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Saturday, July 04, 2009: waves: Small east swell. Winds: hard west.
Well, if you're one of the 19 people who aren’t on Long Beach Island this weekend, be thankful. It’s as shoulder-to-shoulder out there as I can recall – back years, even decades. All of Friday and Saturday, the Causeway was stop-and-go. The number of anglers was equally congested.
I listened to radio chatter and got quite a few fluke reads, mainly goodly numbers of hookups and very poor keeper rates. As noted the past couple reports, it seemed we had way better take-home percentages shortly after the season opened but we’re now back to hyper-frustration for quite a few folks. I had one South End baot angler who went 0 for 25. That's close to 2008 bad.
I had some striped bass tacos from a fish caught mid-Island yesterday. The bass took a clam bait, early a.m. It was that close-to-perfect 28 inches on the nose. It can only be “close” since the cleanest, healthiest striper is somewhere in the 20- to 26-inch range. As soon as more scientific minds prevail, we’ll be able to keep those smaller fish – while likely giving up bass in the 34- to 40-inch fish.
Back to holiday weekend fishing, some folks were zipping out to The Tires and reefs, looking for any remaining black seabass. Fishing for them has been very heavy. A scattering of very decent seabass showed for some folks. I’ll be interested to see if the cleaner bay water will lead to a good crop of seabss in the bay. I always enjoy seining baby seabass (and immediately releasing) since as young fish they look absolutely nothing like the mature fish, instead resembling a type of blenny – blenny: a very small bayside fish that looks somewhat eelish -- and lives its entire life in small compact palces. If you find a small bottle or can that has been on the bottom for a goodly time, pour out the contents and they’ll be a quota of resident blennies inside.
Note: I’ve been emailed some information that the concept of using tires for reefs is not panning out at all; that fish and even smaller organisms related to reef growth can’t tolerate something about the rubber. I’ll be researching this further but I can just about assure you won’t soon be seeing tires for reefs. However, this is not to even remotely criticize the trying of the material. It seemed a great match: too many tires and the a need for reef material.
I have to confirm some of the main problems with the tires before going public with what might be going wrong. I don’t want to give the naysayers any fodder for stopping future reef-building projects. I’m not saying that will happen, per se. I’ve just been through some of the seemingly obligatory negative reaction to most reef-building efforts.
Shark fishing is hot near Little Egg Inlet. It’s a catch-and-release good time, mainly late and after dark.
A short heavy-duty rod and a strong but simple reel works well when sharking from baot. In fact, a really fun retro set-up for smaller sharks is an older bakelite side-plate bait reel married to a 5- to 6-foot translucent fiberglass rod, so popular back in the 50s, sold through the likes of Sears.
For the past couple weeks I’ve been restoring half a dozen slightly greenish colored Fiberglas boat rods. A couple beauties are old Pfluegers but my favorites are from a company called the Fishing Rod Factory, Saint Pierre, Fla. Any one have any info on that place?
NEW RAY IN TOWN: Oddity of the season (to this point): a new ray is in the house, as in stingray.
(Hey ever wonder what happened to Raymond J. Johnson, Jr., i.e. “Now you can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay, or you can call me Johnny, or you can call me Sonny, or you can call me ...”? He’s doing fine. Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoYsfbq3vMc.)
I first got a look at one of these extra-large rays via a digital picture emailed me by Nick H., who landed one while surfcasting last week. Nick’s had a four-foot wing span and was of a classic ray shape however it was obviously not one of our now very buddy-buddy cow-nosed rays, which have begun arriving by the multi-thousands over the past ten summers or so.
Here’s Nick’s email: “ … We fished the Brant Beach area and caught quite a few large smooth dogfish and the interesting critter pictured below. Do you know what it is? Skate? Ray? What species? It put up one hell of a fight... we all thought it was the super bass after making quite a few runs.”
I placed Nick’s stingray photo on my daily blog (http://jaymanntoday.ning.com) and a Baltimore Aquarium marine biologist (who often helps me with IDs) pegged it as a spiny butterfly ray, a.k.a. giant butterfly ray, Gymnura altavela.
