i'm done and not just for this season
 

for the last 7 years I have seen my catch go down in both size and numbers on the south shore of ma.. I was around when the last crash happened and I predicted this downward trend to continue for the next 7-8 years till the big class of y.o.y. grew shoulders , but what happened this year floored me . I caught 4 keepers and none over 40" , ten years ago I would have called that a slow day .I'm going to pack most of my gear away , sell the boat and hopefully before I pass on to the next world things will improve , I always tried my best to be a responsible fisherman , keep no fish , no barbs on my lures , circle hooks on live bait . time to dust of the mustang sitting in the garage and play with that for a while.

Enjoy
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Not sure where you are fishing but it's been outstanding for us.
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I fished bass from Plymouth to Sandy neck and had the best year in a long time. Most fish were over 40". Never struggled to find macs or pogies.
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Type of boat?
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Patterns change. Although I do think that there are less bass around than 15 years ago
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I've put in a lot of time the last 15 years , but i'm no where near your league , bait never an issue , macks all year , the most pogies I have seen in many years . finding takers the issue . the boat is 18 parker

Perhaps the abundance of bait made things hard?
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havn,t seen this many schoolies up to low teens with a few larger in many, many years ,you can almost say {{I,m going fishing & catch bass]

I think the areas change.

I’m strictly surf and the my “go to” areas have been pretty devoid of life this season, nothing like in years past

But new areas (to me) have been producing really well, more leg work and figuring out the bite but been fun learning new areas instead of the usual spots that become habit
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I've been doing this a long time...probably too.long...this was the worst year for me in 30 years....am I ready to "sell the farm"...nope....lots of reasons for it...no doubt there are less large to go around. ..the farther north you go ..the more evident it becomes...when was the last time yoy heard of a "50" from NH or Maine...that aside striped bass are cyclical. ..their patterns change. ..next year... the Cape could see a down turn and the fishery to the north could florish...take this year's bad fishing and use it for next season. ...unless they vanish from the ocean...I know next year will be better...
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for many years ,,,,,,,,,I felt that there was only one fish in the sea ...the Striped Bass.
I was so wrong ..I,ve been having a ball catching a varity of fish ,if you adjust your gear . then you have a whole new ballgame of trying to figure out the habits & patterns of other fishes ....For me it have been a great learning & humbling experience ......IMO ............. don't let the whole fishing adventure be consumed by the STRIPER ><><
:kewl:

Blue Oyster,

Why don't you give it one more year. I missed most of this season season for I was working. But talking to many friends some say it was slow for big fish, but MORE friends said it was one of the best years they have for fish over 40" and up to 50#. That was in your area, the south shore.

Maybe you need to hop on a few mass bass buddies boats for a day to see what they may or may not do different. I can't believe you think it is that bad. Unless you are truly fishing in areas that don't hold fish.

An 18' Parker is a nice little boat to get into some tight areas.

Poor year for me (canal crap aside), although when younger I'd fish harder when fish were scarce. Now I just feel sorry for myself instead.
It certainly is easier that way.

I'm with Clammer on this. I had a great year and not just with Bass. I DID have 2 fish in the mid 40# range which was great, lots of 20s and a few 30s. Scup, sea Bass, Blues. caught all of them.

Last week there were so many Blues in the upper bay you could have your arms fall off from fighting them.

terrible here too...... I feel your pain.

Interesting to hear the different replies from all the guys and their opinions. Posts like this are the most interesting especially from the guys that have been around for a while that fish a lot.

:claps: best advice!

Trailer, trailer, trailer
Chase anything that swims (smaller than your boat ) :-)
The catch is a bonus for a day on the water in a new or old spot IMO

I haven't caught a keeper striper in two years, but that's primarily due to the fact I just don't target them anymore. It's black sea bass, fluke and tog that have all my attention, but I've caught a ton of schoolies. At times the small bass are more of a pain in the arse then fun, because I can't get the plastic down to the BSB or tog. I don't know how long we have to wait for this little 12-15" fish to pull drag, but hopefully the regulations won't get stupid again and there will be some numbers to catch.

