Striped Bass, the condition of the fishery

[RIJIMMY]

Flap and Crafty, I am ignorant to this whole subject and really rely on what educated people say on the topic, however I don't understand the fix the bait logic. I guess I see tons of bait. Menhaden have made a major comeback, we've had some massive squid runs over the last 5 yrs or so. What issues do you see with the bait? I think nature has a way of fisinxg that. If the amounts of the striped bass were to suddenly increase, wouldnt they just seek new species to forage on? Theres plenty od snapper blues, crabs, etc?
Not arguing, just done understand the logic.
If I was king for a day, I'd make a 1 fish limit and no commercial. Selfishly just so there are more fish to catch for me. I dont understand the science

[FishermanTim]

I believe the forage / baitfish issue is not just for the northeast, but the entire eastern seaboard. If the fish spawning down south are starving due to overfishing for menhaden, it will directly affect the future stock of fish that will eventually migrate here each spring.
Underfed, weak and diseased fish will drop out of the spawning cycle, decreasing the YOY each season.

I agree that just (over)regulating the striper catches isn't going to fix the stocks overall health. Something needs to be done to keep the menhaden, herring, squid and other baitfish IN THE BASS'S LIFECYCLE and not on our grocery/baitshop shelves.

[Justfishin']

I've been saying the same damn thing since I joined the site seven years ago-and I've been jumped on for it. But I don't care. Monitor and regulate the forage base throughout the gamefishes range. Limit the comm. fishing to people who fish for a living, not weekend warriors who want to make a quick buck yo-yoing. And, like it or not, we probably need to have a recreational licensing program to help pay for monitoring the increasing number of anglers.(and poachers)

[MAKAI]

Gotta admit human involvement is all over this problem. Pollution,big buisness, commercials and recs. We all have our hands in the pie. Personally I blame it all on the seals, including the economy,Iraq,liberals,etc.

[Back Beach]

Anecdotally speaking here, but starvation is about the last culprit I would suspect right now. In fact I saw more well fed fish in 2008 than I've seen in 20 plus years of fishing. Probably the abundance of bunker I would guess.

[MAKAI]

Not where we used to fish Mike. Most were pretty lean. However when trolling squid bars with mark out on stellwagon, very fat fish would come up into the spread, good eats out there I suppose. Some of my best bass were caught on the 130's, shame.

[Back Beach]

Originally Posted by MAKAI

Not where we used to fish Mike. Most were pretty lean. However when trolling squid bars with mark out on stellwagon, very fat fish would come up into the spread, good eats out there I suppose. Some of my best bass were caught on the 130's, shame.

Bob, it seems like they were always skinny out there now that you mention it. I can't count the number of 50" fish I caught that didn't break the 40# mark. Lots of times they had skates/lobsters in them too.
I don't fish out there anymore, but the canal/buzzards bay vicinity fish were well fed this year.

[Fish_Eye]

Hi Everyone,

This is a subject that I know a little bit about. I worked with National Geographic on two projects related to mycobacteriosis: “Strange Days on Planet Earth/Dirty Secrets” and “Wild Chronicles”.

As for Capt. Jim White’s assessment of the situation as being grim…well it is! Jim DOESN’T make assumptions, he bases his conclusions on FACTS. I’ve followed this situation for years, read most of the studies and concur with Jim White and #^&#^&#^&#^& Russell.

Yes, there is a need for ecosystem wide management of both game fish and forage fish. This was recommended to Congress in 1999; it’s been 10 years and we don’t even have workable models for dealing with this complex issue. Add to this the relatively new threat of midwater and pair trawling off OUR coast and it’s a surefire recipe for disaster. You think we have problems with forage fish now, you can’t even begin to imagine the rape of the resource that is going on RIGHT THIS MINUTE off our coast. The mackerel stocks off RI that could have sustained the local day boats for a couple of weeks were decimated in ONE TOW late last week by one of these huge boats. Check out http://www.comminternet.com/websites...tail.php?id=28
and get an idea of the scope of the problem. Want to know where your river herring are? They got scooped up with the targeted Atlantic herring and with little observe coverage to document the bycatch we have little hope to get the proper time and territory closures we need to protect the bluebacks and alewives. Think the bass are skinny now (and they are malnourished in many of the areas I film in -- which translates to areas you fish in) wait till they arrive this spring and find fewer herring, fewer mackerel, and possibly fewer menhaden.

