It's Official, Good Bye BB Buoy (RelocationNorth 30 NM)

[wrap-check]

The bass run inshore down along the cape this fall is the worst it's been since the population crash. There's an abundance of pogies around just no fish of any type on them. Weird year.

Gotta disagree with you on that one. Fall bass fishing was outstanding - and the more I've read on the various message boards, about how bad it was, the better its been. Heck, there was one guy on thehulltruth that I actually looked forward to his proclamations about CC Bay being dead - it pretty much guaranteed the next day was going to be off the charts.

Just because some people aren't catching - doesn't mean the fish aren't there....

[scottne]

scottne,

Not sure how long you have been fishing for BF but your comments about plenty of giants being landed in places like Chatham tells me you have not been fishing long enough to see the changes that have taken place and what things were like years ago. Those who have been fishing long enough know what I am talking about.

If you are going to atribute the lack of herring to September storms and temp breaks I am going to tell you you are flat out wrong. The length of your boat has zero to do with the lack of giants being landed. For a 23' boat owner, it should to stand to reason that removing the herring will make it increasing harder and harder to reach the fish. As far as the weather goes, we have had excellent stretches of good fishing weather. Chatham has not seen one excellent stretch of good giant fishing this year or last year or the year before that.

If you want to troll splash bars and land 60" fish I guess you could consider the fishery a success here in Chatham, especially if you run charters. Please don't tell me the bait and fish have moved off because of the weather. The large bio mass of herring is not here and we all know why.

I don't agree the tuna would be here all year long either regardless of the water temps although I will give you that their moods can certainly be affected by water the like. They are pelagic by nature and will always continue to move about. It's where they stop and feed and hang out for a spell that is critical for all of us. The fish don't stay where the food source has been removed. In this case it is being wiped clean. I diet of sand eels won't cut it.

I said part of the reason the landings are down is because of the weather. You said that was bogus. Exact quote from Chris on another site "Weather shut down the harpoon fleet over a month ago."
It took a lot of rod and reel guys off the water too which is why no conclusions can be drawn in comparison to last year when there were multiple stretches of weather that allowed guys to get to the GB feeds. That really hasn't happened enough this year. The windows have been really short. A 23' boat isn't going to go giant chasing in 5 foot seas. We've had 5 foot seas seemingly for about 6 weeks now. For that matter most 30' boats aren't going out in 5-6' either particularly when the run is 50+ miles.

I think part of the reason the top water spin guys are struggling this past two years is the tuna have had larger bait to chase. Macks filled the Bay the last three years and now with the herring all over again and halfbeaks....the days of dense sand eel feeds have been fewer. It's a lot tougher to target fast moving fish on halfbeaks, macks and herring versus dense feeds on eels. Back 3 or 4 years ago every single fish we kept had sand eels distended in their bellies. Didn't matter where we caught them, Chatham, NWC, Bay, Bank, PHB. This year and last we haven't had a fish with many sand eels, it's all squid, macks and mostly herring. Change in bait, change in feed patterns. Bottom line I think just as much of the problem is the lack of overall fish, but everyone disagrees on that and I will say there are fish everywhere right now.

Laura Jay, yep, but this isn't 10 years ago when you could catch 100 keepers off along the beaches to your east right through late October, all part of the normal cycle. It's not bad by most standards, way better than the 80s for sure, but not the peak of the rebound. I had friends out that you know a few days ago that got 3 fish over 30 pounds but only 6 fish overall and thought it was a bad day. Again in comparison to 5-6 years ago. We'll see in coming years whether the doomsayers on the bass front are right or not. I saw plenty of blitzing fish yesterday up in Plymouth and we had days where we were catching 100 keepers each this spring off the backside. That continued right into July so there are certainly bass around. It does seem that each year the bigger fish roll down later in the year, a few years ago we had them in early November chasing macks and herring up onto the beach. I half wonder if the fish are just moving down later each year.

The battle to close the herring fishery is going to be a tough one. Put american workers out of work to feed wealthy foreigners sushi. Tough sell in this economy even though in the end the sale of BFT passes through more hands and employs more people.

The BB is now active at the new location, looks like it got dropped a few days ago.

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=44018

[LadyB]

I said part of the reason the landings are down is because of the weather. You said that was bogus. Exact quote from Chris on another site "Weather shut down the harpoon fleet over a month ago."
It took a lot of rod and reel guys off the water too which is why no conclusions can be drawn in comparison to last year when there were multiple stretches of weather that allowed guys to get to the GB feeds. That really hasn't happened enough this year. The windows have been really short. A 23' boat isn't going to go giant chasing in 5 foot seas. We've had 5 foot seas seemingly for about 6 weeks now. For that matter most 30' boats aren't going out in 5-6' either particularly when the run is 50+ miles.

