I Don't Care What Anyone Says........

[Krispy]

I did OK this year, especially considering I didnt fish all that much

[Clammer]

SAME AS THE LAST CRASH ::

A FEW of us have been saying it the last 6 years .its getting worse & worse .......................personally my worse fall I can ever remember .

& those that manage the fisheries are talking about the stock of fluke , seabass, scup & tautog / while they are stating stripers are @ a Ok level & are they f #$%^&*() nuts ......within 5 years .............. when they wake up ........ ya best look at you photos because it won,t be a swimming bass .
yet they closed the scup , seabass & fluke / short because of over harvest & to protect the fishery .

In MY whole life I have never even seen a season come close to the number & sizes of seabass & scup that were & are still around .......... 10/25/2009 & we are catching scup & seabass of all sizes on green crabs ;;

It should be called fisheries mis.management ;;

Commercial hurting the bass population .

try 9 million rec taking 2 bass a day with @ least RI & MA a 365 day season /...F #$%^&*() nitwits

[piemma]

Originally Posted by Clammer

SAME AS THE LAST CRASH ::


try 9 million rec taking 2 bass a day with @ least RI & MA a 365 day season /...F #$%^&*() nitwits

I agree with Clammer. Us old guys have been saying this for years now. Got to stop the 2, 28" fish. Put in a slot or make it 1, 36" or even 34" fish a day.

Remember it's not the guys on here that I am talking about. The jamokes that take 28" fish are the ones I address. I know it's legal. I here all the BS about "they (28") are the best eatin'. Pretty soon you will not be eating *&&%^ for bass because they won't be any.
We have got to put a stop to this insanity because the fisheries management guys are idiots and are driven by stupidity.

I tell stories about the old days all the time that are good. So let me leave you with one that's bad.

It's 88 or 89 and the moritorium is on which means you cannot keep ANY bass no matter what size. You could go 10 nights in a row throwing eels at the best spots on the coast and all you would get would be bluefish. One morning Eddy St.Onge and I fish Deep Hole and between the 2 of us we got 5 micro bass the biggest being 16 or 17". We are elated, high fiving and going crazy because we hadn't seen a bass in 2 or 3 weeks. We left and stopped at a bait shop that is now closed called Top of the Dock and told the owner that we got 5 bass. He threw us out of his shop for being BSers and spreading rumors. He said flat out "There are no more Stripers".

Hard to believe? We lived through it. You can believe it will happen again unless some kind of sanity sets in. I watch guys doing snag and drop in the Upper Bay this Sring. Catching 28" bass and keeping them by the boat load. 4 guys on a boat and absolute "stupid" fishing and they keep 8, 28" fish. WHAT THE *&&^&^% a!!!

You guys may think I am full of s*&^%# and I hope I am wrong but I have seen it and this is starting to look just like the collapse in the 80s.

[afterhours]

like the old guys said- just like the 80's. when will the #$%^$%^% clowns wake up?................soon i hope.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

[Crafty Angler]

What Paul said...

And Clammer...and Sauerkraut...and Larry and just about everyone else...

More effort for fewer fish...there's a lot of talent here and I can't believe the "I stink" reasoning from good surfmen...it's not conincidence...

Yeah, Paul, I remember the '80's, plugging up a 15" bass at 2nd Beach and I couldn't have been more surprised if I'd just caught a bonefish

If it wasn't for massive schools of bluefish by the acre there would have been NO fish at all - nada, none

It reminds me more than anything of the crash in the late 1800's that caused all the great bass to clubs to close which was caused by industrial pollution and overfishing - written club records from that period that I've seen show a similar pattern of a crash over a period of time and IMHO it's looking familiar

Look at the opinions of all the guys on S-B and their accumulated experience covering a large portion of the New England coastline

This time you have to point to overfishing, the reduction fishery on pogies ( and no, I don't mean Ark Bait) and runoff from lawn chemicals and all the other crap being used on waterfront properties that ends up in the Bay

I can't see 2 at 28"......it's #*&$# absurd, 1 at 36" seems prudent at this point

Rant over - I'm going out for blackfish

At least the buggers aren't pretty enough to be paraded around for photo ops...

[Back Beach]

Like I said earlier in this post, it was an average year, IMO. I don't buy into "The sky is falling" opinions.

Is it possible we have fewer fish available than, say, 5-10 years ago? Its possible, but how do you measue this stuff in any meaningful way? Certainly not by what a few surf fisherman experience.

Last year(2008) I had the single greatest season ever in my lifetime from the canal ( so did many,many,many others) as the quality fishing lasted nearly 4 1/2 months. I easily caught over 150 fish over the 20# mark. This year(2009) I caught maybe 1/5th that number (25-30 or so) and I didn't do much differently. I put in an equal number of nights/days. Why fewer big fish? They were set up somewhere else, IMO.

I don't feel the numbers above have anything to do with a population crash, but simply the distribution of fish. There were good piles of fish in many areas this year, just not in the same spots/same time as previous years.

Keep in mind these are wild animals and their numbers can fluctuate for a number of reasons. Its possible we could be in a shallow trough right now, but the coastwide landings don't suggest it.

[zimmy]

Originally Posted by piemma

Catching 28" bass and keeping them by the boat load. 4 guys on a boat and absolute "stupid" fishing and they keep 8, 28" fish. WHAT THE *&&^&^% a!!!

there are a lot of boats out there keeping 8 30lbers at a time and that is alot worse for the fishery

[Greene]

Originally Posted by piemma

I watch guys doing snag and drop in the Upper Bay this Sring. Catching 28" bass and keeping them by the boat load. 4 guys on a boat and absolute "stupid" fishing and they keep 8, 28" fish. WHAT THE *&&^&^% a!!!

Agreed! I always took my bunker and left upper upper bay, never fished there. Sometimes I just wished the bunker would leave and that the bass would follow, just so the bass would stop getting murdered. It was like shooting fish in the proverbial "bucket" up there this spring.

I'll admit, I had a tougher spring than usual which was probably directly related to the fact that bunker were only holding STRONG in that one particular area (as opposed to many coves like years' past) and therefore was no reason for the bass to be in strong numbers elsewhere. But I still rather fish alone in some of my favorite spots, away from the crowds, than get caught up in that absolute mess up there.

I know you saw what it would get like up there Sat morning at 6am...crazy. That's why I was up there at 2am, just like you.