White Marlin - Ocean City, Mid-Atlantic

[fish4fun]

The mid-atlantic has experienced an incredible white marlin bite during Aug/Sept over the past 5 years or so. It seems every year gets better and better...Why?

- Have conservation efforts, such as using circle hooks working and there is a greater population of white marlin to be caught?

- Is the fishery cyclical and we are currently in an upswing with simply more fish in our area during these years?

- Climate?

- Captains, mates, owners and anglers have better resources and are more experienced now targeting these fish (faster boats, better electronics, satellite water temp shots, better tackle, etc...)?

[Dave Sikorski]

I think all of your points put together are the reasons the fishing is as good as it is.

You're missing one important one that keeps us all coming back for more....

-You just never know what will come with that next sunrise.

-D

[perfectscore]

I think all of your points put together are the reasons the fishing is as good as it is.

You're missing one important one that keeps us all coming back for more....

-You just never know what will come with that next sunrise.

-D

I think you cite alot of valid points but also I think it has to do with the bait concentration and water. The whites, as we know, will be with the bait. This bite has occurred off of the carolinas throughtout most of the 1990s and early 2000s. Now for some reason it has moved up between ocmd and virgina beach. The same thing which happened to bluefin tuna when discovered off of Hatteras. A few years later they moved to s. carolina, morehead, back to hatteras etc....find the bait, ...............

[Deep C]

Bait and cycle... for the most part...

By NMFS estimates the circle hook in sport application only showed potential of "saving" 80 or so fish a year. On longlines however that number may be higher.

I'm sure that increased release % over the years to where very few get dead any more has helped improve the stock some. Again the numbers sports inetract with are only a miniscule percentage of the fish body itself.

A few years ago it was Chub Cay in the Bahamas that I was seeing loads of whites. Last year the stock seemed strong also. Then this year it was slim pickings... So fish move and as mentioned above mostlikely has to to with their forage of choice.

[Little Miss Magic]

The longliners are found where bait are, they target tunas and end up with whites a lot of the time. They killed a ton of fish, circle hooks ended them killing so many fish. Now we use circles as well and we end up killing a ton less fish.