Another Neighborhood lost to seals....
 

Joined Backbeach this afternoon down the street at GI to see if maybe the fish were feeding during the day with these prime conditions since there ain't been jack squat at night, and low and behold there were 3 MASSIVE seals cruisin around. Absolute monsters.
Not a good sign.

With the massive proliferation of seals off the backside and on monomoy, it's only a matter of time before they completely run out of food/space to support their numbers and spread far and wide throughout the area.

And I'll bet that right now three seals are complaining about having their lunch ruined when some Italian from Franklin showed up.

I saw a few poking around last week in the area. But 3 years ago I went clamming in November and saw a ton of seals over a dozen easy. I haven't seen that many since then
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Ya Mike, same up this way..all over...the only day I didnt see them (in the last 8) was last week during the rain and big breakers we had on the NE blow....had the best morning and night of the year with multiple large fish, otherwise its been smalls and seals...think I told you but one smashed a blue-fish my bud had on 5 ft from his rock and spooled him. Its ruining my fishing for sure.

It's back to the boats. Ugh !

They obviously heard about the good trick-or-treating and have arrived early to get in line...:)
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big bags of stinky blubber

Hook up with one, they give a better fight than cow bass. Who can build the first go to lure for seals?

my green polaris seems to be the best for seal catching. had one trail it for a good 20 ft, i almost had a heart attack when i saw its shadow and cursed when i figured out what it was. or maybe it was just eating the fish going after my lure....:fury:

Saw 3 in soco last weekend and one in middletown. I've never seen a seal in either place this early.

Funny you say that. I've joked with the people I fish with on the Race about replacing a cooler rack on the front of a truck with a fighting chair. Throw a Penn130 on there, then live line a bluefish with a few treble hooks in the belly.

Let's see how they like 60-70 pounds of drag on 200# line.

As the core population grows, they continue to span further up and down the coast! They are going to change the way we surfcast, shortening the windows of opportunity even more.

Seals in Salem harbor
 

We have a nice set of them, living on coney ledge, just outside salem harbor. I counted 11 of them sunning themselves about a week ago during low tide on the rocks. They are pounding the big herring/mackeral schools we have had in the harbor all summer. very skitterish, although one day, i was able to get 3 near the boat by ch#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&g live and fresh dead mackeral (leftover unused bait, due to NF catching all the big fish in the area). I know guys hate them, but i look at it as the nearshore waters getting healthier (herring) potentially due to regulation.

One thing going for us at present is it is possable that due to some unknown cause the seals may be dying off. The numbers of dead seals on the beaches this year have exploded from past years. Perhaps they have eaten to many bass and ingested some that were activitly under duress from there own disease?

A dozen seals, already, in Woods Hole passage perched on the ledgelooking at the ferry docks. Already! in 62 degree water. They're swimming all over the place. So, you're not going to have a pod of bass feeding over those rocky flats where they can be ambushed and cornered by a black blubber.

I was fishing a spot in a river on the south shore, I had found a little area where schoolies were ambushing herring fry, or some other tiny bait fish. I got to my spot at about 145am and fished for an hour or so with no luck. It was confusing because the bait was all there but no popping of stripers on this night. All of a sudden from under the bridge I was next to comes this big nasty coughing. I'm on the rocks and it is no more than 20-30 feet from me. I popped my head lamp on and saw a big splash go into the water. Damn seal was sitting right next to me. No wonder the bass were gone. Weird though, he kept coughing, about 40 or 50 times before he finally headed down river. Maybe some kind of seal bronchitis going around responsible for those dead seals. Or maybe the fact that theres a million seals and with that there will naturally be more dead seals. Either way, that bastard scared the @#$% out of me.