Rumors about stripers

[eelman]

Basswipe, sorry but your incorrect, lobster and crabs are there main diet, read nick karrass book, the sceinetific jargon is all there, during comm.season go watch them gut bass you will find crustasions all day long.

I dont know, there are plenty of bass around and more 50s landed at the island than I can remember, I am catching on a consistant basis more fish than I ever have and there not on bunker, go see a bass that has sucked down a 2lb lobster and see how fat that will make the fish! I have said before I have fished when the bunker were nill and still caught plenty, they forage around rocks "rockfish" no bunker there...........

So as far as a banner year? I am having one!!

[Nebe]

Pogies are more important for the bass in the winter IMO

* look at the macrobacrteriowhatchamacallit disease that the bass get down there. they are lacking food.

[Notaro]

pogies mean fat bass.

[eelman]

Originally Posted by Eben

Pogies are more important for the bass in the winter IMO

* look at the macrobacrteriowhatchamacallit disease that the bass get down there. they are lacking food.

I agree its an important forage fish for sure, but once the bass get up this way, they eat whatever is availible and along the rocky coast of rhode island its crustations......

[Bass Babe]

Perhaps a scientific paper will stop the bickering...

the following is a synopsis of the research they did, and the full paper can be found at this website: http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dmf/publi...tal2003add.pdf

might I add that Gary Nelson rocks my socks off -- he's a nifty guy

Striped Bass Diet and Bioenergetics

Food Habits of Striped Bass (Morone saxatilis) in Coastal Waters of Massachusetts. Nelson, G.A., B.C. Chase and J. Stockwell. Journal of Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Science, Vol 32, 2003.

For the past 17 years, our biologists have studied striped bass growth of striped bass caught along Massachusetts and have noted an apparent decline in average weight at age. Like wise, striper fishermen have repeatedly reported the appearance of 'thin' fish in their catches in recent years. As a result, the Sport Fish Program conducted a study during 1997-2000 to address the issues of forage needs of the recovered striped bass population and the potential impacts of striped bass consumption on economically-important prey species. This MarineFisheries research project was designed to provide diet information of striped bass and to build a computer-based bioenergetic model that allows us to estimate consumption rates of striped bass for any particular food item, such as river herring, menhaden, and even the commercially- important lobster. We collected diet information from over 3,000 striped bass collected from the North Shore, Cape Cod Bay, and Nantucket Sound regions of Massachusetts
Striped Bass gut contents displaying different sizes of prey

We found that, in general, striped bass consumed mostly fish (menhaden, herring, silversides, and sand lance) and invertebrates (crabs, sand shrimp, and sea fleas); however, the amounts eaten varied depending on the month of summer, fish length, and where the striped bass were captured. Large bass (>24 inches) generally ate more invertebrates (mainly lobsters and crabs) than small bass (<24 inches), but small bass ate more fish (mainly menhaden during August-September) than large bass. Striped bass captured from rocky shorelines or offshore waters generally ate more invertebrates than bass captured from estuaries or harbors.

We also found that the striped bass ate different sizes of prey. Fish prey ranged in size from 0.9" to 19" total length, and crab prey ranged in size from 0.1" to 4" carapace width. Individuals of menhaden and sand lance were generally <5" and the three dominant crabs (rock, green, and lady crabs) were generally <3" . American lobsters eaten by striped bass were <2" carapace length.

Using the bioenergetic model, we estimated that an "average" striped bass of six years (27 inches in length) must eat about 16 pounds of prey to gain 1 pound in weight during June-September in Massachusetts waters. Most energy contributing to the growth of this age class comes from different fish prey during June-July, but mainly from menhaden during August-September. These results confirmed the importance of fishes like menhaden to the survival and health of the striped bass population.

The next phase of the project will be to estimate the consumptive impact of striped bass on their prey. This task will require us to estimate the numbers of striped bass residing in Massachusetts waters and is expected to be completed by summer of 2002.

[eelman]

." Large bass (>24 inches) generally ate more invertebrates (mainly lobsters and crabs) than small bass (<24 inches), but small bass ate more fish (mainly menhaden during August-September) than large bass. Striped bass captured from rocky shorelines or offshore waters generally ate more invertebrates than bass captured from estuaries or harbors."

I love it when I am right

[Saltheart]

I've always thought a slot limit was the best approach. Allow fish for the table , allow some trophys but protect the breaders.

I also think we need a coast wise limit , whatever it is. In Maryland , they take about 9 million pounds of tiny fish. In numbers of individual fish , it makes the RI and MA alotment miniscule.

[Backbeach Jake]

Originally Posted by Saltheart

I've always thought a slot limit was the best approach. Allow fish for the table , allow some trophys but protect the breaders.

I also think we need a coast wise limit , whatever it is. In Maryland , they take about 9 million pounds of tiny fish. In numbers of individual fish , it makes the RI and MA alotment miniscule.

Amen,Amen,Amen

[Nebe]

[QUOTE=#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&
I love it when I am right [/QUOTE]

your right, but so am I. the bass are lacking all that protein that they used to get pre and post spawn. How many baseball bat shaped bass have you caught this year? i have caught a few and i always think that they were put on the atkins diet over the winter. You may be right that they eat lobsters when they are up here, but what about when they are down there???

pogies matter.

[fishaholic18]

I caught a fatboy full of Tatoug not long ago.