The spiny butterfly ray is actually quite local, being native to shallow Atlantic waters. However, it isn’t seen a whole helluva lot of late since it has drastically declined in numbers, to the point of being “critically endangered” in some regions.
Despite its endangered status, there seems to be an entire squadron of these smooth-swimming cartilaginous creatures showing up. Here’s another e-response to my blog picture. In this case, RJB also nailed the ID, including a link to a site on spiny butterfly rays.
“Try this as a possible ID (link to website given). I caught two of these and one cow-nosed this past weekend. (It is) Similar to many (rays) but the short tail is a match to only a few,” wrote RJB.
What is bringing these secretive rays into our realm is hard to say. There are always our wonderfully thick nearshore bunker schools. Since this ray can reach over 80 inches across the disc (wide point of the wings), it can surely suck down some larger forage fish. However, it tends to eat a lot smaller than that, craving crabs and such.
Reading angling publications, it seems that spiny butterfly rays fight like crazy. Have some fun landing them, before gently releasing – as nearly all anglers do with generally inedible rays. Do not clip the hooks. A ray can be safely unhooked with a quick twist of the pliers.
GROUNDS FOR SOBER STEERING: This past week saw the launch of Operation Dry Water, headed by the U.S. Coast Guard with the backing (and manpower)/ of state police. It is part of a national enforcement effort to highlight the dangers of boating when you’re, well, wrecked, i.e. boating while intoxicated. Yes, there seems to be something of an alcoholic affiliation between boating and bountiful beveraging. I will get heavily prejudicial here and say that I believe pleasure boaters are far more guilty of drinking and piloting than anglers.
Twenty-one percent of all boating fatalities were alcohol related.
If you were among the way-many folks (statewide) who fell to the opening days of OP Dry Water, you would prefer to never hear another word about it. Truth be told, you’re in hot water – and it’s not the sun-heated bay I’m talking about. Seems ya’ll successfully blew an .08 (or greater) exhale into the famed and merciless Breathalyzer. The soon-to-follow penalties will include super-nasty fines and possible jail time, not to mention loss of boating or driving privileges. That last one is a biggy since you can, in fact, lose your land-based motoring privileges due to on-water BWI violations. Talk about getting hit in the face with cold water.
Interestingly, the operation also netted a slew of harder criminals, some with outstanding felony warrants. I chuckled a bit. Imagine bucking the legal system by lithely eluding the long arm of the law on land only to go for a seemingly innocent boat outing and wind up getting grabbed.
“I’m sober as a saint, officer.”
“Yeah, and you’re also wanted in 16 states and the District of Colombia.
“But that’s on land, not here.”
“Oh, really? Well, how about you turn around and put your hands behind your back and we’ll escort you back to where you’re most wanted.”
It’s not something you share with the boys back at the pen.
Anyway, I bring this up as a warning note for the upcoming July 4th weekend, the busiest boating holiday of the year. Remember: A captain is always the designated driver in the boating realm. However, many a boarding has gone bad when some blitzed numbnuts onboard a vessel get caustically cheeky with the cops. Here you, as captain, are being well behaved and your crew is rude enough to piss-off the pope. The whole boat gets a bad name – and placed squarely on the marine police radar thereafter.
Warning: I know of a number of DWIs being delivered to boaters after they get back to shore, dock up and drive off, filled to the gills. This happens a lot near public docks. Best bet for captains and motorists: stay soundly sober.
RESIDENTIAL REELING:
Email question (newbie-based):
“I hear the expression resident fish. Does that mean they live here year-round? Is it true that having only resident fish makes for very slow summer bassing? ”
Maybe yep, maybe nope.
Though not proven in a court of law, there is a standing conviction that striped bass, while migrating south to north, drop off stragglers along the way, kinda like breadcrumbs. It’s thought that Long Beach Island’s beachfront and inlets get a certain quota of summer bass from the migratory bus. Meet the resident bass.
These resident fish are sometimes depicted as fish that either just didn’t feel like migrating any further or have had it with the crowded conditions on that bus. By making something of an independent move, these stop-and-plop fish establish a bit of an alcove where, for them, it’s summertime and the eatin’ is easy.
From what I’ve seen, there’s a load more behind the fact we catch a few bass all summer, long after migratory front of fish has driven far to the north, i.e. the limited number of migratory drop-offs.