I think part of the reason the top water spin guys are struggling this past two years is the tuna have had larger bait to chase. Macks filled the Bay the last three years and now with the herring all over again and halfbeaks....the days of dense sand eel feeds have been fewer. It's a lot tougher to target fast moving fish on halfbeaks, macks and herring versus dense feeds on eels. Back 3 or 4 years ago every single fish we kept had sand eels distended in their bellies. Didn't matter where we caught them, Chatham, NWC, Bay, Bank, PHB. This year and last we haven't had a fish with many sand eels, it's all squid, macks and mostly herring. Change in bait, change in feed patterns. Bottom line I think just as much of the problem is the lack of overall fish, but everyone disagrees on that and I will say there are fish everywhere right now.

Laura Jay, yep, but this isn't 10 years ago when you could catch 100 keepers off along the beaches to your east right through late October, all part of the normal cycle. It's not bad by most standards, way better than the 80s for sure, but not the peak of the rebound. I had friends out that you know a few days ago that got 3 fish over 30 pounds but only 6 fish overall and thought it was a bad day. Again in comparison to 5-6 years ago. We'll see in coming years whether the doomsayers on the bass front are right or not. I saw plenty of blitzing fish yesterday up in Plymouth and we had days where we were catching 100 keepers each this spring off the backside. That continued right into July so there are certainly bass around. It does seem that each year the bigger fish roll down later in the year, a few years ago we had them in early November chasing macks and herring up onto the beach. I half wonder if the fish are just moving down later each year.

The battle to close the herring fishery is going to be a tough one. Put american workers out of work to feed wealthy foreigners sushi. Tough sell in this economy even though in the end the sale of BFT passes through more hands and employs more people.

The BB is now active at the new location, looks like it got dropped a few days ago.

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=44018

Scottne

Weather does have an impact on the harpoon cat but they did have excellent weather in June don't forget. I thought we were talking about the General Catagory since the types of boats you mentioned were not stick boats. For most of the GC boats, weather balances out every year and you can usually get roughly the same amount of fishing days. It's not a lack of fish Scottne, it's a lack of fish in the places we should be seeing them. It's the result of pair trawling!!!

You can say there are a lot of fish around all you want. The truth is there are a lot of little fish around, fish we would normally run past trip after trip headed to places like the 5 & 8 where we would find an abundance of bait and large fish. Good giant fishing for weeks on end. You can't blame the weather.

Posts about a lack of bass are way off. Inside the three mile limit has never seen such good bass fishing. There is no lack of fish. All summer long, you have been able to catch sizable bass in large quanties in side the three mile limit. There are places outside the limit that will make your arms fall off there are so many bass. Who are all these people saying there are no bass? The rebound of that stock is one of the biggest success stories there is.

[scottne]

Scottne

Weather does have an impact on the harpoon cat but they did have excellent weather in June don't forget. I thought we were talking about the General Catagory since the types of boats you mentioned were not stick boats. For most of the GC boats, weather balances out every year and you can usually get roughly the same amount of fishing days. It's not a lack of fish Scottne, it's a lack of fish in the places we should be seeing them. It's the result of pair trawling!!!

You can say there are a lot of fish around all you want. The truth is there are a lot of little fish around, fish we would normally run past trip after trip headed to places like the 5 & 8 where we would find an abundance of bait and large fish. Good giant fishing for weeks on end. You can't blame the weather.

Posts about a lack of bass are way off. Inside the three mile limit has never seen such good bass fishing. There is no lack of fish. All summer long, you have been able to catch sizable bass in large quanties in side the three mile limit. There are places outside the limit that will make your arms fall off there are so many bass. Who are all these people saying there are no bass? The rebound of that stock is one of the biggest success stories there is.

You do see that your position is totally contradictory right?

With bass I'm wrong because there are plenty of fish elsewhere...but no fish where they are usually stacked so thick you can't swing a dead eel without catching 20. With the tuna it's not the lack of fish, it's just that they are in the wrong spot which is ironically someone elses fault. If the tuna population is fine which is what every commercial tuna group insists, the bass population is fine and the herring trawlers are providing food, jobs and in the case of New Bedford some redevelopment (minor), why are we wanting to put the herring workers out of jobs? Because we don't like that the tuna aren't as close to shore as they were in 1970? The herring fishermen are providing fish that are used for a lot of different things domestically as well as overseas...let's face it the tuna...probably 70% are ending up in lands far away. I say this not to take a side, just pointing out, good luck with trying to get a politician behind that one in this economy. Here's my take, if we hadn't wiped out the tuna 30 years ago and even 10 years ago with the seiners we wouldn't have a problem finding giants near shore now even with the bait situation.

