If this weekend was enough to test my personal Quit declaration then I don't know what was. But, "I wasn't lyin'". Saturday and Sunday, well Saturday more than Sunday, was nice enough to go fishing but I didn't. I spent this weekend decommissioning my Jeep from fishing assault vehicle back to family and professor vehicle. I found my new favorite car wash across the creek in Morrisville, PA and the thing
I like about it there, as with any car wash, is that you use your debit or credit card to pay for your wash. No more dropping $10 in quarters, or running out of time, now it's swipe and wash. It felt good to get everything out of the Jeep and into the basement where I can spend some time this winter, most likely in late February the day before the season opens, getting stuff in line and ready. I emptied all of my flies
into a bin that either need to be combed out, materials cut off for a retie, donated, or thrown out. I know fly fisherman Jack Denny has a hook overseas where he donates used flies to, I might look into that further.
While I was at "The Car Wash", to music, Leif and Richie were out in the chilly morning yesterday where they found some fish most likely looking, well rooting, for sand eels. Richie was throwing metal and a teaser and had several bass, while Leif struggled to get into the same zone as metal does.
Leif landed the above bass after working the beach for a long time. Hey, bass in the trough, it's fly rod time. When those bass are lying low and out a bit getting that fly down into the zone, and out a ways, isn't easy. It's hard to compare dumbbell eyes on a fly with the weight of an Ava.
What I thought was interesting were the broken lines on Pettersen's fish. While at first they were just broken lines, and that has sparked an interest in pursuing that topic for a later post, it appears they are off a bit due to some type of injury. It could have been a prop, a bird, a seal, another fish, or a treble hook from a plug when it was young. There are other reasons for those broken lines. We see it commonly in "Wipers", or hybrid striped bass. Hybrid striped bass are manufactured, by man, when a female white bass is fertilized by a male striped bass. Not like they get a room together and get it on, they are stripped of milk and milt, fertilized, and then stocked, usually to larger lakes.
But the other reason broken striped may occur is when bass from different strains are stocked and then take up with bass from different regions, or strains. Did you know that in 1984 and into the 1990's the Navesink River was stocked with tens of thousands of striped bass from the Roanoke North Carolina strain? These fish are non-migratory, and may not have become part of a successful spawning population, and were found to have stayed "local" when tagging returns found them caught mostly in and around New Jersey and New York. Stocking programs have been HUGE in states from Maine down to Florida and inland as well. Remember in 1879 Navesink striped bass were train(ed) out to California which exploded into the West Coast striped bass fishery they have today. In fact, there was talk of re-introducing those California bass back into the Navesink in 1984, but they went with the Roanoke strain instead.
When the temps drop, the snow falls and the school work is done I'll look into this a lot more.
So let's jump over to striped bass management for a minute. Yes, it's a call to action. While the early striped bass fall run was chock full of overs, over the 28-31" slot limit, as the weeks went on smaller fish, just over slot, slot, and below slot fish started to show up. And when that happened anglers who wanted to harvest fish legally hit the beaches and docks. This isn't a fishermen bashing post. It's a ASMFC bashing post.
Let me remind you of the regulations just 10 years ago, in 2013. Two fish per angler per day greater than 28 inches in length. That meant beach or boat you could take a, well two, 10 pound fish all the way up to 50 pound fish. PER ANGLER PER DAY! Bait or bay or blitz or whatever. Do you think that was a problem? And that was before we decimated the Jersey Shore with beach replenishment and had blitzes of big fish on the beach, more so in the late spring, and then "normal" fish in the fall.
So now the slot is tight to protect the last class of the last good YOY numbers which is 2015. A 2015 fish is just about over that slot, say 31 to 33 inches. While we MAY? be protecting that year class of fish what are we doing, and who are we helping, by mowing down fish that are 5 to 7 years old, or 24-31 inch fish. 24-28 inch fish are allowed to be harvested in New Jersey's Bonus Tag Program. And remember, striped bass in New Jersey have Gamefish status already, so "Make it a Gamefish" doesn't apply here, kinda.
I don't have a problem with people taking a striped bass. I wish there wasn't a bait or plug or lure fishery, add Mojo's and umbrella rigs, and it was just catch and release fly only. That's selfish and just in my perfect world where fairies fly around also. Alright, maybe just catch and release without treble hooks in certain areas during certain times of the year would do. But anyway. Well before I go I have to ask is trolling that thing below around a fun day of sportfishing for striped bass? Okay whatever....
The big concern is the ASMFC has no plan to rebuild the striped bass fishery by 2029. Eliminating year classes of 2016-2019 won't help the future. Maybe there has to be a rotating slot sized fishery to rebuild. Maybe it needs to be shut down. Maybe big fish need to be harvested? I don't know the answer.
What I do know is the striped bass and those who are working in the trenches need your help. There is still time. If you missed the virtual and in-person meetings in your state then write a letter with your statement and option preference. You can write those letters, or emails, and send them in by December
22nd. They don't like organizations stock letters, in fact I think they record them and put them to the side. Recreational anglers, who they are pinning the demise of striped bass on are the ones getting the blame for where we are these days. No matter what kind of Jersey fall run you had that is only a snapshot of one body of fish in one state during one month.