One qualm I have with this summery scenario is the way you can catch resident fish, invite them home for dinner and go back to the same spot and, in no time flat, other “resident bass” have replaced the former fish. That hints that the resident fish concept is a tad more than meets the fishing rod eye. If the strictest resident fish concept is stuck to, the removal of a limited residential population would leave spots bare for the remainder of summer. In reality, there really seems to be a huge recruitment potential.
The resident fish theory is better served by the concept of a summer biomass that hangs hereabouts all season. That biomass can be (and likely is) huge, as opposed to a hypothetical limited showing of a few “resident fish” per jetty from June to September.
The moving north of the spring run of stripers doesn’t mean, by any stretch, that we’re reduced to an angling pittance. It’s more likely that a massive number of fish have settled into a casual residency in Jersey’s nearshore waters. However, unlike during the frantic eating during migration, their summer feeding is done at a far more leisurely pace -- and with a greater familiarity with the surroundings. That familiarity factor looms large since it means these fish are a lot savvier of their territory -- more cautious of oddities, like your plug or bait.
I heard one striped bass scientist explain that resident fish are simply bass that end their migration here due to genetic signals, or triggers. They aren’t migratory dropouts.
By the by, I’m still convinced that the largest of bass have changed their migratory pattern over the past couple decades. I think the mega-bass of the Chesapeake zone come up to about our region (knowing of the bunker bonanza here) then actually drift back southward, into the Delaware Bay drop-off to over-summer. Not to worry, the number of fall fish heading back from up north is now through the ceiling. They might not be the biggest but some mega-cows are still in the mix, guaranteed.
FLUKE FULFILLEDNESS: There is no other way to describe the fluke presence in and around inlets as laid out like tiles. Flatties are everywhere. I don’t want to get into that frustrating keeper-to-throwback ratio. That ain’t science. The scale of a biological biomass has very little to do with how many fish are at-or-above 18 inches. Sure, there are some breeding aspects to the number large fish in a biomass but the telltale factor is the population, even above the poundage.
Despite the strictest fluking regs ever seen in Jersey, the presence of the species is borderline alarming to me. I hate bio-imbalances, especially when they’re the result of fishery management favoring certain top-shelf fish, i.e. stripers and summer flounder.
If you think bass are grubbers, willing to scarf down any organism in sight, fluke make them seem like picky eaters. Fluke will eat anything that floats by their post. Their stealth is as sneaky as it gets. Imagine trying to be a young-of-year tog, blackfish, bluefish, weakfish, kingfish, blowfish, winter flounder, you-name-it and need to travel even a short distance across sand – or for a full-blown migration. Fluke are buried all over the place, like mines. Boom!
This is the same eco-pissiness I feel toward what I believe is the overprotecting of striper stocks, lead by the near moronic nurturing of small bass -- veritable vacuum cleaners when it comes to sucking up everything they can get their mouths around.
You heard it here first: This species-specific nursing plan by fishery management is dooming diversity. Sadly, such favoritism will surely float in the minds of many fishermen wanting nothing more out of their angling lives than coolers worth of fluke each summer and bass on-demand each spring and fall. Just want until management tries to get most other species back to normal in the face of such flagrant species favoritism from the top of the food chain, i.e. mankind. The recovery of less-loved species won’t be happening.
For now, get out there and enjoy the fluke bounty. Take some sort of herb that calms you into accepting the fact you’ll have to throw back 90 percent of what you catch. So what? There must surely be some fun fishing factor in there somewhere, whereby it’s just nice to be out there hooking up. I know, fat chance. If there was a sure way to catch just keeper-sized fluke I’d sell the secret and retire – in other words, I’ll be heading to work first thing tomorrow.
BLUEFISH ALL BETTER: The National Marine Fisheries Service has declared the Eastern Seaboard’s bluefish stocks as all-better. I even heard the expression “fully recovered” bandied about. Now, that’s open for debate. I’m guessing the bluefish are not out there in numbers seen back in, say, 1700. So they’re recovered to a manmade point, not a nature-made point.
By the by, during digs of coastal Lenni Lenape Indian sig
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