Wisdom or Fear?

August 2, 2000:

   It had all the makings of a most excellent fishing adventure. The light NE wind had pushed the waves up to a couple/few feet...the tide was nearly high and would begin to drop soon. The new moon was now 2 days old and the clouds and drizzle always make the beach feel a little extra fishy. I had missed one friend, he left early to go home, exhausted from lack of sleep the night before. Another friend was due to arrive shortly....and yet another was possibly going to hook up later on in the area. (Busy night ;-) I rigged up, removing the spool of mono from my rigged eeling outfit, throwing peelurs has lost it's stranglehold on me, and mono and I just don't get along with artificials, much as I try! On goes the reel with the 65# Whiplash and 30# fluoro leader...a pocket full of rubber rigged eels...the real ones are home frozen and I do need to spend an hour and whip up another pocket full of fresh real ones. Just in case, I put the jetty bag on my waist, never know, this kinda water could have them yearning for plugs/teasers fished in the white stuff as it rolls around the sides of the fronts. Half and hour later, still no Paul or Cheen...I venture forth alone. It was then I saw the first lightning flash...a long way off, looked like cloud-to-cloud, harmless stuff. As I got to the water, I noticed the tide was extremely high...and there was a good ground sell ravaging the jetty I was eyeballing.....nice. About halfway out, I took a cast with a rubber eel....halfway in, I got that rat-a-tat hit that makes me cringe...then again....and again. Uh oh, three short hits on one cast...only one thing that could be, them little rat bastages, razor lips! Sure enough, one cast, the eel is neatly clipped behind the hook. Arggggggg! I put it in my pocket for later disassembly and snap on a plug/teaser rig and move out further. It was then I realized that the better part of this rockpile was under water as much as it was above! Hmmmm....and the lightning was getting closer and hitting the water no so many miles away. I cautiously approach as near to the front as I dare....and fire a cast perfectly on the back of a an incoming foamer.....and it's plowed immediately! I had the fish on for just long enough to guess it's a decent striper....and it comes unbuttoned. At just the wrong time, a lightning bolt hits the water much nearer than any others had...and a big sneaky wave collapsed behind me dousing me in salt water and scaring the daylights outta me as it passed me about thigh deep. That's enough, I'm outta there! I quickly (and carefully) bail.....all the while, I'm asking myself that same question.....was it wisdom or fear that caused me to leave what was almost certainly going to be a night to remember?      

Coming soon: 
My review of the nice rod that Tres from Hatteras Outfitters sent me.
New features and an upgrade for SurfTalk.
Another poll....possibly a weekly poll...it's good to know what you guys are thinkin'!
The Spring Fling 2000 page....yup, with pictures.
New items for the catalog, nearly ever day we're adding stuff there!
Revamping of the entire archive section.
Crazy Alberto pictures....yes, he is crazy, I doubt that's even a nickname ;-)
And just plain lots and lots more...if you can think of anything that you'd like to see here, please let us know, we're eager to help!

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent

Can't help but wonder......

Aug 3-4, 2000:

UPDATE: Folks, it's really here, brace yourselves, once again, it is Saturday morning and I have just had the pleasure to put up this weeks     is now up!?!?! It's good to see, DP's still got it! And once for all the world to see, DP, you da' man! ;-)   

UPDATE: Guess who's back folks!??! Yessir, it's   and DPowell! He's back, er...they're back! So, let's give DP and Rockfish a big hand as we can all relax now, the Rockfish glut is over, they'll be online again!!! Tomorrow morning, it'll be like it always was, a nice fresh Rockfish to help crack that first smile of the day.... Yeeeehaaaa! :-) 