Very rerely did we fish where the bait was.
This year was a bit different than past years as to where they were.
All the 25-40 inch fish you could want to catch inside the harbor & a bit north of the harbor.
Some days were better for bigger fish but it was mostly small keepers to small commercial size.
Ton of peanut bunker in the harbor also.
For me personally this was probably my most enjoyable year ever seeing my 19 year old son Leo with his 1st full year of running trips & outfishing most everyone in the harbor, me included 👍
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I my experience (roughly the last 20 years) this past year has been probably a bit below par in my experience, but I have changed tactics quite a bit as well. I am a south shore guy, and spring time would typically focus efforts in the rivers and bays trying to find some willing bass that were chasing herring into the runs. I haven't looked all too closely at the herring return numbers, but I do recall reading somewhere that the Nemasket run numbers were significantly lower than that last couple years- not sure if any of the south shore numbers were at a historical lows or highs (NSRWA loosely estimates numbers at ~90,000) and not sure if it was simply the herring and bass migration patterns didn't sync up as they had 5+ years ago, but the quantities of large bass simply never congregated in the rivers like they had in the past. We used to have fish from 12" to 40# + in and around the rivers all season long...they might still be around, but simply not in the numbers they were...from what I found?

I was prob. 90% boat/10% shore at dawn/dusk for my first 15 years of bass fishing, but hedging more towards shore based surfcasting over the last few years (this season was probably 70% shore, 30% boat)...most of this is due to finding a few like minded buddies to traverse the rocks with and fishing mostly at night. I also greatly expanded my fishing terrain, where I was historically only Scituate/Marshfield, and then Ply/Dux/King bays, and now I have expanded from Hull down to Barnstable for bayside efforts, in addition to numerous other areas from the canal to south cape MA to Cutty and SoCo RI.

In my experience the south shore was more "punches in bunches" and not much for a residential population this year. We had a couple nice waves of fish move through in June and again in July, and then seemingly heading south again in early/mid August when it seemed virtually the entire breeding biomass of fish congregated around the canal for a 3 week bonanza of some of the craziest fishing one could handle. I won't disagree that I had some moments of feeling like this was the "last of the buffalo" occurring right in front of me with what I perceived as too many breeders being removed from the biomass by too many short-sighted anglers harvesting fish simply to harvest fish.

Fall has been a bust for anything of size, but encouraged by the incredible numbers of 12-16" schoolies that are currently gorging themselves on peanuts, silversides & brit herring...last season my home waters were inundated with the 2011 class of fish- all seemingly 25-27.5"...they were everywhere, but they didn't seem to show up this year in the same numbers? All I know is that each year is different, bass & forage migration patterns are not exactly set in stone, and where they congregate varies to some extent every season. I was elated to catch a 34" bass this weekend on a sluggo from my boat tight to shore in Scituate that put a genuine smile on my face. That alone will get me to keep coming back :wavey:

As a shore/surf guy it's been slowly but steadily going downhill.
I can't speak for the fisheries as a whole, but what I have experienced it could be an indication of what might be happening elsewhere.

That is why I've chosen to focus on freshwater more than salt.
In either case I feel that the changing conditions have prompted me to learn more as I go.

Hopefully my experiences are not a harbinger of things to come, but rather just the result of a fluke occurrence.

See how much fun I had the day we fished off the shore in your boat and I was catching blues with a habs with no hooks ?

Outstanding Ron ! Doesn't it feel good ? I know how proud a Dad I am .

I fish primarily around Newport, Brenton Reef around Jamestown and off of Ocean Drive, Seal Rock etc. In the early 2000's I could always find fish doing a little spot hopping. The bay was full of acres and acres of blitzing bluefish. Over the years it has been more difficult to find stripers and most of the blues I see are smaller. Have not seen those types of huge blitz's in 10 years at least. Fishing in the fall we have had some excellent days fishing albies. A couple of times I found mixed schools of allies, bonito and stripers. Those days will go down as the best fishing I have ever had. The bay does seem to be full of bunker and anchovies I figure that has got to bode well for the future. Whales and dolphins off of Narragansett Beach, must be a good sign. Holding on for the future. I will tell you this. I started treating stripers like the valuable game fish they are and releasing 100%. I feel better doing my small part. No judgement though. They do last good for sure.

Absolutely 👍
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GOTO Youtube and look for cape cod canal fishing.
You will change your mind 2017 was a awesome year for big stripers.

You think he should judge his perspective on the status of the fishery based on a 7 mile stretch of water on a select number of days? I think we went down a similar road 30 years ago.

Probably hit on the head with a 5oz jig, clearly not thinking right.