Yes the fish in the Chesapeake are under extreme duress…in fact, a noted expert on the subject of gut content has established that one of the peak periods for feeding takes place right around now, IN THE WINTER (something biologists believed didn’t happen), in order to help fortify their reproductive systems for upcoming spawning. The problem is that there are far too few menhaden age 0 to provide adequate nourishment for the pre-spawn fish that are too small to eat mature menhaden…see http://www.chesbay.org/articles/latest.asp for more details.
Let's not forget a growing dead zone in the Chesapeake, over nitrification of the bay with run off from the poultry industry (which may be getting a stay of execution from having to deal with their immense contribution to this problem -- got to love big business and their influence).

In the past I couldn’t support game fish status for stripers simply because a well managed stock should provide enough fish for both recreational and commercial interests. However, over the past several years I’ve seen more and more pressure put on the stocks by both user groups. Yes, the recreational take is massive, however the commercial quotas never seem to be high enough for the commercial interests and the black market fishery is completely out of control. How many pirates do you know? How many pseudo-commercial fishermen are out there looking to offset boating and fishing expenses? How many “anglers” sell fish at the back door of a restaurant? How many tons of undersized fish make it to market? How many fishermen exceed their quota and look at a fine as a reasonable cost of doing business? How much meaningful enforcement is there out there?

Consider all of the above and all the anecdotal evidence that the fishery is in decline and it’s time to do something NOW.

I’m not sure that game fish status is a winnable battle, but when I hear commercial striped bass fisherman, who also run charter boats say that they would like to see a halt to the commercial fishing because they would rather have a successful charter business rather than an ever shrinking commercial catch that eventually leads to a collapse and then no business at all.

So what do we do? Talking about it on the site is fine for spreading the word and getting more public awareness, but talk is not going to make one bit of difference. You need to go to the meetings and voice your outrage with the current situation. You need to support organizations that our working to correct these problems. Game fish status for striped bass…I’m still on the fence, but it won’t take much for me to say, enough is enough -- the resource needs to be saved.

Remember, history has a way of repeating itself.

Mike

[JohnR]

Originally Posted by Back Beach

Anecdotally speaking here, but starvation is about the last culprit I would suspect right now. In fact I saw more well fed fish in 2008 than I've seen in 20 plus years of fishing. Probably the abundance of bunker I would guess.

Good point, Mike. Often times, we equate the quality of fish with what we experience personally. This may or may not be representative of the big picture. paraphrasing you a little

[MikeToole]

Having fished for stripers for over 45-years and doing about 100 trips a season I have experienced about the same results as Steve put in his post. Being at the northern end of the stripers range I think we may see issue before others. Over the last six years I've seen a real decrease in the number of fish. Last season there were more bigger fish then I've seen in any season but the drop in the number of small fish was scary. This is about the same as I saw in New Jersey when I lived there just before the stock collapse.

Unlike others I am a strong supporter of making stripers a game fish. The reason mainly is how do you convince fisherman to let stripers go when others are catching them for money. It is a standard reason I here from people who keep every legal fish they catch. Also from an economic stand point and human standpoint the most important group in the quest for stripers is the recreational fisherman. The money coming from the sale of stripers is nothing compared to the money spent by recreational fisherman. Plus, if you made stripers a game fish then I think more people would be open to stricter limits.

It is often said that the striper recovery shows what good management can do. To me the recovery should be looked at a miracle. If that large young of the year class had not come out of no where the recovery either never would have happened or it would have been much slower. Just look at what is happening up on the grand banks with cod.