Mass Striper decline numbers from NOAA

[stripermaineiac]

LOL So I'll ask the question again. What are WE GONNA DO ABOUT IT?I've just about gotten to zero as far as fish I keep.We up here in Maine set a very high bench mark in the 60's. Gamefish an no spear fishing for striped bass. No in shore netting and stripers aren't allowed as bycatch.Yet our fishing has been trashed time n again with the destructive practices south of us.we can't go much farther up here but the ball is in your court.I can preach,moan n groan all i want but I can't do much more.Same with most fishermen up here as our catch numbers are just plain pittiful. I fish as hard if not harder than most on this site.I've gotten so good with releasing stripers that I've had 25+lb fish follow me in the shallows for a half hr after releasing them like a damn puppy dog.Yet so many of the hard cores that i associate with still do what I did in the 80's.We need to stop or loose it. those that think it's still roses have a very rude awakening.As long as there's a bounty-food or money- on stripers we have a moritorium sooner than later.Sad part is that many of our friends that make plugs or own takle shops will be out of business next time around due to OUR collective ignorance.Like I said i still caught stripers all through the decline in the 70's an 80's. i'm a pretty good striper fisherman. I just learned to put them back an when things slowed I about stopped keeping any.A load of us did.

[stripermaineiac]

When I was a kid it felt great when I brought my neighbors a big fish or a couple fillets.One day I realized I had to stop as I was hurting the fish. it's part of the learning curve. We ALL go through it. Catch n release used to mean you tied a bad not,had cheap gear or screwed up somehow LOL.None of us should critisize those who haven't learned what we have the hard way. Those of us that learned the hard way just need to keep teaching how to make things get better.Those that haven't learned need to understand that we are serious about how bad it got but it can be fixed.We're not trying to take anything away from you just get you to help us save what we have so you can teach YOUR grandkids how fun it is to chase Striped Bass an how great it is to meet friends while doing it.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by stripermaineiac

Those of us that learned the hard way just need to keep teaching how to make things get better. We're not trying to take anything away from you just get you to help us save what we have so you can teach YOUR grandkids how fun it is to chase Striped Bass an how great it is to meet friends while doing it.

you make a lot of good points, it's about teaching and changing the culture more than railing "1@36" and "gamefish status" which have had little or no effect apparently on both the regs and the culture.....most of the local clubs have a couple of monthly meetings before the season starts and shops and show exhibitors are gearing up..... I'd guess that for many the focus is on how to hammer more fish rather than conservation and good fishing practices, everyone wants to point out how everyone else has it all wrong when the best way to long term improvement begins with individuals and the people that they interact regularly and how they view their part in all of this rather than regulations and pontifications. A lot of the obvious problems have been mentioned and in most cases they'll be improved sooner through a culture change rather than hoping for some magical change in status and in the long run, whether the concerns are overblown... or if a problem does exist and there is a significant rebound, an improved culture will help sustain it rather than simply run it right back into the ground....or sea....as it were

[afterhours]

[QUOTE=scottw;921350]you make a lot of good points, it's about teaching and changing the culture more than railing "1@36" and "gamefish status" which have had little or no effect apparently on both the regs and the culture....

yes it's ALL about teaching the culture. as in teaching the culture about gamefish status and changing rec regs. this would would have a monumental effect on this fishery.....in a good way .

[scottw]

Originally Posted by afterhours

yes it's ALL about teaching the culture. as in teaching the culture about gamefish status and changing rec regs. this would would have a monumental effect on this fishery.....in a good way .

I was trying to be realistic, I don't think gamefish status is realistic, we can't even get length and limits adjusted. And we can yell all day long about points south and their practices but it's not going to amount to much. Better to focus on what you can directly affect now. Just tossing things around with others the last couple of days a bunch of good ideas have emerged and my eyes have really been opened regarding the depth of sentiment and sometimes lack of reason on all sides. Biggest obstacle to overcome is the sentiment "it's not us/me, it's the other guy that's doing all the damage" together with an entitlement metality in my opinion and I don't exclude myself from guilt in this.

[RIROCKHOUND]

Originally Posted by scottw

I was trying to be realistic, I don't think gamefish status is realistic, we can't even get length and limits adjusted. And we can yell all day long about points south and their practices but it's not going to amount to much. Better to focus on what you can directly affect now. Just tossing things around with others the last couple of days a bunch of good ideas have emerged and my eyes have really been opened regarding the depth of sentiment and sometimes lack of reason on all sides. Biggest obstacle to overcome is the sentiment "it's not us/me, it's the other guy that's doing all the damage" together with an entitlement metality in my opinion and I don't exclude myself from guilt in this.

