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What Was It Like In the Days Just Before the Moratorium?

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Big Dipper

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And do you think we're heading toward those days once again?

 

No....not with the ASMFC trigger mechanisms that are in place

 

You shouldnt have to wait too long as it looks like things are going in that direction and you will be able to see for yourself...

 

Not......wishful thinking on the radical rec side to justify their corner on the fishery......

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:mad:No moratorium needed ,people will stop fishing ,because there will be not enough incentive to spend all night and get skunked time after time,or take the boat out and spend $100s in gas and get little in return. These things will take care of themselves. BTW I was there when the moratorium took place in NY. Couldn't catch a decent fish for a long time.:mad:

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What state are you referring to? In Ma, we never had a moratorium.

 

NJ never had a moratorium. I think NY,CT and RI may have. MD had one

 

Within two years of the RI no possession bag limit (1983-85), there were plenty of fish to be caught (because the 1982 ASMFC regs/ RIDEM regs); basically the regs protected the spawning class of 1982-85. In other words, the dire predictions by doomsayers in the 1980's never came to pass......these days, it sounds like " deja vu, all over again".....

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...the dire predictions by doomsayers in the 1980's never came to pass.....

 

Like hell they didn't. I grew up fishing LIS and Nantucket during the 1980's - thousands of hours spent on the sand with a bunker chunk or atom popper in the water in front of me. I could count on one hand the number of striped bass I saw before 1990. It was a bluefish infested wasteland around here for more than a decade.

I've done stuff I ain't proud of, and the stuff I am proud of is disgusting.

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Like hell they didn't. I grew up fishing LIS and Nantucket during the 1980's - thousands of hours spent on the sand with a bunker chunk or atom popper in the water in front of me. I could count on one hand the number of striped bass I saw before 1990. It was a bluefish infested wasteland around here for more than a decade.

 

You WATCH YOUR MOUTH! I'd give a limb for a bluefish infested wasteland! Maybe not a limb, but a lure or two

#1 white bucktail. #2 bunker chunk. #3 bone Redfin

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Like hell they didn't. I grew up fishing LIS and Nantucket during the 1980's -

 

Upper Providence River...1988....2 of us, 4 hours, 75 bass on live menhaden....IN A BOAT...and that is for real....and released every one of them alive.....same thing at Watch HIll that summer(boat/ menhaden)

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Originally Posted by makaha View Post

Upper Providence River...1988....2 of us, 4 hours, 75 bass on live menhaden....IN A BOAT...and that is for real....and released every one of them alive.....same thing at Watch HIll that summer(boat/ menhaden)


 



A single story from the 1980s saying otherwise...I'm convinced!


"I can still count tony romo's career playoff wins on one hand"
-Jason Pierre Paul

 

"Folks, I'm so white, during the riots I went out and bought a television."

-Bobby Hill

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It didn't matter if the your state didn't have one the effects were seen first hand in all states. During that time years we fished alot with no bass maybe a very very rare short at mv. Things are going that way just before it was great fishing with endless bass being taken I was very young and didn't quite understand what was unfolding but my father did his best to explain it and that's why I am mainly c & r. If you do not educate yourself your part of the problem.

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I wrote a little about the moratorium in my book because it covers the years immediately before, during, and after the moratorium. My perspective is from the Rhode Island surfcasting viewpoint. The first indication we had that something was wrong is when most of the bass we caught were all over 15 pounds when normally a majority of our bass were under that weight. There were very few under 15 and nothing at all under 5 pounds for a few seasons. However, there was still isolated schools of large bass in certain areas (like Block Island for example) – the fishermen (especially commercial) in those areas kept saying there wasn’t a problem, but surf fisherman knew better as it was they who felt the effects first and foremost.

 

The good fishing for cow sized bass on the Cape in the early 80s and Block in the mid-80s was basically fishing on the “last of the buffalo”. Those large fish got pounded but fortunately enough were left and protected by the more stringent regulations. These fish had a few successful spawns to help begin the stock rebuilding process that kept the species viable.

 

That said, in my opinion fishing is not as bad now as it was in the 1980s – yet. But you have to factor in that now boat fishermen have the technical capability with modern electronics to find every last bass. In contrast surfcasting remains the most rudimentary method to find and take striped bass. It is the surfcaster who is the “canary in the coal mine”, it is he who feels the effects of less bass first and it could be a harbinger of things to come.

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A single story from the 1980s saying otherwise...I'm convinced!

Uhh, no.... that started a trend that led to the large numbers of fish that became available to everyone in the 90's and 2000's; I know many BOAT FISHERMEN in my neck of the woods who were just as successful with the numbers of bass I mentioned.....it was because at that time (1983-88),there was no bass possession in RI (and other areas), there was no pressure on them from both the recreational and commercial side, so the fishery started to expand.....it wasn't until the large numbers of bass were being caught (when the bag limit was increased to 1 fish/day then eventually to 2 fish/day in the late 90's, early 2000's), and the explosive pressure brought on by the large number of people (charter/ private) fishing for the species that brought on the biomass decline that is now happening.......

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Quote:

Originally Posted by makaha View Post

Uhh, no.... that started a trend that led to the large numbers of fish that became available to everyone in the 90's and 2000's; I know many BOAT FISHERMEN in my neck of the woods who were just as successful with the numbers of bass I mentioned.....it was because at that time (1983-88),there was no bass possession in RI (and other areas), there was no pressure on them from both the recreational and commercial side, so the fishery started to expand.....it wasn't until the large numbers of bass were being caught (when the bag limit was increased to 1 fish/day then eventually to 2 fish/day in the late 90's, early 2000's), and the explosive pressure brought on by the large number of people (charter/ private) fishing for the species that brought on the biomass decline that is now happening.......


 



What about the biomass in the 80s?  Was that just made up....Nope, it wasn't.  The fishery needed a moratorium.  Believe in the ASMFC all you want, they haven't stopped fisheries from getting destroyed before, and they won't in the future.


"I can still count tony romo's career playoff wins on one hand"
-Jason Pierre Paul

 

"Folks, I'm so white, during the riots I went out and bought a television."

-Bobby Hill

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