your third cast a 34 #er do you say, oh it it too easy tonight and the size ave is too big, I like to make 50 casts for every fish I catch, I am going home and will come back tomorrow, I don't think so.......geeeeeez. You'd probably hit 400 mil of the lottery and be pissed you had to share it with 2 other people........just saying.

so when did the three day "clock" start? Thursday?

Seriously, a bunch of women on this site. Isn't the point of fishing to catch fish? Sure, 75% of the fun is the hunt and connecting the dots but man, with some of these responses you guys should go work for PETA. You guys bitch when there are no fish around and then bitch when there are fish around?
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Next month Bob
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Well said. I took my 2 teenage sons there 3 times this week. I'd like to apologize on their behalf for catching personal bests and many others that were all released. They didn't deserve to catch them as they have yet to put their time in, for that they have brought shame on our family.
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One of the saddest things I heard about the Canal this week from a reliable source is that a commercial boat angler hung around outside the land cut at the west end and managed to get his 15 fish limit by netting floaters.
I agree with Paul that you can't blame this all on the commercial - ahem, recremercials - but I do that some boat guys have been getting their 15 fish limit inside the Ditch by catching them and transporting them to the box on their boat. I've even heard some say that it is legal and there is one of these clowns who picked up over 450-pounds at Block Island when the price was high.
It just seems that there is an imbalance in terms of enforcement when it comes to what is going on in the Canal and what the boat guys do. Extra loads of 15 fish go missing and unreported when certain people get caught. As long as some of the EPO's are friends with rule breakers, then the system is corrupt. But then what in Massachusetts isn't?
As for stuffing extra fish in the rocks and bushes, it won't stop until there are laws with some teeth, in other words consequences, and they are enforced without interference from the courts. I need to do more research about how fishing violations are handled in other states, but a minimal fine just doesn't cut it.
Ultimately, if you're going to make laws and rules but not enforce them, then don't waste anyone's time making the laws.
As for it being too easy, I don't get it. Catching a personal best is something to be celebrated, but if that fish is killed and then wasted, as in going around looking for someone to take fish off your hands, well that's another thing. I will never say anything about it being too easy; looking back to when I started as a kid, I sure would have liked it to be easier since it took me a long time to catch my first schoolie.
Ultimately, what people should be concerned about is that there is such a large concentration of fish being harvested and poached, as well as released after being out of the water for five minutes for photos and videos or guthooked due to carelessness. Keeping a fish is not criminal; wasting one is.
And without tagging, I can't prove this, but I find it hard to believe that these schools aren't the same ones that are off P'town in the spring and used to in the bay around Sandwich and Barnstable, but are now in the Canal because that's where the bait is.
Does anyone remember when Gay Head had a fleet? Wasque? Cuttyhunk?
Fish aren't magically replaceable, period. Put enough pressure on any local population and watch is disappear.
And, please, oh please, don't mention the EEZ! I have enough of a headache as it is.

It's kinda like when they used to shoot Buffalo from trains.
I spent 4 days there this week, an anomaly of bittersweet fishing.

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I am sure all fish are being released properly....hahahahaha.

Jump to 2:40....I think we call that the bear hug then bar of soap release. Textbook.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z30gCCustEE

Hahaha....Scott, you need to change with the times of entitlement. Don't be surprised if after you hook him up with the spots, he comes back to the shop expecting you to clean his fish for him.

What an amazing fisherman he is....you can tell him.

Why would this sadden you? I think that is great. What would have been a waste is now going to the quota and being used by someone. No one likes seeing all those floaters go to waste. Like off chatham when the trawlers dump there bycatch.

This is the main reason I believe they changed the rules to 2 fish commercially by land. When this happens at the canal the market would have been flooded and the price would be $1 a pound. Sure there is always going to be some shenanigans going on but you'll never stop that.

to each his own buddy.