It would take a paradigm shift, thats for sure.

Let's start easy
1@36"

Cut the commercial take coast-wide by 50%

[MAKAI]

I seldom fish bait, if I do it's with circles. Mostly fish single hook lures, jigs, rubber,tin etc. All the barbs on my plugs are crushed and the rear hooks on pencils are singles. I use fairly heavy tackle so fish isn't coming to me on it's side. Try to release fish while in water if I can.

I wasn't always this way, but if I'm gonna let them go I want to give them the best shot at survival.

I keep 3-4 a year, would rather cod,haddock,seabass,tuna,fluke,flounder and the list goes on. . . .





Once again the real issue isn't the slug of fish out there now, it's the low recruitment stocks behind them for the next 5-6 years.

Before any draconian measures need to be enacted, a coast-wide 1 @ 36 would be a good start. Let's them breed for a few more years before they get culled out. The end game would be better for everybody.

Just an old guy chiming in.

[spence]

Originally Posted by scottw

I was trying to be realistic, I don't think gamefish status is realistic, we can't even get length and limits adjusted. And we can yell all day long about points south and their practices but it's not going to amount to much. Better to focus on what you can directly affect now.

That's exactly why people want game fish status...because all the bickering over state rec/comm regs doesn't go any where.

-spence

[derekl]

Mike and what bothers me most is they sit in a parking lot and bitch when they dont catch a fish
I still fish at night till sunrise i dlnt fish tournys. I may put a.few inthe cooler a year but getting out is my stress releif
Unfortunately there will come.a time when there will be very few fish the way things are going and the good part about that is there will be nobody on my rock when i go out to get away
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[thefishingfreak]

Who are we suposed to believe? NOAA or the ASMFC and the DMF?
Click here and look up bass.
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission


Acording to the ASMFC the stock is well above the Target biomass.
Acording to the head of the DMF, paul didoti the stock is above its target biomass and the DMF was even proposing increasing the comercial quota.
Acording to the Head of the DMF AND the ASMFC the biomass of commercial size fish is at an all time high, there was a bumper crop of young produced in 2010 that "should", pending survival, start yearly migrations. They admit there are not allot of "schoolies" around because there was a low survival rate for that year class. That is why there are no massive blitzes of schoolies tearing up and down the coast. Remember all those schoolies from a few years ago? Well there all commercial size now and there hanging just out of reach of the seals. Somewhat a nuisance to the Tuna fishermen often hard to get away from.
So just because surf fishing sucks and there not stacked up in all the usual spots doesn't mean they are on the verge of another collapse.
Im not jumping on the stop commercial fishing bandwagen based on NOAA's stock assessment. Or poor surf reports.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Tagger]

Originally Posted by thefishingfreak

Who are we suposed to believe? NOAA or the ASMFC and the DMF?
Click here and look up bass.
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission


Acording to the ASMFC the stock is well above the Target biomass.
Acording to the head of the DMF, paul didoti the stock is above its target biomass and the DMF was even proposing increasing the comercial quota.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Yea ,,,and everything was Honky Dory the last time the species collapsed,, when his predecessor Phil Coates was running the show . Instead of owning that they screwed up, they blamed pollution for the sudden collapse .. I was there ,, I use to go to those BS meetings ,, They like to say Bio Mass .. They say it so much you get dizzy .. Hi Mike ;-)

[Slipknot]

Originally Posted by thefishingfreak

Who are we suposed to believe? NOAA or the ASMFC and the DMF?
Click here and look up bass.
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission


Acording to the ASMFC the stock is well above the Target biomass.
Acording to the head of the DMF, paul didoti the stock is above its target biomass and the DMF was even proposing increasing the comercial quota.
Acording to the Head of the DMF AND the ASMFC the biomass of commercial size fish is at an all time high, there was a bumper crop of young produced in 2010 that "should", pending survival, start yearly migrations. They admit there are not allot of "schoolies" around because there was a low survival rate for that year class. That is why there are no massive blitzes of schoolies tearing up and down the coast. Remember all those schoolies from a few years ago? Well there all commercial size now and there hanging just out of reach of the seals. Somewhat a nuisance to the Tuna fishermen often hard to get away from.
So just because surf fishing sucks and there not stacked up in all the usual spots doesn't mean they are on the verge of another collapse.
Im not jumping on the stop commercial fishing bandwagen based on NOAA's stock assessment. Or poor surf reports.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I don,t believe any of them, but I do believe the people who are out fishing all year whether from shore or boat.
I see less fish than just a few years ago.

