Quote:
Originally Posted by Back Beach
Grew up fishing the back during the moratorium. Once the 1982 year class started migrating the size limit was raised just enough to stay ahead of the growth. I think the limit went 24-28--30-33-36 or something close to that.
By 1988 there were a ton of 30-35" fish on the cape and everywhere else. Some nights at the race we'd get fish every cast for hours on end.
Interestingly, Mass was the only state that kept a commercial fishery going during the moratorium. That was good news for me at the time as fish money put gas in the tank and enabled me to keep at it for extended periods. Most everything we caught from early 80's to early 90's were large 30 plus pound fish. I remember a friend caught a 25# fish and we all thought it was the coolest thing we'd ever seen as there were very few 36-45" fish in the ocean at the time.
The 1982 class started hitting the scales around 1993-94. Our catch numbers went way up but average size went way down. For a lot of years 40# fish were the norm and became real tough to find and catch after 1994.
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Boy do I have a really good pic of a young Mike with a fish to make your eyes pop from that era. Bet you could stick your head in its mouth like a circus lion.
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