I don't want to ruffle any feathers with this question....but why do people think they know where certain pods of fish come from or are headed and exactly what they are doing?? How do folks know that "hey these fish came from Scorton Ledge and are headed south" or that "they are the fish they were getting on the North Shore and they are headed south"???? What is this all based on??? After all.....they are fish! They do mnot send postcards or e-mail GPS co-ordinates?? They are fish.....they have tails! Just a curious question if any one can help?
i read something somewhere about the stripes patterns and coloration. i dunno how well that holds up. but i tend to give fish a good lookin over when i get into them, and there are some very distinctive differences on different days. i dunno what it all means.
but i've noticed (atleast i think i have) if i get into about 6-8 schoolies in an hour, they all are pretty much the same shades and shapes. be it bright white, or more of a yellowish hue. dark stripes, or somewhat lighter stripes.
but im think that has more to do with the water conditions theyve been in. more so then where they are from. as usually the very white with dark stripes are covered in sea lice. and the yellower fish usually dont have any.
just what i've noticed.
also READ somewhere that the hudson and chesapeake stocks have a different amount of stripes. (7 vs 8). i dunno how true that is. i've never botherd to actually count stripes. but it seems reasonable that the two stocks would have slightly different dna structures. which in theory if it is true, could give each breeding ground its own dna differences. which would lead to different hues and patterns. possibly even body types. (racers vs cows(?)) i know around here we see far more racer types than cows. even with their bellies filled to the point of exploding they are usually much thinner/more streamlined for their length than the big fish i see from other areas.
hey another long winded post from outta my arse. but just some observations. i would assume people take those observations and make them into those theories on who they are and they do.
There he stands, draped in more equipment than a telephone lineman, trying to outwit an organism with a brain no bigger than a breadcrumb, and getting licked in the process. ~Paul O'Neil, 1965
Identification. Striped bass are long, thick-bodied fish with large broad heads. They are characterized by the
presence of 7-8 smoky black stripes running the length of the fish.
from some new york fish identification page. there were others with the same thing. but could only copy that one. i saw one that even said up to 9.. but it also applied to hybrids.
There he stands, draped in more equipment than a telephone lineman, trying to outwit an organism with a brain no bigger than a breadcrumb, and getting licked in the process. ~Paul O'Neil, 1965
There's no way of knowing for sure, but I'd say they're educated guesses based on reports and the time of year. Well, there is one way to know for sure: I pulled a tagged fish out of the action Thursday, so if it was tagged two days prior on Scorton Ledge, then we can be certain (actually it was a pretty old tag, so that won't be happening). Seriously though, this week there was some dynamite fishing out on Scorton's ledge, lots of fish in the 30-34" with the occasional bigger bass, then the canal blew up Thursday (maybe Wednesday, but I wasn't there so I can't say) with fish of the same size class. So I think that's a pretty good assumption.
Also, given the time of year, figuring these fish are on their way south isn't too much of a stretch either, especially with that wind we had Thursday night.
When that tremendous push of big fish came through the fish week of June, right when the Canal was slowing up, I started getting reports of boats in CC Bay slaying good bass that were loaded with macks. I'd bet the farm that was the same body of fish from the Canal following that big school of Mackerel.
Fishing's all about trying to figure out what the fish are doing and where they're going to be, and the best we can do is try to guess.
Also, given the time of year, figuring these fish are on their way south isn't too much of a stretch either, especially with that wind we had Thursday night.
i'm still p.o.ed at that wind. it completely shut off our bite. started back up again though. hopefully many more fish comin down behind them.
There he stands, draped in more equipment than a telephone lineman, trying to outwit an organism with a brain no bigger than a breadcrumb, and getting licked in the process. ~Paul O'Neil, 1965
I think they may be trying to figure out the migration patterns.They came from the north same size average fish in the school heading south in the fall.Could be just an asshat trying to make himself look like he knows more than your average bear.
I think people have seen fish do the same thing year after year after year and thus they base their theory on the high chance that the fish will repeat history. For example Scorton is a place the fish seem to congregate in very high numbers this month before they move on. They come in waves usually. Add some northerly wind direction for a couple days and you can pretty much bet on it. Go there in mid summer and you won't find much. Just happens. It is documented. Then a lot of these fish start filtering thru the canal. Pretty obvious I would say when you get a lot of nice fish on the Ledge and a day or two later you start getting nice fish in the canal. Again add the wind direction and a large tide and you pretty much got a sure thing. I'd say their assumptions are pretty good in this particular situation. Where they go after, this time of the year, if I was a betting man I would say south and west from the canal.
"A beach is a place where a man can feel he's the only soul in the world that's real"
I think people have seen fish do the same thing year after year after year and thus they base their theory on the high chance that the fish will repeat history. For example Scorton is a place the fish seem to congregate in very high numbers this month before they move on. They come in waves usually. Add some northerly wind direction for a couple days and you can pretty much bet on it. Go there in mid summer and you won't find much. Just happens. It is documented. Then a lot of these fish start filtering thru the canal. Pretty obvious I would say when you get a lot of nice fish on the Ledge and a day or two later you start getting nice fish in the canal. Again add the wind direction and a large tide and you pretty much got a sure thing. I'd say their assumptions are pretty good in this particular situation. Where they go after, this time of the year, if I was a betting man I would say south and west from the canal.
Thats what I meant to say just didn't come out that way.
