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

[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.