It's really a game of either turning right or left when you go fishing. Go left and head north or take a right and head south. Some days you go one way and the fish another, the other days vice versa, or most days, for me, it's just not happening wherever I land. Yesterday it seemed like a day to head south, until you talk to guys who went south and saw or caught nothing. It's a north-south, town to town, beach to beach thing this time of year.
I'm not hijacking posts for nothing. This is a post by AJ Richman who is a mate or Captain out working as part of the Captree Fleet in Long Island. There must still be a ton of fish out on the South Fork and who knows what it will mean as far as Jersey in the next few weeks.
The Laura Lee Fleet is a powerhouse of head boat fishing out on the eastern end of Long Island, located near Fire Island and Robert Moses State Park. Both beach and boat fishermen out there have been on the meat for over a month and it doesn't seem to be letting up. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean good things for the striped bass as each day hundreds, if not a thousand, of striped bass are hooked, kept, or released. Anyway you put it it adds to the F, or striped bass mortality we talk about. That's either harvested or dead recreational releases.
These boats run with anywhere from 20-80 anglers and if on a good drift can go back and forth over stacked up fish catching and keeping, legally of course, or "playing" catch and release. I'm not picking on legal fishing, but more of the need to figure out how these fish can be sustainably managed.
All of those racks you see are the 2015 and 2018 year class fish if they fall between that 28-31" slot. From Rhode Island down to Delaware these fish, either a pile on the deck, or a single carted off the beach, all add to each days total of dead striped bass. While the ASMFC manages the fishery with the hope to rebuild it by 2029 how can these years of fish add to the SSB (Spawning Striped Bass) totals if we are killing them off?
I found it interesting that, maybe just in New York, every kept fish has a Laura Lee Fleet tag it it's mouth or gills. I would guess that's for reporting purposes for each boat that heads out for the day. The only tags I see in New Jersey are for those 24- 28" inch fish part of the Bonus Tag Program.
After few days of bunkerless fishing they came back to life and closer to the beach with the WNW wind shift. It went from a metal jig fishery to a rubber shad or plug fishery, at least on the beach once again. Really, each day changes and for the spin and fly anglers having a smorgasbord of offerings in the quiver it's what's needed in case the bait changes.
A real fall is about to hit us with changing winds, rain, and a drop in temperatures for later this week. The early word is cold and maybe snow around Thanksgiving. That could do a few things, kull out the fair weather fishermen, like I'm becoming, and get the crowds thinned out, and either mean things will turn on or get shut down for the fall 2024 run. There's always those guys predicting things only get better heading into December. Last year it was literally fish everywhere one day and not a fish to be found the next.