SPEARGUNNERS FOR MA STRIPERS!
 

Another Bill brought up for Hearing before the MA Joint Committee Environment and Natural Resources last Thursday at the Boston State House, along with the fateful H796 proposal, was a plea to open striped bass harvest to speargunners also. Interestingly, this interest group made it quite clear that they were also opposed to the passage of the H796.

Their argument stated that it was a mere "oversight" when MA made striped bass a hook and line fish, and this oversight should now be corrected. Also, everybody else (states) does it.

Wow! What do you think? Can they buy a $65 commercial license so to be able to compete in the present existing commercial striped bass fishery? Can they "fish" at night?

I'm trying to imagine 80 boats snapping wire at the Race, and somebody dropping a dive flag in the middle and trying to shoot the fish we're catching.

I'm sure they will receive a warm reception.

I cant see it happening. There is talk about increasing the size and decreasing the limit on fish, then they want to open it up to spearfishing. I dont have a problem with spearfishing but i think that if we want to protect the stock we should not be adding another method of harvest. Let them try to "Fish" at night around Chatham.

There are a handful of guys who spearfish commercially in RI. Mainly for blackfish and a few others. Not sure about bass.

But I have no problem as long as they keep to the 1 @ 36" size limit like the rest of us should have to!

i've never understood why anybody who fishes with hook and line would be opposed to spear fishing. what exactly makes the fishing with hook and line so noble?

i'm all for legalizing spear fishing in MA if the rules are the same (and why wouldn't they be?) as for hook and line. if i had more free time, it would be something I would want to try.

The two issues with spearfishing that bother me is the ability to cull the largest fish present and the ability to put out a dive flag and monopolize a spot. Add chum to the equation and the idea worries me.

There are guys doing this at the cement barge all summer, a whole section nearby was blocked off every saturday with yaks and flags

what's next...black powder and bow? in all seriousness i share georges concerns.

As a diver since 1976
The one thing that works against the bass for spear fishing
Bass being a real predatory fish often follow divers around
Slightly off in the distance looking for what the diver may stir up
The diver himself becomes the lure
I have often “kneeled” on the bottom and watch a school of them circling me
Which I think puts the bass at a disadvantage
Black bass, Cod, Wolf fish, Haddock, Lobster are all fish you have to look for
I.e.. Hunt. Stripers hear you and hover around you about 20-40 ft away if in the area
Stripers stalking instinct have been one of those things I have always enjoyed about
My dive experience here in New England I have often broken up small lobsters
And watch them dart by me scooping them up!

yea .. my dive friends have told me stripers follow them .. Doesn't seem very sporting ,, more of a meat fishers thing . easy pickins imho

To me, there is way too much of a guessing game while down there. Everything under water looks 20% larger than it actually is. I think a lot of mistakes would be made.

Talk to a spearfisherman, especially a good one, and they can estimate size in the water as well as we can out.

As far as being easy... maybe on a wreck on a calm day, but the guys who freedize down to 60ft to pop a bass have my vote as being OK.

This has been a sometimes contentious issue around Block.

Spearfishing - seems every user group seems to want a piece of the striped bass pie.

Hopefully MSBA will rally the troops on this bill.

DZ

how is that any different than chumming. for that matter, bass are predatory fish and like to feed on prey that is swept up in currents - is drifting an eel in an outflow an issue since it takes advantage of the bass's nature and puts him at a disadvantage. is trolling for tuna and marlin an issue because they are attracted to the prop wash?

i'd be willing to bet that alot more fish would die because inexperienced rod and reel anglers get excited by a 27" fish and have it out of the water for too long while searching for a tape measure and taking pictures. your making a big assumption that spear fisherman will not be experienced and aware enough to avoid or limit this.

i can see the concern here. however, rod and reel fisherman can monopolize a spot too. you just need to get there first. and rod and reel fisherman can cull fish too. just release them until you get the size you want. not quite to the same degree, though.

also, i think spear fisherman will be a small group and have very little impact compared to rod and reel on stocks, etc.

note that all of this is said from a surf perspective, and i admit that i may be unaware or underestimating the effects on boat fisherman. but either way, i guess i do not see anything that entitles rod and reel fisherman to a resource that spear fisherman are not given access to. where's the line. what would be really good for the species is if we all stopped fishing for them.

The guy who fishes for 50 schoolies a day will kill more fish than the spear fisherman who pulls the trigger once or twice.
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There is a small group of commercial spear fishermen in RI who regularly sell 5 fish/day averaging 150-200 lbs.......well known fact among Rhode Island RR commercial guys

I have a commercial license /

& I have friends that dive for steamers & necks ................................ that a whole other story .

But I have one that has told me about the same t=bass kinda waiting for him / & he would throw tape worms in the water column & the bass would go after it // down the road / just about eating out of his hand .

