Who has been Striper fishing steady for the last 30 years or more.

[gone fishin]

Stripers are still there --- bait is disappearing, hence not many shore fish as we would like. Big fish are still being taken off boats. Omega oil is having a field day with the bait.

[BigFish]

I am only 42 so 30 years steady is out! I only started fishing stripers about....8 years ago!

[Karl F]

I'm 50.. been striper fishing since I was 15.. took a few years off in the late eightes, was hooked on LMB and SMB for a few years..
Attitude changed for certain.. from everything goes in the cooler.. to put most all back..kept 3.. meybe 4 last year.
Truth be told.. I'd still rather take home one fat 16-18 inch fish a week, and put the rest back... they are to over...

[Rockfish9]

I started in 1972, I used to fish for largemouth bass until.... that fatefull afternoonwhen a friend invited me to fish below the Lawrence dam.... an 8 lb striper changed my life... forever...

[capesams]

started fishing salt at 16...now 55....seen it when there was more life swimming in the water then there was water....more non-stop sand driving then one could possiably do in any one week.now compair today with back then,,there's almost nothing left...gave up the beach....boat only now..even then you have to fight for a few good fish...boy have times changed.

[MikeToole]

Been fishing for stripers for most of the last 45 years. Missed one season while in the military but the rest of my military time kept me in prime striper areas. Didn't target them much in the late 70s early 80s due to numbers and restrictions. Grew up in NJ fishing Sandy Hook and the bay. Lived in Narragansett, RI areas from 68 - 73 and have been on the NH seacoast last 26 years fishing NH, NJ and the Cape. When I was a kid everyone I knew sold fish. People used to come down to the boat ramps and along the beach asking if you wanted to sell your fish. No one really questioned it because there wasn't many restrictions on commercial fishing so why be concerned.

Now that I've seen many of the fish I caught in large numbers as a kid more or less disappear things have changed for me. Unless a striper is dead when I get it to the beach I let it go. I support protecting stripers by giving them game fish status. I saw many tackle shops and other businesses that supported fishing go down the sump due to the decline in stripers and other fish. We need to recognize that recreational fishing is a form of commercial fishing. When we regulate fishing it should be so that the largest number of people possible benefits from both a social and financial standpoint. The money and social gain from recreational striper fish far exceeds what we could ever get from a commercial harvest of stripers. We also need to recognize that the striper recovery was nothing short of a miracle. Out of the clear blue we suddenly had an excellent YOY group that became the bases for the recovery. Canada has been working on restoring the Grand Banks for 15 years with very limited success.

You are now in the new hay days for stripers, do everything you can to protect it. Also don’t forget fluke, cod, whiting, ling, weakfish, bunker, mackerel, herring ……..

[Diggin Jiggin]

My dad's been at it for 50+ non stop, and until the population crashed everything went in the box & to market. When the population crashed everyone switched light gear, buggy whips and eventually fly gear and he was alll C&R.

He's still all C&R now except for maybe 4 or 5 for the table each year..

[DZ]

I’ve been bass fishing since the late 1960s. It began as my hobby and quickly became an obsession. When I found out I could sell them I jumped into it with the enthusiasm of a teenager and sold every legal one I caught. So did everyone else.

I did that for many years until the striper swoon of the late 70s and early to mid 80s when my bass started to dry up. It was at that point that I “saw the light” started to become involved in the issues of striped bass management – I became “reformed” from my old ways and am proud to say I became one of the first “catch and release” crowd.

I became very involved in the Striper Wars of the 1980s. (Any avid striped bass fisherman of today that has not read Striper Wars by #^&#^&#^&#^& Russell is doing a disservice to themselves.)

This period was both very stressful and fulfilling to those who loved to catch striped bass. Runs of large bass were occurring on areas of the cape and block, some of which I was very fortunate to have taken part in. But at the same time there were very few bass on most of the mainland and almost no small bass anywhere. I had “seen the damage done.”

Lots of guys stopped fishing which was great because it cut down competition on the beach. The guys who knew what they were doing were still able to scrape out some fish.

Thankfully the conservative bass fishermen were able to lobby for very strict conservation measures of which I firmly believe helped restore the stock. If it weren’t for those that fought for conservation (along with the well timed PCB scare) many of you might be posting threads on a website for golf right now.

How’s the stock now? Science says it’s OK and we have much better science now than 30 years ago. Lack of cows now? From a beach perspective I think so – I still take some nice fish each season but I feel that my wealth of “knowledge gained experience” should provide me with better scores - IF the fish were there. I shudder to think of my success rate if I had my present day knowledge back on Block in the 80s.

The boat sharpies might disagree but they now have a HUGE advantage in finding bass with new technology. This better technology is no doubt a factor in the better catch rate of cows from a boat.

DZ

[bassmaster]

been fishing since the 60's

[whiplash]

Caught my first fish in 1957 a nice blackback flounder, St pattys day Green pond bridge. Don't see many of them anymore. First striper 1964 Cotuit loop beach.

