Cool Article about mackerel fishing in the 70's and today

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I found this article in the Asbury Park Press, thought it was interesting and wanted to pass it on....

Fishermen nostalgic for past mackerel runs
"Fishermen who remember the great spring Boston mackerel runs of yesteryear are beginning to wonder when we will see them again.

There has not been a good spring mackerel season in several years, and anglers miss them for food, bait and recreation.

I recall talking with Capt. Lou Puskas about the mackerel April 3, 1973.

Puskas ran a charter boat, the Gra-Cee III out of Barnegat Light, in those days, and he was also fishing for tilefish commercially. He had his finger on the pulse of the mackerel fishery.

He said that day that he had been encountering huge schools of mackerel offshore as early as the first week in March.

"They were only about 40 miles off on top and my bow wave spooked 'em,'' he said. "It was calm and a foggy night, and they looked like bolts of fire in the water.''

A couple of weeks went by when Puskas did not see the mackerel offshore, but he heard radio reports April 1 and 2 that the fish were 15 to 20 miles inshore and south of the Wilmington Canyon, which is 65 miles SSE of Atlantic City.

He predicted that when the water temperature reached 43 degrees between April 15 and April 19, the mackerel would come inshore. The water temperature was 43 degrees April 2 from Cape May to Long Branch.

Those who watch the water temperature carefully at Ambrose Tower might note that the water was 43 degrees 10 days ago, and 45.3 degrees Friday.

The party boats from Cape May got into the mackerel around April 11 in 1969, 1970 and 1972. The year that I talked with Puskas about the mackerel was different; the Cape May boats found them within easy range April 7.

Capt. Howard Bogan Sr., skipper of the Jamaica from Bogan's Basin, Brielle, hit the mackerel five days later on the Klondike Banks off Spring Lake, and by April 15 they were being caught on the Sea Girt Artificial Reef, the Klondike Banks and the Shrewsbury Rocks.

April 16 the catches were excellent off lower Long Beach Island and Seaside Park and April 17 we were nailing them on Manasquan Ridge.

The spring of 1973 was a banner year for inshore mackerel boats, and the run continued to build from April 16. Bogan described the "main vein'' as stretching along the 3200 Loran line, roughly offshore of the Farms, bending in toward the Klondike Banks and reaching as far south as Beach Haven Inlet through the second week in May.

The run was so huge that, when it pushed inshore, as it often did while moving north, the fish came within range of surf casters at Shark River Inlet, Deal and Long Branch. May 13 was the heyday with beach fishermen and small boaters taking plenty of fish.

Bogan stayed with the mackerel until May 20 when he steamed 50 miles due east of Manasquan Inlet to put together his last catch that spring.

Historically this would be the key week for the beginning of the Cape May mackerel run, but there are no signs of the fish, and, after the dismal runs of recent years, not much is expected.

Capt. Jimmy Elliott, skipper of the Miss Belmar Princess, Belmar, caught some mackerel around the Mud Hole and farther off for a time this winter, but the run never came close to shore.

He noted big netters and processing ships working on the mackerel on the offshore grounds, and learned at the time that they follow the schools along the coast from the wintering grounds off Virginia and North Carolina to the summer grounds in New England.

The pressure is relentless and the foreign market is demanding. Anglers are not getting their hopes up.

James A. Donofrio, executive director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance, said his charter boat juices started churning when he saw the satellite reports of the warm eddy stretching along the edge of the continental shelf now.

"There is 69-degree blue water out there, which is really unusual for this time of the year,'' he said. "From the Hudson on down there have to be bigeyes and bluefins in it. Makes you want to get out there.''

Basil Shehady of Barnegat Light Bait and Tackle said interest is picking up in the bass fishery on Long Beach Island as fish, mostly shorts, are being caught on clams in the surf.

John Bushell Jr. of Betty and Nick's Bait and Tackle, Seaside Park, said the first bass has not been weighed in there yet, but more anglers are fishing, and they are catching some short bass in the Seaside Park and Island Beach surf."

John Geiser is a columnist for the Asbury Park Press