A&& I have read articles & seen some shows / they are good what they do & they have a very good knowledge of the size fish they are targeting .
I,d have no idea what they would do if they were fishing the size fish the upper narragansett bay has been holding in the spring .
30-36 in fish with MANY being 32 - 34 with a splattering of blues .
As soon one has already stated & it was a very hot issue in rI 20 years ago . is the zone / piece of water they can control by the flag ;

Too much has gone on in RI concerning diving / but that,s neither here or there ;

what,s to be will be & we have to live with it ;

Nebe .leave my schoolies out of this ><><<,.:fishin:

I wasn't going to post on this issue about divers and what goes on under the surface, but I can tell you as one who had lobster pots in the past the above quote would just be another way in Mass to poach friekin bass. GGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

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.....that's why I mentioned it.....................

Spearfishermen can take stripers in every state but MA. So why should MA be different?

Also, there are not a lot of people who do this. It's a small user group. I used to do it, and believe me, it's no small feat to free dive down 20 feet and stick a decent fish
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Let them spearfish for the bass. The mortality rate will be smaller than the mortality rate on a hot May weekend at the canal due to the small population of proficient spearfishermen. Look at it this way; one tow from a dragger out east in October that sets on a school of bass will kill a 1000 times more in one hour than the entire New England spearfishing population will kill in a year. Sometimes we as fishermen want them all for us and not share with other groups.

I've been told of some R.I guys who have Ma. commercial permits and bring in some REAL COWS during the season and most of the fish have the obvious hole blown through them from the spear.
Word is that they spear fish for them in R.I. waters and truck them up to Ma. to off load to the buyer.
I'm pretty certain my permit says "Rod & Reel" only !

How many can you release after you have shot the fish with a spear gun? That's the problem I have. And you can't say that all fish that were speared were of legal limit.

I have no problem if all they shot were keepers and could only keep the same as rod and reel guys.

Lets just keep welcoming in more and more user groups. Everyone knows there is an unending supply of stripers. Why not the dynamite group. just as sporting and selective as a net.

How many shorts are measured by fishermen, photos taken, passed around to buddies so they can take pictures or gill hooked or just kicked back into the water. How many bass are gut hooked by letting the fish "take the bait" or even yo-yoing? How many die. What about the masses of schoolies caught with trebles? They all dont survive trust me. There is no basis to the argument you make. We fishermen kill way more bass incidentally in a week than the whole spear community will kill in the season.

For reference I dive and catch lobsters. I am almost 99% correct on size before I measure them under water. The same goes for the spear fishermen I'm sure. How many shorts are killed during commercial season or winched in on wire and mutilated before being thrownm thrown back during any weekend ?

Having chased stripers with a gun since 1968 and having been a competitive spearo for over 15 years, I think I have a pretty good handle on bass behavior underwater.

Hooligans, you must be talking about Plymouth or most likely Rockport where there is a lot of daytime bottle diving for lobsters and no spearing allowed. Believe me, stripers don't follow spearos from any distance, they move when you move, but when they are in a state like MA or CT where you can't shoot them, they do behave with a little less caution. As far as offering them "small" (illegal) lobsters...sure you can chum bass where they're already conditioned to follow divers.

Regardless of how difficult and noble it is to hunt them with a gun (something I have no problems justifying) I can't see allowing spearfishing in MA. Why? Because unless they make it a game fish you will soon learn how much this sport has grown since the 60's. Now, there are dozens of highly proficient divers that are strictly targeting trophy size fish, often times crossing into the EEZ and then selling their fish. I dare say that proportionate to the number of divers shooting stripers, there are even more pirates that don't hesitate to brake the law. As for diving the Race and spearing fish, a small group of divers have been doing that for over 20 years...I know because I filmed some of the best off of Valiant Rock. If you open MA to spearfishing there WILL be user conflicts in every hot spot you can think of.

IMHO let sleeping dogs lie and give the bass a safe haven in MA where they are already under too much commercial pressure.

No good reason for it
 

Our fish are already under pressure from many many directions (water quality in spawning areas, loss of forage to commercial fisheries, possibly climate change, etc..), so why add yet another threat to their continued survival as a species?

Leave well enough alone.

That's no lie as I see it every week. They're actually a couple CT guys with Mass licenses. Not sure where the fish come from, but they are all large fish with holes just behind the gill plate when they hit the scales.

I used to do some scuba diving for lobsters and to be honest , I can't think of a more difficult way to try to catch a striper! Divers using spearguns is OK with me. The arguments that they have heard people break the laws because the divers can't be seen is no different than all the breaking of the law that goes on by rod and reel guys in the dark of night.

For recs to try to exclude everyone else just makes us look like we are selfish. Its one thing to be against commercial fishing but it gives us a bad rep as selfish if we don't want Recs using other techniques to be able to fish.

The argument about the divers grabbing a spot where others want to fish is legitimate though. 10 boats can fish an area but 1 diver and 9 boats can't without risk of killing the diver. There should be some sort of rules to govern that aspect of spear fishing.