You ever get the feeling that something is really wrong? Not only that, but you feel like it's going to get worse...maybe much worse unless somebody does something? And then the reality of the whole mess sinks in and you realize that all the things being done are nothing more than smoke and mirrors. The part that hurts the worst is that the greed of so few is affecting so many. Well that's the feeling I'm getting about the striped bass fishing in NJ. It's easier to convince folks now, mid summer, than when the fall blitzes are fresh in their minds. Yes, it's true, we do have "runs" of fish, some make it here past the nets in the spring and some make back in the fall. It's the ones that are supposed to be here all summer long that are what has me concerned. In the spring, loads of fish move up from their southern homes, the bulk of them "first timers", those fish leaving their breeding areas for the first time. They'll come up, some will get caught by fishermen, some will continue on...and some will set up camp and remain here till the cold waters of winter send them either offshore or down south...I used to think they all went south, but this past winter's experience has more than just me wondering. That all sounds pretty normal, spring run, fall run, nothing in between. I assure you, it's not normal. Yes, the bulk of the folks who fish for stripers believe that's normal, but those who never hang their rods up know a different scenario. They know the one where there's a spring run, a fall run, and resident schools that spend all summer here! Well at least that used to be the case. Even as few as 3 years ago, you could reasonably expect to run into schools of stripers at night in the summer. Not all the time, not every night, but in the suds, you could expect to find a cooperative school of fish maybe 3 out of 5 trips. The other two trips, you would pick away, a fish here, a fish there...but not find a stationary school to work over. That was the way it was, and I'm not talking about in the 60's or the 80's, I'm talking about 3 measly years ago. Now the reality....these schools are just not in the surf like that. I'm not alone in noticing this, others have recently confessed that they felt the same way. Where are all the schools? What happened to this great striper recovery? Doesn't recovered mean "all better" or "back to normal"? No. What it means is that the commercial fishery wanted back in and the proper pressures miraculously "recovered" the stripers and now they are fished commercially in higher numbers than the days that sent them into near extinction. And the commercial fishermen want more! How could I say such things? What kind of proof is there? We are told everything is so good with the stripers, it can't be true what you say? Sorry, it's true....at least in the observations of many guys who fish 5 nights a week, things are progressing the wrong way...and it won't change, it will only get worse. Last summer we caught fish. Same this year. My complaint is that there are no schools of fish, just loners, stragglers, and tiny groups. There should be at least an occassional school of fish in the surf or on the jetties. The few times we've caught more than 2 or 3 fish from the same spot, half of them would bear fresh, bleeding wounds and scars, "girdling" I call it. From gill nets, nothing else could mark fish like this. Red, bloody grooves cut into the fish behind the head or the skin rubbed completely off at the fish's fattest part, also bloody. Gill nets. They are everywhere. Look around, bring some binoculars to the beach, scan just beyond the jetty tips in any town....you'll see them. They appear just as a couple buoys, harmlessly floating around. Sometimes they string outward, sometimes they cover entire pockets between jetties....but they are very thorough in their killing. A tiny fraction of the fish that get entangled will live. The commercial fishermen would have you believe that no bass are killed in these nets, zero. That's how much they report as by catch...none. Tell that to the bleeding bass we've been letting go recently. When I let go the third girdled bass in a few minutes, bleeding but still feeding with the group it nearly died with, I can only wonder how many hundreds or thousands of the others in what used to be a school are now dead in a gill net. And why? Just so a few boxes of bluefish or weakfish could be culled from the hundreds of dead stripers. I've heard first hand from the friend of a commercial netter who fishes down south...this commercial netter was complaining that he's legally killing 4 stripers for every weakfish he catches. This was a confession, a fact. The stripers are thrown back dead, taken off no ones quota but permanently out of the biomass, never to breed, never to entertain an angler, never to chase a peanut bunker...but it doesn't count to the "system", it didn't even happen. There's barely a square foot of the nearshore NJ waters that are free from gill nets, what chance do these schools of bass have? None. Something has to change.  And the biggest joke is that there is a law in NJ that forbids the killing of even one striped bass by a net of any type. It's even a gamefish in NJ! Now if those last two things aren't the sickest jokes in the law books! So, I have to wonder....just what is it that we can all do to really protect the stripers in this area?

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent

Who's gonna do it...and decent fish

Aug 7, 2000:

    Welcome back folks, I trust your weekend's were acceptable? Sorry for the sun, I forgot to do the rain/cloud dance on Friday night, the penalty for which is a sunny Saturday. It was rectified by doing the dance on Saturday night, we should be free from the sun for a couple more days now! ;-) There's much to go over in the ways of the world, I don't know where to start. I'd love to just go off on a rant, but that's just lacking in a tangible goal, ranting just doesn't get anything done but stir folks up...and we're all pretty stirred up as a society already. I'll try to focus my rants more as warnings and questions. 

