Cape sport fishing gutted by seals
By Doug Fraser
dfraser@capecodonline.com
December 17, 2012 2:00 AM
PROVINCETOWN — Rich Wood knows the names and faces of the people from New Jersey, New York and Connecticut who used to come here in the fall to surfcast for giant striped bass with the magnificent white dunes as a backdrop and a wild frothy ocean before them.
They don't come anymore to the beaches along the back side of the Outer Cape, Wood said, because it's too hard to catch anything with the number of seals feeding there.
"Business has changed dramatically," said Wood, who recently had to close one of his two tackle shops. "You can't beat July and August, but, traditionally, mid-September to mid-October would be big, my
No. 2 season. But people stopped coming."
"My business is really down," he said.
Fishermen and business owners blame the resurgence of the gray seal population on the Cape and Islands over the past decade — 5,611 in 1999 compared with an estimated 15,756 in 2011 — for killing off a traditional fall fishery that brought in money in the off-season and helped the Cape gain a measure of fame in the recreational fishing world for catching big bass.
"I have heard the same things," said Owen Nichols, director of marine fisheries research at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies.
Nichols is researching the interaction among seals, fishermen and their prey. He is also a member of the newly formed Northwest Atlantic Seal Research Consortium, based at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which brings scientists, fishery managers and fishermen together to tackle some of these problems.
"It's very difficult to quantify without direct observation of how much seals are capturing or the more complicated issue of them driving fish offshore," Nichols said. "Fishermen at this point are the best source of the information we do have; however, we need more quantitative evidence."
Nichols said a public forum on seals is in the works for March.
Before he bought Nelson's Bait & Tackle in Provincetown eight years ago, Wood was one of those fall fishermen. He traveled from Connecticut and stayed for two weeks at the end of September into the beginning of October, at the iconic Days' Cottages along Route 6A in North Truro. Now, when he drives by, he can't help but take a wistful glance at the cottages.
"I look over at those little Monopoly cottages and see the cars and see if they have any rod racks on them," Wood recalled. "Normally, there'd be one in front of every little cottage. Now? Nothing."
"I never thought I'd see the day," said Tony Stetzko of Orleans, who once held the International Game Fish Association all-tackle world record with a 73-pound striper caught on Nauset Beach in Orleans in 1981. He used to go by boat to relatively isolated beaches on Monomoy Island off Chatham to get away from the fall crowds. This fall, he said he pretty much had Nauset Beach to himself.
"It's all done. Everybody knows it now," said Stetzko, who said his fishing guide business has suffered from the decline.
"The Outer Beach doesn't do it anymore in the fall," said Lee Boisvert, owner of Riverview Bait and Tackle in South Yarmouth. Boisvert said his beach surfcasting business is way down with most people opting to go on boats or fish the Cape Cod Canal where the seals haven't yet had a big impact.
"I've pretty much stopped fishing the back shore due to the presence of seals," said longtime fisherman Lou MacKeil, vice president in charge of environmental affairs for the Cape Cod Salties sportfishing club. "Trying to get a striped bass in among those seals is impossible. That's why no one is fishing out there in the fall."
The abundance of seals is just one of many possible reasons given for a 74 percent drop in the recreational landing of striped bass between 2006 and 2011. In recent years, bad weather and environmental conditions have led to poor survival rates for larval and juvenile bass in the Chesapeake Bay, where many of our fish originate. Mycobacteriosis, an opportunistic, widespread and potentially fatal bacterial disease, may also be affecting Chesapeake populations.
Still, scientists and fishery managers say the striped bass population is robust, with the females 148 percent over what is considered a healthy threshold. On Cape, some wonder if warming inshore water temperatures may be too high for bass. There are also fewer small fish inshore, possibly driving the bass offshore beyond the reach of a rod cast from the beach.
"We've had tons of sand eels, but not close to shore," Wood said. The 100 or so vessels visible off beaches in the summer commercial season are catching bass that no longer come inshore, Stetzko said, because seals have eaten the smaller fish.
Stetzko made a clapping sound over the phone, mimicking the sound of small flounder known as sand dabs that would wash ashore at night.
"They'd be everywhere, and you'd hear them flapping at your feet," he said. He thinks the seals have gobbled them up.
"As soon as dusk came, you could go hole to hole until you found the bait fish and if you knew what you were doing you'd find (bass)," Stetzko said. "Those are the bass that used to come onto the shore at night, but the fish know if they come in, they will be harassed by those seals — and those were big fish."
MacKeil and Boisvert said the seals are spreading into Nantucket Sound and are now a relatively common sight at many of the Cape's rivers.
"Every day, every month, every year, there are more and more," Stetzko said. "It's just devastating what has happened to surf fishermen along Cape Cod."
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Well, at least the problem is getting attention, but I doubt anything will be done.
Threaded Mode