See Prof...this is my point! "See fish do the same thing year after year".......see what fish? Fish are fish! Nobody knows what fish and from where they came and where they are headed is my point! Its all conjecture and speculation! Yeah, this time of the year the fish begin to move but nobody knows if Pod A is the same Pod guys were catching from a week earlier 20 miles away?!?!?
See Prof...this is my point! "See fish do the same thing year after year".......see what fish? Fish are fish! Nobody knows what fish and from where they came and where they are headed is my point! Its all conjecture and speculation! Yeah, this time of the year the fish begin to move but nobody knows if Pod A is the same Pod guys were catching from a week earlier 20 miles away?!?!?
wellll... around these parts (you know where im talking about) if we get into them, we can actually follow them through their stage areas of tides, from the rivers out to sea and back. (schoolies that is) but never went as far as saying what stock/school they were and where theyd be if migrating. but i would assume it could be done on a much larger scale. i just dont think they can be narrowed to this school came from this batch of eggs in this outlet of this river.
but it can definitely be narrowed down to, there's some fishing heading in that GENERAL direction. get ready for em. since the species tends to migrate as a whole. i doubt how ever that more than one or two people have the capacity to recognize the individual schools markings, (if they even work like that) and say for sure school a is the same school b from last week.
sorry killin time between tides..
There he stands, draped in more equipment than a telephone lineman, trying to outwit an organism with a brain no bigger than a breadcrumb, and getting licked in the process. ~Paul O'Neil, 1965
Now you are getting too specific and fussy. I don't think you can answer a specific question like that. Hell if you knew that you would be a millionaire. Fish show up at that place. I don't think they came from down south of the area. Common sense says fish came from up northern shore way or from out at sea, S. Bank way. Obviously all the fish that get the hell out of here don't all go thru the canal to exit. Lots go out and around. Maybe the fish that decide to go thru the canal to leave have it imprinted in their genes to do so because that is how they got there the first time. Maybe they laid over at scorton and repeat the migration in the same way every time. Who knows. Not me. Good question but I don't think anyone knows for sure, although I am sure someone will chime in with some scientific report to make me look like an idiot. Too bad Mr. Limpet wasn't a member here he could tell you. My head hurts now. I will be at Scorton tomorrow I will ask any fish I catch to give me the poop.
"A beach is a place where a man can feel he's the only soul in the world that's real"
Too bad Mr. Limpet wasn't a member here he could tell you. My head hurts now. I will be at Scorton tomorrow I will ask any fish I catch to give me the poop.
alot of guys have 40 plus years of accurate logs and are serious fishermen or girls.also talked to a couple of guys who tagged alot of bass for years,only a very low % returned but pretty showed migration cycles from hudson and chespeake.how crazy as it mat be most of hudson stripers go through li sound.also have heard for years about the stripes being different.
p.s. im the one of the right.. guess i wont be hitting the rocks for the 4am
Last edited by GonnaCatchABig1; 09-20-2008 at 11:49 PM..
There he stands, draped in more equipment than a telephone lineman, trying to outwit an organism with a brain no bigger than a breadcrumb, and getting licked in the process. ~Paul O'Neil, 1965
Hey Matt does Lawrence ask these far ranging,impossible it answer questions all the time when he works with you. Does he believe in a grey area or is it all black and white? God help you. It ain't cheatin if she doesn't find out.
"A beach is a place where a man can feel he's the only soul in the world that's real"
Why ??? do you want to know. Does it really matter one way or the other. Fish till they are gone and then stop is a good way to look at it. I did not catch Mr. Limpet today so I am still going to use common sense and best guess, which is precision enough for me. I will say one thing for sure if a certain pod of fish were on the Ledge they ain't there as of 11:30 this morning. God knows where they are now.
"A beach is a place where a man can feel he's the only soul in the world that's real"
Larry .. little off topic, but give you a rough idea how much these fish move around . I tagged a fish mid summer in Hull ..It was caught 4 days later in Wollaston Beach straight as the crow flys 11 miles away .. I dought it did a B line right to Wollaston .. I was bumming the fish was recovered in only 4 days, but amazed how much a fish moved during a non migrating period . These guys can travel ..I soon learned that less than 1% of tagged fish are ever recovered and stopped putting through the trauma for lesss than 1% recovered . I do know there are fish holding stations where they just hang out .. Same places every year .. I also notice fish getting scarcer in number ,size and catching window from North working its way south during our season .. some holes dry all together ..
There you go Ed...my point exactly....thats your theory/feeling and ten other guys have a different one.
Ask Redlight and he will tell you the fish are getting bigger and more of them.....seeing my point yet?
Only thing that threw me was those large fish caught on the North Shore last year.. I hear PI fishers complaing of size and numbers this year . Not to mention names but you did ,, Mikes fishing mecca hard, swimming ,,and using Satan's bait . All I know for certain is after a few years of the size limit being 36" I could go local in the daytime and chunk one up almost anytime I wanted for the table .. now my family would starve . maybe its just cylindrical .. a big circle.. When I first started seriously saltwater fishing the fishing was really bad .. pre moratorium ... gotta wait until all the holes dry up before there's a consensus..
(actually it was a pretty old tag, so that won't be happening). Seriously though, this week there was some dynamite fishing out on Scorton's ledge, lots of fish in the 30-34" with the occasional bigger bass, then the canal blew up Thursday (maybe Wednesday, but I wasn't there so I can't say) with fish of the same size class. So I think that's a pretty good assumption.
i'm still p.o.ed at that wind. it completely shut off our bite. started back up again though. hopefully many more fish comin down behind them.
Slingah
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