[stiff tip]

Originally Posted by bassmaster

been fishing since the 60's

ya dave in your diappers.... do your math dave your not that old........ dz you hit it right on the head ... that was my start at real bass fishing ...it was for the money.... 1967 i got 25and 35 cents a pound at newburyport .... cash...on cape in 77 i got 50 to70 cents a pound at capt. elmers. in orleans. blues were 5 or 10 cents per pound... in those days i sold every i caught.. mostly for gas ,n hook and bait money. in the late 70s untill the bass crash, i made fare money at bass fishing, boat and beach, cod fishing too ...its a hard long day ...i find 10x more people fishing bass now and the miss managment of the bio mass of bait fish a huge problem...herrin, pogies ,macs whiting, etc........

[Pt.JudeJoe]

Originally Posted by gone fishin

Stripers are still there --- bait is disappearing, hence not many shore fish as we would like. Big fish are still being taken off boats. Omega oil is having a field day with the bait.

[Tagger]

started 6yrs. old fresh water at a local pond . It was easy walking distance so we fished every day just about ,.. Very primitive.. We all had bait casters except one kid had a spinning reel and outcast us all . The baitcasters we had weren't Big Dave reels.. Didn't start salt until after High School . 1972.. A friend taught me ,,his uncle taught him . 1st place I fished was the east end jetty, mainland side CC canal . 1st Saltwater fish I ever caught was a Sea Robbin .. Thats one screwed up looking fish if you never saw one before . Just kinda floundered around between the band, girls, fishing, having fun and puking on myself . Always came back to fishing .

[numbskull]

Been at it 45 years. Took about four years to catch my first Striped Bass, had no one to teach me. In retrospect I wouldn't have it any different. Nothing as important has ever seemed as hard since.

[Mr. Sandman]

I've been at it for a while as well. (Below is me (Orient Point) in 1964 I think). Like most kids, my dad got me into fishing. He would boat fish 3nights/week for bass in season and I would go whenever he let me. If the tide was real late and it was a school night I had to stay home..those were the most difficult for me esp when the bite was on. (this was all on eastern LI) I would surf fish any chance I got, sometimes sitting on a rock all day with rod in hand all by myself. My mom thought I was nuts but I was not getting into trouble so she allowed it. Its what I still like to do too. We never sold a fish. The bass limit was 16" with no creel limit. We released anything we didn't eat. We rarely took more then 2 bass home from a trip. We also fished for fluke, weakfish and bluefish too and released any fish we were not going to eat as well.
I didn't start selling anything until the late 70's and even then it was sporatic when I did sell. By 1981 I stopped selling and started C&R releasing any fish not headed for the table and still practice this for the most part today. Part time fishing for money is not going to change your lifestyle significantly (no matter how good you are) and therefore I reasoned it is better off just letting them go. Besides, you feel pretty good about it. If you want money, get a real job, part time comm fishing is not a real job in my view.

IMO the today's fisheries "count" of what recs actually take does not accurately measure the amount of catch and release going on today and therefore recs are "blamed" for killing lots of fish that they really don't.

Also, MA does more harm then good by allowing Recs to keep a foot in both rec and comm fishing but they are so caught up in the politics of it all they get see the real problem. They need to shut fishing down it if is a problem and they just cant do it...ie codfish...20+ years of "management" and it is worse off today then ever but they still let you have a shot at taking breader and small fish, they continue to let the comm guys take limits but recognize the species is in danger...huh? SHUT IT DOWN for a decade and build the stocks back up. Jesus, it is not that hard. Screw the commerical interests...who the heck told them to go fishing in the first place? When I went comm clamming and something happend to the water quality, they shut it down and put hundreds of full timers out of work. The same should be for the fishermen. If the stocks are hurt'n, shut it down. We should care more for the health of the fish stocks then what a comm fisherman puts on his 1098 form.

[justplugit]

Started the salt in mid 50's upto late 60's. Even spent 5 days of our honeymoon fishing BI in Oct 61. Started a family and went over to trout until 1993 when i went back to stripers and never looked back.

In answer to your questions, used to kill every fish i caught/ young bragging rights etc.Over the last 20 years it's all been release. They say you get soft in your old age about killing, but i think it's a new found reference for life.

Imho, cycles have a big affect, but the fishing pressure of surf, high tech boats,party boats, especially over the last 8-10 years, has taken a very heavy toal.

[l.i.fish.in.vt]

My earliest memories of fishing are around 1959 fishing for flounder and fluke in the GSB of LI.i was 4 years old at the time.my father gave up the surf the year i was born and brought a boat. i started surf fishing about 10 years ago.i can always remeber the old timers saying that when there were blowfish around the weakfish would disappear,so i guess they must have thought that fishing was cyclic.we never sold fish but keep everthing we caught. we ate fish 2 to three times a week year round. i am the youngest of seven and had plenty of relatives that we keep in fish.evertime i hear people complain of overfishing i think of all the species of fish that have disappeared that were not fished for commercially or recreationally.i think water quality had as much to do with it as overfishing.i think today that C@R is much bigger on the internet than in real life. sure the guys that post on these forums might practice it but most people i see on the beach or in boats keep there limits Sandman funny thing that every area on the south shore of LI that was closed because of pollution to clamming were opened at some pointeven though i doubt the water quality improved. maybe because it was cheaper to wipe these areas out then police them.maybe keeping fish should be banned for recs if they are doing it for fun and have a commercial fishery , rod and reel only for all species.i bet that would never happen