I,m sure it,s very complex the reasons for all this, bottom line is we need to act now, not sit back and let it collapse.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[MAKAI]

It's like spending your retirement now, though you haven't contributed anything into it for the last six years.

A common human axiom is " Well, I didn't see that coming "

Do you know the difference between an optimist and a pessimist ?
The pessimist is better informed !

[MikeToole]

Originally Posted by thefishingfreak

Who are we suposed to believe? NOAA or the ASMFC and the DMF?
Click here and look up bass.
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission
Acording to the Head of the DMF AND the ASMFC the biomass of commercial size fish is at an all time high, there was a bumper crop of young produced in 2010 that "should", pending survival, start yearly migrations. They admit there are not allot of "schoolies" around because there was a low survival rate for that year class. That is why there are no massive blitzes of schoolies tearing up and down the coast. [/i][/size]

I guess the head of ASMFC isn't reading his own stock assessments because they show a big decrease since 2004 based on the 2011 report.

"Abundance and Biomass: Striped bass total abundance and biomass were estimated using the SCA model (Figures 7 and 8; Tables 11 and 12). Abundance increased steadily from 8.3 million fish in 1982 to a
peak of 67.5 million in 2004 then declined to 42.3 million fish in 2010. Abundance of striped bass age 8 and greater, representing approximately fish 28” and greater, was lowest in 1985 but then increased to a series high in 2004. Abundance of age 8+ fish decreased from 9.7 million fish in 2004 to 5.9 million fish
in 2010. Total biomass followed a similar pattern increasing from a low in 1984 to a peak of 111,877 mt in 2002. Biomass since 2002 has declined to 87,771 mt in 2010"

[thefishingfreak]

Hi Ed.
Plastic-boat fish don't count
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Tagger]

Originally Posted by thefishingfreak

Hi Ed.
Plastic-boat fish don't count
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

haha ... I was wondering about that . I guess they don't .. I'm enjoying all the new access though . Able to fish Cohasset now .. They like to keep us away from their women .

[rizzo]

Pollution, water quality issues, tournaments, changes in migration paths, trawling, netting, better electronics, bait, anglers, politicians, greed, publicity, carelessness when handling c&r fish are all to blame.

I'm relatively young and its easy to see its def. not what it used to be. Unfortunately many of the factors above will be difficult, if not impossible to correct. In a perfect world I'd love to end all charter boats, commercial fishing, pollution, useless killing, etc. and go 100% C&R. Look what happened to the atlantic salmon fishery in massachusetts. CT and Merrimack Rivers were one of the most epic atlantic salmon runs in the world and they are pretty much extinct now. Set up a couple dams to warm the water up and ruin spawning habitat, pollute the water to standards we deem are clean, hammer the fish in the open ocean in their summering areas and set up nets across the river at the mouth... in a short 200 year timeframe the fish are gone. GONE and never to come back unless we remove all the dams and stop the heavy fishing pressure.

Right now, what we are seeing with the striped bass is how much we are impacting them year to year. We know that a few good commercial outfits can clean out an area over a couple years. Recs lining the canal are doing damage may-july. Spawning habitats are in trouble. WE found the winter over areas and are pounding them. Stripers are much more resilient than salmon, but still. There is only so much!

[stripermaineiac]

No derek there will always be some of old timers on those rocks. might take us a little longer to get there but trust me we will be there. we were there through the last moratorium an we'll be there through the next one god willing.Shame is a lot of the -nimrods,googans,fly by nighters an week end worriors won't be.They won't even realize what they lost an missed.

[stripermaineiac]

LOL Also who gives a da-- what the political agancies have to say. I'll take you to some of my secret spots that used to have loads of fish. MT now.if you can't take the word of those of us that have been chasing stripers for some 40 to 60 yrs over these idiot agencies run by people that have never walked a boulder filled beach or been in a blitz of fish over 30 lb you deserve what you make of things to come.been chasing stripers for almost 50 yrs. the only scientist I've ever seen at a fishing spot were those that Bob Pond,Al anderson,Bob Boulard,myself an some of the other old timers took there.Go ahead be stupid like we were just don't complain after things get shut down. we can make changes ourselves that will make a difference.Our choice.

[jimmy z]

Many are too young to remember when there were hardly any bass in the late 70's and early 80's. I remember those one fish years.

Do we have to have it in writing to make and effect a change? Many are in denial about the bass being in trouble. Many see the lack of bass in their waters, but will still say, "there is no problem".
What kind of thinking is this?