Here's a question for you:

There was once a very popular giant tuna tournament in Cape Cod Bay. After 30+ years of major success it died out very quickly in the late 70's early 80s because nobody could catch fish. Was that the result of bait fisherman or the gross overfishing of the tuna themselves? I have a hunch if Al Gore had created the internet in 1980 we'd be blaming the bait fishermen or some foreigner.

Are the bass not being in these spots the last few falls the result of pair trawling too or is it possible that it's all just part of a normal cycle, or that both stocks are down? To be honest I don't know, but I don't think you can't have it both ways. I'm sure the people up at PEI are wondering what all the fuss is about pair trawlers because they have plenty of tuna up there. I fished those massive bass schools into July, I know how many fish are there. Those same schools were there in 2001-2006 when the Bay also had so many fish 100 keeper days were pretty common. We just never had to leave the bay to find miles of bass. Starting a few yars ago the bay stock has really thinned each fall, likely because they're chasing bait or they're coming in much later or perhaps the population was just experiencing a blip. It's no different than the rockpile south of the Vineyard that once held a lot of cows until they were systematically wiped out a couple of years in a row.

There aren't nearly as many little fish around in concentration as there were even 5 years ago. I've seen it with my own eyes and talked to enough of the captains that were out there chasing them in the 90s and early 00s to know it's been a steady downward trend the last 2-3 years. Honest catch data from some of the big name captains...who just a few years ago were in the multi hundreds of fish per season and this year struggled to get to a 100 (after a drop last year). Yes, some were up too I know. Is that lack of concentration and much greater spread of fish the result of dispersed or lack of inshore bait? To be honest I don't know. Is some of it gas prices keeping boats off the water and guys from wandering so we don't stumble on concentrations of fish and then pass the word? Possibly. I know a few years ago when we had miles of fish they were always together, now we have a few pods every 5-10 miles which may well be because of bait, or maybe there's just not that many fish. Who knows? These fish have been around for tens of thousands of years, we've fished them for like 40-50 years... we know way less than we think but one thing that the bass rebound showed was taking the pressure off the fish through catch limits and size restrictions made up for a lot of other ills including total destruction of bait sources and total degradation of spawning habitat.

We'll see in a few years, but in the 70s when we first lost a lot of the inshore big fish it didn't have much to do with bait, it had much more to do with rampant overfishing beyond what the population could sustain. No doubt that's part of what is going on with the herring too, both river and ocean. Like I said I get why those pair trawlers need to go, but the minute they get shut down they'll just target something else like squid, macks, whiting, whatever and will pummel them until they're forced out again.

I just wonder if we'll have to bust out Sally Struthers for a save the poor foreign sushi deprived kids commercial in a few years. For just $100 dollars a day you can buy this kid sushi.

Anyway good luck the rest of the year.

[LadyB]

You do see that your position is totally contradictory right?

With bass I'm wrong because there are plenty of fish elsewhere...but no fish where they are usually stacked so thick you can't swing a dead eel without catching 20. With the tuna it's not the lack of fish, it's just that they are in the wrong spot which is ironically someone elses fault. If the tuna population is fine which is what every commercial tuna group insists, the bass population is fine and the herring trawlers are providing food, jobs and in the case of New Bedford some redevelopment (minor), why are we wanting to put the herring workers out of jobs? Because we don't like that the tuna aren't as close to shore as they were in 1970? The herring fishermen are providing fish that are used for a lot of different things domestically as well as overseas...let's face it the tuna...probably 70% are ending up in lands far away. I say this not to take a side, just pointing out, good luck with trying to get a politician behind that one in this economy. Here's my take, if we hadn't wiped out the tuna 30 years ago and even 10 years ago with the seiners we wouldn't have a problem finding giants near shore now even with the bait situation.

Here's a question for you:

There was once a very popular giant tuna tournament in Cape Cod Bay. After 30+ years of major success it died out very quickly in the late 70's early 80s because nobody could catch fish. Was that the result of bait fisherman or the gross overfishing of the tuna themselves? I have a hunch if Al Gore had created the internet in 1980 we'd be blaming the bait fishermen or some foreigner.