[FormerUser]

Originally Posted by Eben

your right, but so am I. the bass are lacking all that protein that they used to get pre and post spawn. How many baseball bat shaped bass have you caught this year? i have caught a few and i always think that they were put on the atkins diet over the winter. You may be right that they eat lobsters when they are up here, but what about when they are down there???

pogies matter.

Absolutely pogies matter.Its the #1 forage when there down in the Chesapeake.

I shoulda stated that in my 1st post.

[eelman]

Originally Posted by Eben

your right, but so am I. the bass are lacking all that protein that they used to get pre and post spawn. How many baseball bat shaped bass have you caught this year? i have caught a few and i always think that they were put on the atkins diet over the winter. You may be right that they eat lobsters when they are up here, but what about when they are down there???

pogies matter.

ever hear of maryland crabs?? thats what they eat down there

Pogies matter but it aint the only thing they eat, bass have survived much before us and will do so after we are gone...Pogies are important, I am not going to get into a pissing match here..Bass eat many different things and adapt well

[FormerUser]

Originally Posted by #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&

Basswipe, sorry but your incorrect, lobster and crabs are there main diet, read nick karrass book, the sceinetific jargon is all there, during comm.season go watch them gut bass you will find crustasions all day long.

I dont know, there are plenty of bass around and more 50s landed at the island than I can remember, I am catching on a consistant basis more fish than I ever have and there not on bunker, go see a bass that has sucked down a 2lb lobster and see how fat that will make the fish! I have said before I have fished when the bunker were nill and still caught plenty, they forage around rocks "rockfish" no bunker there...........

So as far as a banner year? I am having one!!

I stand by my original statement that the pogie is the stripers #1 source of food.

This from a study done in Virginia by the National Coalition for Marine Conservation around the same time period as the Mass Gov. study.

"Why striped bass are starving"

1.Up to 90% of striped bass on the East Coast spawn in Chesapeake Bay.

2.The diet of large striped bass is 70-80% menhaden.Most of this consumption is of juveniles.

3.The Chesapeake produces nearly half of each new generation of menhaden.

4.70% of Atlantic menhaden are caught in Chesapeake Bay and adjacent waters.

5.The population of juvenile menhaden (age 0-1) is in decline reaching an historic low in 2001.

Conclusion:The resurgent population of rockfish is not finding enough to eat.
It could lead to a future collapse in the fishery.

[Bass Babe]

Originally Posted by basswipe

This from a study done in Virginia by the National Coalition for Marine Conservation around the same time period as the Mass Gov. study.

Do you have the link to the study, basswipe? All I can find on the "www.savethefish.org" are those facts, but no mention of a study. I would be leery as to what information I believe, coming from a special interest group. Facts can always be used and omitted to support or refute a certain point. Not to say that I disagree with the fact that baitfish need some help. If you're looking for more information on striped bass or baitfish, I'd shoot for studies done by universities, and, yes, the government. Political action groups don't always provide the most accurate information, even if they ARE angler groups made up of people like us.

[Mike P]

I don't know whether anyone up in this area knew what a pogie was before the early 70s. They just weren't around. Bass fishing in the 50s and 60s was pretty damn good despite there being no pogies up here. The irony was, as pogies began to become plentiful, the bass were going into decline.

[Flaptail]

Canalman, fact, yes Virginia they did weigh 25 ( 22 to 25 on average)pounds if you have no personal experience in the recent ( last 30 years) then you wouldn't know. No I am not a googan, googans only make statements like yours. Now that being said, the tremendous influx of baby pogies that happens to coincide with the study would only serve to show that that was what school fish are and were eating. Duh! am I the only one that remembers the giant schools of baby pogies we were infested with 3-4 years ago?MikeP.,I am sure you must remember in the sixties all the harbors of the cape had large pogies, the canal was inundated with whiting, especially in June, unfortunately we don't get those runs anymore. Every year the squid run on Billingsgate and Cape Cod bay was tremendous. ( I have seen a resurgence in Squid in Barnstable in May these last two years) Noting that in this study was started, as usual, by the feds, when the problem was already well under way. Of course they are eating lobsters and crabs, first off lobsters are everywhere in rocky terrain, hell they even inhabit channel walls in sand and mud having burrows such as line Nauset inlet and Barnstable harbor channels. But pogies are, if they are available in sizes other than peanut, thier preferred food.

Studys done on the low end of bait cycles will only show what is self evident. If there are only peanut bunker then that's all your going to find in thier stomachs. Remember these are done by grad students not someone who spends most of his life on the water. They have only the data they collect there and then and can only postulate a thoery from that. History rarely gets involved though it should. Kinda like the seal population problem we have now. They are protected but no one on the federal scientific side can say for sure 100% what the historical population was. I love it.

[Backbeach Jake]

Flap, how many of us here even know what a whiting looks like? It's been a while. I remember jigging pogies in Wellfleet harbor in the late 60's early 70's from a canoe. Jumped out landed barefoot on the oyster shells and tooke the rest of the season to heal. If I can find it , I have a photo of rows and rows of pogeys washed up Bayside after an all-day blitz in Truro, looks like a silver highway from high water to low water marks..

[eelman]

Originally Posted by Mike P

I don't know whether anyone up in this area knew what a pogie was before the early 70s. They just weren't around. Bass fishing in the 50s and 60s was pretty damn good despite there being no pogies up here. The irony was, as pogies began to become plentiful, the bass were going into decline.

Eben read above!!

[Pete F.]

In the late 60s I remember drifting in Huntington Harbor over schools of bunker and spearing them with a frog gig, chunking them for blues. You could always find the schools.