[Raider Ronnie]

How about this. Forget game fish status and make it illegal to fish. Then a few preaching game fish status and also happen to profit by selling their plugs will be out of business also.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[rizzo]

C&R would be fine with me. The typical guy who hires a charter for fillets/meatpacking wouldn't like it, but many of those guys could care less about the fish they catch. They don't respect the fish like some guys here do. 90% of the guys who take those charters wouldnt stand a chance catching those fish on their own. Theyre too lazy to maintain a boat themselves and dont want to put in the hardwork to learn what the fish do. When those fish are gone, they move on to another hobby without a care. But they are part of the rec equation - you got a pro headhunter putting these guys on fish every day.

[Rappin Mikey]

Numbers are down. Anybody that keeps a log, or puts in about the same amount of time, in the same places, year after year can testify. I think "we" are the best indicator of what is going on. I think "we" are the people that need to pledge to release more fish. I know I have. This is where it starts. Forums like this that reach the masses. Maybe it's the pain meds talking, but how about an "I will" for all who agree to stop keeping as many fish. Let's face it. Striped bass are our passion. Otherwise we wouldn't be participants in a great site like this. If the trend continues, there won't be a need for a site like this. Therefor, I'll start. I will.

[afterhours]

Originally Posted by Raider Ronnie

How about this. Forget game fish status and make it illegal to fish. Then a few preaching game fish status and also happen to profit by selling their plugs will be out of business also.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

gee ronnie...really , i care MORE about this fishery than striper plugs- not my fault the the health of the fishery and my business go hand in hand. i can just as easily build bft, musky, lmb, costa rica plugs and probablly make more cake. i would not go out of bussines, how about you? next.

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by Raider Ronnie

How about this. Forget game fish status and make it illegal to fish. Then a few preaching game fish status and also happen to profit by selling their plugs will be out of business also.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

You're leaving out the part about you charter guys that walk the line of being a commercial entity regulated as recreational fishermen being SOL as well.

Forget Gamefish Status... 5 tags per license, 36" limit and call it a day. Even for someone terrible at cleaning a fish, 5 fish at 36" should get them at least 25-30lbs of meat per year. Few families are eating 30lbs of striped bass per year. And if they are, they should stop because the fish isn't even all that good for you with all the toxins and heavy metals.

[MikeToole]

Originally Posted by JohnnyD

You're leaving out the part about you charter guys that walk the line of being a commercial entity regulated as recreational fishermen being SOL as well.
.

Think we need to look at charters a little different. Like I said earlier I looking at them as bus drivers taking recreational fisherman out to the fish. When I was a kid in the late 50s there were 3 party boats working out of the NJ Highlands where the captains had been fisherman and changed their businesses over to running party boats. Pre 200 mile limits made it hard even than to make a living fishing. A hundred years earlier thousands of people could make their living from the sea but just like many other occupations technology changed all of that. Charters may be the answer for still being able to continue working at sea for many of the small boat fisherman. May not be their ideal job but it is a job. But of course if the stock dumps down then commercials, recs and plug makers are all out of work.

[likwid]

Originally Posted by Raider Ronnie

How about this. Forget game fish status and make it illegal to fish. Then a few preaching game fish status and also happen to profit by selling their plugs will be out of business also.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Well if noaa/dmf/vatican don't do ANYTHING then all the comms and charters will be out of business.

[derekl]

Originally Posted by Raider Ronnie

How about this. Forget game fish status and make it illegal to fish. Then a few preaching game fish status and also happen to profit by selling their plugs will be out of business also.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

So are you saying that if we make stripers a game fjsh that hou will goout of business sounds like a terrible business plan to me relying on a nonsustainable item for.a.ljving
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Raider Ronnie]

Originally Posted by derekl

So are you saying that if we make stripers a game fjsh that hou will goout of business sounds like a terrible business plan to me relying on a nonsustainable item for.a.ljving
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

No. I'm not one drinking the cool aid that things are as bad as these tree Huggers are preaching.
Also not talking out of both sides of my mouth.
We got some in this tread who have killed & sold fish for years (lots of species besides bass) and preaching about collapse.
Guess they found religion and are born again.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[MikeToole]

Originally Posted by Raider Ronnie

No. I'm not one drinking the cool aid that things are as bad as these tree Huggers are preaching.
Also not talking out of both sides of my mouth.
We got some in this tread who have killed & sold fish for years (lots of species besides bass) and preaching about collapse.
Guess they found religion and are born again.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Some people learn from mistakes made in the past and others never learn and just keep repeating them.