Are the bass not being in these spots the last few falls the result of pair trawling too or is it possible that it's all just part of a normal cycle, or that both stocks are down? To be honest I don't know, but I don't think you can't have it both ways. I'm sure the people up at PEI are wondering what all the fuss is about pair trawlers because they have plenty of tuna up there. I fished those massive bass schools into July, I know how many fish are there. Those same schools were there in 2001-2006 when the Bay also had so many fish 100 keeper days were pretty common. We just never had to leave the bay to find miles of bass. Starting a few yars ago the bay stock has really thinned each fall, likely because they're chasing bait or they're coming in much later or perhaps the population was just experiencing a blip. It's no different than the rockpile south of the Vineyard that once held a lot of cows until they were systematically wiped out a couple of years in a row.

There aren't nearly as many little fish around in concentration as there were even 5 years ago. I've seen it with my own eyes and talked to enough of the captains that were out there chasing them in the 90s and early 00s to know it's been a steady downward trend the last 2-3 years. Honest catch data from some of the big name captains...who just a few years ago were in the multi hundreds of fish per season and this year struggled to get to a 100 (after a drop last year). Yes, some were up too I know. Is that lack of concentration and much greater spread of fish the result of dispersed or lack of inshore bait? To be honest I don't know. Is some of it gas prices keeping boats off the water and guys from wandering so we don't stumble on concentrations of fish and then pass the word? Possibly. I know a few years ago when we had miles of fish they were always together, now we have a few pods every 5-10 miles which may well be because of bait, or maybe there's just not that many fish. Who knows? These fish have been around for tens of thousands of years, we've fished them for like 40-50 years... we know way less than we think but one thing that the bass rebound showed was taking the pressure off the fish through catch limits and size restrictions made up for a lot of other ills including total destruction of bait sources and total degradation of spawning habitat.

We'll see in a few years, but in the 70s when we first lost a lot of the inshore big fish it didn't have much to do with bait, it had much more to do with rampant overfishing beyond what the population could sustain. No doubt that's part of what is going on with the herring too, both river and ocean. Like I said I get why those pair trawlers need to go, but the minute they get shut down they'll just target something else like squid, macks, whiting, whatever and will pummel them until they're forced out again.

I just wonder if we'll have to bust out Sally Struthers for a save the poor foreign sushi deprived kids commercial in a few years. For just $100 dollars a day you can buy this kid sushi.

Anyway good luck the rest of the year.

Scottne,

Put down the crack pipe and pick up a fishing rod. The bass are everywhere. Are you really trying to say that the bass population is in decline? You think the jury is still out on the bass rebounding or not? The outer cape has had excellent bass fishing this year. All along the National Seashore, inside the three mile limit even! You can't make the statement that the bass are not where they should implying we have some big problem. The rebound of the bass is a huge success story. They are everywhere they should be and easy to find.

If you want to stick up for the pair trawlers because they are providing food, jobs, and "redevelopment" ( I am sure even they are laughing at that one) , I would suggest to you the following. The commerical dragging fleets employ many more fisherman, create many more jobs, target many more species, burn a lot more fuel, provide many more opportunity costs and revenue streams than the pair trawlers could ever dream of. The one thing they don't do is rape an entire zone, think about that "an entire zone" because the size and style of their net limits that probability. I don't have a problem with trawlers I have a problem with the method of pairing them together and the massize size of the nets. Traditional methods work well and don't remove massive quantities to quickly and with no discrimination.

The tuna seiners had a quota and when it was filled there were still plenty of quality fish to catch because there was plenty of bait to keep those fish around long enough to fill the general catagory with ease. If what your saying were true, that the seiners wiped out the stock, then Canada would not be seeing those beautiful fish show up year after year. They show up for the millions of metric tons of herring. They show up because the Canadian Gov. does an excellent job over seeing and protecting valuable resources. You will never see a pair trawling operation in Canada. Some of those same fish were here on our side of the hague last fall. The fishing was excellent because the herring were thick. The bait held the fish there until the late fall, through the September storms and the temp breaks you mentioned.

The pair trawlers have since pounded that area removing over 80 million metric tons of herring righ on top of that fishing spot and right up against that hague line. You really don't see anything wrong with that because two boats are providing "redevelopment" and jobs? The fishing in GB is a far cry from what is was last year as a direct result. Fish are still being caught and there are still some herring swimming around that have somehow managed to evade capture. Once that area is completely wiped clean the tuna fishing will suffer. It's like watching a beautiful home being burned down and not being able to do anything about it. On top of it we have guys like you that condone it.

As far as the small tuna are concerned there are tons and tons of smal fish out there. I don't think you can make a case for there being less of them compaired to five years ago. Remember, you could not find the bass either. The numbers are very healthy and could be a sure bet for the future if we had a management plan that did not place such a heavy toll on the herring population. If the pair trawlers are here to stay then the quota needs to be greatly reduced or greatly limited in one zone. If that were to happen you would see the fish that you think got wiped out by the seiners begin to show up in numbers.