Sad sight yesterday
 

Yesterday while out on the tuna grounds we made a 6 mile run looking for better fishing.
About 1/2 way to our spot we notice some thrashing on the surface of the water off off the stb side of my boat.
We get closer and we see an 18-20 lb bass being tossed around while being chomped down by a friggin seal :eek:
I gave it some through to spin back around it but figured the seal would just go down.
Then I thought to myself, why is my wrist rocket & stash of ball bearings in my garage at home and not on the boat !

I also saw several seals snacking while making the run from SWC to the Race.

We saw them yesterday too, coming back from Peaked Hill, where are the great whites when you need them?

Because you could get in some serious troble for just taking a shot at them. Not that I haven't thought of that myself:bl:

That's strange. Seals don't eat large fish, only smaller bait fish. And they don't travel to deeper waters. /end sarcasm

:no2:

Seals
 

"That's strange. Seals don't eat large fish, only smaller bait fish. And they don't travel to deeper waters."

I guess they only eat large fish in shallow water, that must explain why I lost two large fish to seals on the flats.

It's ridiculous. Saw a pod of 10 seals off the Race last week, with another 4-5 a few hundred yards behind them. Makes it relatively pointless to fish.

I get to the point where I put on my cheapest piece of tin, so that if I hook up, I won't mind losing it.

The biggest shame is that this combined with the plovers will drive fishermen off the beach, fewer people will buy stickers and eventually, the beaches will be closed to ORV due to a lack of funding and "lack of interest."

That's how we lost the biggest stretches of beaches back in the 80s---bass stocks crashed, no one bought 4x4 passes and we lost over 20 miles of beach--which our great-grandkids won't even get back :doh:

I saw more beach-rigged campers with MBBA decals parked along the Canal this past weekend than I used to see at Long Bar back in the 80s :hs:

O MY GOSH---LONG BAR---MY HEART JUST SKIPED A BEAT. O well instead of fish we can tell the grandchildren about the monster fur things that are taking there place,cleaning out the bays in winter,desecrating the flats during haul out ,just think of the little kids crawling through it on the beach after paying big money to park the car and Chatham is going to pay 300million dollars for a new sewer plant for 6500 humans,BUT THEY FORGOT THE 6000 SEALS CRAPING THE SHORE THAT WON,T USE THE TOILET.

We just need to change the game.

I'm thinking:

Some real big Penn reels on heavy rods
+ Fighting chairs mounted to the grill of a pickup truck
+ Live-lining bluefish with some big tuna hooks run out the belly
= One of the most interesting fights a fisherman has ever had


"Sorry officer, I heard you could live-line for sharks out here. I didn't know the seal would go after my bluefish. I always read that seals only eat smaller baitfish."

We have similar issues with the porpoise going after Spanish mackerel off of jupiter. Only thing we can do is let them eat through the spine, you get the lure and the head.
Some days its just better to move on.

Call me a total madman but I'd rather fish around a few seals then around a whole bunch of inconsiderate people. I can see how they can be a nuisance to those who fish the outer cape beaches.

We saw some of those furry pricks 10 plus miles off Ptown tuna fishing. I hope they get smoked by a shark. They have ruined one of the best fisheries Chatham and the back beaches.

crossbow

Bring back the bounty!!! A rifle in every fishermans vehicle. It would still take years to cull the bastards out.:nailem:
Doc 77 - You wouldn't say that after catching large and ending up with a fish head.:cens:

Yeah your probably right. I'm a bit of a misanthrope on occasion :gorez:

While fishing 5-6 miles off of Peaked Hill on Monday, saw 4 or 5 seals in about 155-165 feet of water. I've rarely seen seals in those water depths. There is so much bait around, the colony is only going to get larger. I don't hate seals, but it's time to do something.

Those of you who fish the race (from beach or boat) whens the last time you saw window pane or skate? Their disappearance maps to the presence of seals to the year. Seals impacting cod stocks too, both in terms of predation and parasites. How can you manage one species at the expense of another?

At least you guys don't have sea lions back east. A few weeks ago I saw a pair of them each tossing around a sturgeon trying to rip through the tough outer skin. These were fish around 4-5 feet long!

they definitely need to be thinned out somehow, where are all the woodshole pointy heads on this, the point about losing the access is :err:

It's like going to the dermatologist with a mole, Doc take a look. not yet come back in twenty years maybe it will go away.Earthy crunchy people are as myopic as the taliban.:cens::cens::cens::cens:

AMEN!

1 problem---liberals.

they'd be throwing themselves in front of the seals.

hmmmm,