Why has the fishing from the Cape beaches declined so much?

[Bronko]

Originally Posted by Back Beach

The summer fishing declined before the seals became an issue. What I mean by this is the schools of fish that used to spend the summer in proximity to the shore out there seem to have relocated. From the early 80's through 2000, we had good catchable numbers of fish out there all summer. The summer fish would bunch up and begin to move from mid to late august through mid September. At times the summer fish would be joined by migrating schools. You could tell when the new schools of fish arrived as the sizes and numbers would be different. In 2000 there was a noticeable lack of resident summer fish out there and I subsequently gave up on commercial fishing out there shortly after. We did have some remarkable fall fishing out there up until 2004, but that has since died off too. I would attribute some of this to seals, but if you fished the cape long and hard as I did, its apparent there is something else at work in addition to the seals. With all that said, keep your eye on the place as its gone through slow periods in the past too. It wasn't all glory all the time as some of the "experts" would have you believe.

Mike can you expand on that? Do you have any theories as to what else may be at work? Because I am reluctantly falling into the seal "pit of despair" with many others. Although I have gone over other ideas like bait migration patterns, water temp, structure change... I miss the better days.