Quote:
Originally Posted by steve
JF, I agree ! This is the 3 rd season in a row for me that has been lousy. What scares me the most is that there is not alot of small bass around. I can cite alot of example, but I won't bore anyone. All I can tell you is that surf fishing for stripers was much, much better in the 80's and 90's. The fishing has been steadily declining since 1998.
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Maybe where you are. You want small fish? Come up here and I will get you sick of them, last year we caught fish in the surf in spots like Cape Cod Bay of all places right up to and including Thanksgiving eve ( course can't call the waves in CC Bay surf) but just like the last ten years or more more school bass than we can shake a stick at from mid April til December. I could go out any night I want almost and catch school bass til I get sick of them, which at this time of year is a lot sooner than I would than in April.
This year so far has been far and away the best year for 20 pound and over fish ( for me to the high 30's so far) than the last five. Last year I had 22 fish at the 30 mark or just better for the year, this year should easily eclipse that. Those fish came from hard work in locales most would not go near or nights on end in places where the majority of fisherman would leave, say, on the bottom of the tide thinking it was all over when in actuality it would just be about to begin.
The number of fisherman on the outercape beaches fishing for example in the dark wee hours is almost nil. Seems everyone is keyed in on dusk or dawn.
2nd Rip at the RACE is a perfect example. Be there at 4am til 7am standing room only trucks bumper to bumper. Be there on the right tide at 2am and you can hear an echo it's so vacant.
Christ we were catching high 20 pound to low 30 pound fish on six inch sluggos, needles and spooks on the flats in June, some days between a few of us in tin boats or wading the beaches and inlet openings we had six or seven apiece.
For years we watched you RI guys tong them, now for some reason they seem to have come our way on CC. Fish have tails and follow bait and as has been said, the best thing about Striped Bass fishing is that you can't just take straight aim at them, just when you think you have got them figured out they do something completely different. Expecting the same fishing to continue year after year is really stretching. What about your big fish bonanza on pogies this year and last? We have learned that up here on the cape. The good years always had lean years in between. The 60's then a six to 8 year gap then the Mid to late 70's then the drought of fish in the mid 80's then the boom of the early 90's on the outer cape then 2001 to 2003 we did okay.
So many factors that are not mentioned when the fishing goes bad, water quality is a big one that gets overlooked, so many oceanside trophy homes with ChemLawn treated lawns leaching into the water, water temps, bait abundance or scarcity, the ruts we get into year after year as in how we start at point a and end the season at point b like we always do putting the same footprints on the same rocks or sand at the same time each year. Bait off shore, winds predominate direction, moon phase in relation to the calender. The tides themselves, offshore storms affecting the surf conditions.Luck. Slumps. Hot streaks. etc etc.
So many things a lot of people don't even consider that they should.
I have been fishing bass for since I caught my first one at 6 years old that was 46 years ago. I put myself through college catching bass from the beach and with my skiff plus working days on a charter boat. There has never been a place that I can think of that has consistently produced bass in quantity year after year. It's always been a crap shoot as to how each year goes and where it was the best. Some places had strings of years then off years then on again.
Just gotta do a lot of detective work, be willing to put on miles and push on until it happens and then you know only one thing you can count on, it won't be the same tomorrow, next week or next year by any means 75% of the time.