Back when Stripers equated to dollar signs for me
 

The wife has been cleaning out drawers in various places around the house and found these from 86. Got a bunch somewhere stashed from the real old days too. Will keep looking.

June was great in 86" from the beach for me lots of 30 and 40lb fish.

better view. Please don't throw stones, to us back then it was a way to survive here on Cape by earning some extra money at night after working all day at our real jobs. Would not have been able to keep the house without it.

I remember when it used to be old harbor fish market. Did Mark work there in the 80's?

or Own it I mean

yes

Canal fish ?

Obviously fish were MUCH stupider back then. :uhuh:

A few Ed, most were from the beach, especially the June fish.

shame shame .....bad boy ......i would never sell fish for money

Id love to see the photos that go with those weight slips...

What was the average wholesale price per pound in 86?

Seems like a good way to make ends meet.(Back in the day).

Joe , surprisingly it was similar to today's prices. A good price back then(early 80's) was $1.80 a pound. During, say August, we got upwards of $3.00 a pound. Schoolies were always more per pound . We used to make a $100.00 a night in August catching small fish around NR and the town beach.

maybe
 

this is where the term "Hooker" came from :tooth:

Pretty cool. Thanks for sharing.

that's really interesting. Striper fishing history.

Wow - that was good money back then.

Make a blog and a public photo album. It would be interesting to see some photos of other stuff you (well everyone actually) might have to help everyone become better and more knowledgeable about (one of our) our favorite past times.

Joe Surfcasting, Yes it was. It paid for food and other stuff for my young family. I even bought a string of good pearls for my ex-wife with earnings for bass fishing one fall. I wish I never let my commercial lic. lapse during the moratorium, but we all thought selling bass was all done. Mistake!

Joe, I saved a few slips like Flap. I have one for a 47 llb. fish-$112.00- ONE FISH!

Tonight, if I can find them, I remember having a slip from 1983 that I saved because I had two 23" inch fish and one around 22 pounds that brought near 100.00 bucks for those three alone.

I have a slip from Monomoy that was all 24 inch fish that paid something like 250.00. That was easy money, two at a time. One on the bomber and one on the redgill each cast.

I could go on and on.

We averaged .50 to .75cents a pound back in the late 70's for big fish when the run was on. Stiffy was there he could tell you. August brought the best money and we had them on Monomoy when every other beach was munged up bad we stayed clean because the flushing of Pleasant Bay each night kept the ocean side shore of Monomoy free of junk, only weed would be at high or low slack for an hour than we had 5 hours of clean fast moving water. It was pure bliss.

Stiffy and I had fished there into late November in the late 70's early 80's, some nights it snowed and we still caught fish but froze our nutz off doing it.

Never did it with bass (too young :tooth: ) but I made more money off Canyon Tuna than anyone should have been allowed in the late 80's early 90's . . . We sold to Hendrigan's on consignment - dump the fish off and like magic a few weeks later a check appeared . . . Try "explaining" an $1,800 check for one 200 pound bigeye :cheers:


It was too good to be true and it ended quickly

stupid question but, what constituted a large bass and what constituted a small bass, was it weight?, length, both?

Weight. Not a stupid question at all btw. 15lbs and over was considered large where I sold. Cataumet Fish, Victory Fish in Hyannis (about where borders is now) Old Harbor in Chatham.

"SELECT" were the small fish and the most coveted $ wise. Usually under 15 or so pounds. "JO" were jumbos- the large ones.

Selling Fish
 

I can rember riding on the tailgate of my uncle's scout going to town to sell bass. Spent many a day waiting on the sidewalk outside the candy shop on commercial street while the "men" went to sell fish. Most of the time they also stopped at the Focsal for a few beers. It was ok with me I used to get extra bribe money to keep quite. Not sure he ever got rich doing it I would say just even at best.

wow that's cool, I gotta admit if I was old enough back then I would have been all over that too, especially right about now!

Thats cool info Flap thanks.
Bass still do equate to dollars for me, its all negative cash flow and I probabaly average around $100 per pound :hee:

Very cool thread....a nice look back at a time before environmental concernsoverwhelmed having a good time and making an honest buck. Things changed because we learned and they had to, but I like the idea of thinking about how things were before they did change. I missed those days, catching my first striper around 1990 or so.

No doubt, if I was of the right age back then I would have been hitting the bass sales hard.

Like Steve doing a 100.00 bucks plus for his 47lber, I got $90.00 plus for these two 23 inch fish and the larger 24lb. and change fish.

Nauset, June 1983