   My first rant is a prediction come true. When this EZ-Pass crapola started some months back in NJ, I didn't like the stink of it. When the Garden State Parking Lot began to favor the EZ-Pass lanes like 3 to 1 over the exact change lanes, the stink got stronger. I don't have anything to hide, but I do enjoy my privacy, I don't necessarily want anyone with a computer online with this EZ-Pass stuff knowing my comings and goings, that's just one right that I think we should have, privacy. I figured there would be some backlash, some sneaky trick coupled with the EZ-Pass. My rant is this prediction come true. Charlie's got a friend who uses EZ-Pass, I mean you almost have to if you have to drive the GS Parking Lot every day, the exact change lanes are rare as hen's teeth. Anyway, this unsuspecting EZ-Pass user received a ticket in the mail the other day...much to her surprise! Upon opening it, she was nearly floored, it was a speeding ticket, and all the fines were doubled as it occurred in a 65MPH zone. The note with the ticket went on to explain that she was being fined for speeding, 72MPH in a 65MPH zone. The computers had generated this ticket using the times that her EZ-Pass tolls were paid. It calculated the time between the two tolls, did the math based on the distance between the two tolls, calculated her speed, and issued the ticket. How nice, no police officer involved, completely automated NJ speeding tickets! What a great present for those foolish enough to fall for the EZ-Pass! I'm guessing that with an average Parkway speed most mornings approaching 80MPH, these tickets will become quite popular, all EZ-Pass users will be getting these surprise tickets in the mail, all fine doubled of course, they'd have it no other way! Wasn't it just a couple years ago that in NJ they decided that the radar cameras and associated tickets were unlawful? Is this any different? So, just a word of warning, ditch the EZ-Pass, use your quarters, as of yet, they still can't track quarters. Me, I'll keep throwing change at the buckets, it just seems the way it should be. 

  Now, the fishing oriented stuff. First, Friday night was basically a bust, Paul, Charlie and I fished 3 spots, a total of 3 stripers, one weakfish, and a bunch of shad were the result. Not real encouraging to say the least. Actually, I had my second striper right up to the rocks, so there were 4 stripers. A couple missed hits, nothing of any size. Typical of this summers fishing, ridiculously tough.  Saturday night Charlie and I went on an "all rigged eel" fishing trip...no plugs, no spinning rods, just rigged eels. It went better, we had fish on the first 3 jetties we fished, all decent sized fish, 4 in all. I had the biggest, a 17-18# very long striper that had to have a black Ultimus rubber eel, a memorable fight as most exceedingly thin stripers of that weight are! I mean, when they are 38-39" long and under 20#'s, they are mean, all tail, big propeller and little weight...they can really tear it up! It was released and the battle will be remembered. The other fish were decent sized, I'm guessing the second biggest was Charlie's at around 13-14#'s. I've been actually getting more hits on the rubber Ultimus eels than I have been even on my nice, fresh real eels rigged....go figure! If I had my way, I'd wish they all ate the rubber ones, they are much easier to care for, you can stick them in a bag and leave them in the truck, they don't rot, they don't go bad. Encounters with a few real tiny rat bastage bluefish shortened up a about 6 real rigged eels between Paul, Charlie, and myself...God I hate those little La Machines! Perfect conditions last night, but no fishing for me, it was wife appreciation night. Maybe tonight, we'll see. Now for the rant...no really, more of an observation. Friday's page got some folks really thinking about the state of the striper here in NJ....it ain't good. Also, folks from other states chimed in about the things they've noticed as well. Bottom line, you can read tons and tons about it on  , these sort of discussions always get some folks really hot. I don't blame them, we are trusting the future of this great gamefish to people who are only interested in them for their worth dead, they are worth so much more alive! One recent report I've read compared the total economic benefit of all commercial fishing versus all recreational fishing for the year 1997. Both sides had about the same total $$ amounts, $24.4 billion commercial and $25.1 billion recreational...but the commercials had to kill (and this is just reported, probably 100% as much is not reported but wasted as bycatch!) 9.8 billion pounds  of fish whereas the recreational anglers had to kill 234 million pounds to generate even more economic impact. That makes recreational caught fish 4000% more valuable than commercially caught fish, that's 40 times more valuable recreationally! If there was a way to get the truth, the total amount of fish killed commercially, it would likely make recreationally caught fish 80 times more valuable. It's so sad, the most wasteful folks get to kill 40 times as many fish, who's running this show anyway? Certainly not the majority anymore. So, after all the discussion on bottom line is we need a change, we need an organization that will put the fish first. There is talk that the Coastal Conservation Association is the way to go, there is currently no NJ chapter. Or we need to have the "conservation" organizations in existence change their focus....and it all boils down to one thing, who's gonna do it?     

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent