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Delmarva Fishin' Reports - May 2018

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Fished Sat and Sun on MD AI and nada, few take down hits but that was it.  Not even a skate or ray was landed.  Didn't even bother fishing on Monday.  Felt like someone flicked the bite switch to off, same sentiments from others out there.

 

Not the stripper/blue run I was soo looking forward to.

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I was down over the weekend, fished iri pretty hard at night.

Friday early am a short striper.

Sat night one short.

Sunday night the water looked good, big waves and warmer water. But no fish.

 

Going back down friday night, hopefully something changes.

20180525_050852.jpg

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Quite simple....LY needs significant reduction in allotment, strippers need to stop being drift netted. Pound net or hook and line only.  Lastly, there should be a coast wide slot all year from SC to Maine with a tag allotment for 1 maybe 2 fish over a certain size.  For example...30"-36" legal, one or two tag(s) per person for anything over 45". Way to much pressure, limited year round food sources, crappy water, etc etc....there are just way too many negative factors influencing the stock

The problem with common sense is that it's not that common

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being as ive only been fishing in the salt for a few years im probably not the best person to gauge this years Run from years past...i did better than i did last year but im sure that has more to do with me being more experienced and putting more thought into what tides and baits i use..i sure as **** didnt have any 20+ fish days...The old timers all seem to think while there were good days here and there it wasnt how it used to be

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You guys aren't seeing stripers in numbers because they haven't been in the bay in numbers the last few years. I have been fishing trophy season on the bay for about 11 years now, and it has been steady decline for probably the last 6 years or so. When I first started fishing the bay we used to be able to catch a 3 man limit trolling only 4 or 5 rods without planer boards, and now I have not caught a single fish the last two seasons running planer boards and trolling twice as many rods. I have a friend that runs a charter boat out of the mid-bay area and we exchange intel once the season starts. Opening day there were roughly 30 charter boats that came back to the same marina without a single fish caught......I have never heard of anything even remotely close to that since I have been fishing the bay.

This isn't just my observations but just about everyone else's that I have talked to up and down the bay as well.

 

There was a little bit of a bite around the first and second weeks in May, but it was minimal at best. The spawning class stock just aren't here like they used to be. Don't know the exact reasons, but I suspect the numbers are lower than they were 5-10 years ago. I have also heard some theorizing recently that the spawning stock is staying further North and spawning more in the northern rivers, like the Delaware River and Hudson River and the fishery is trending more northward. Reports coming out of Raritan Bay during the end of April were very good and they were hammering them up there at the time when they are typically supposed to be spawning in the Chesapeake, so maybe there is something to that theory.  Don't mean to sound like the party pooper but something has definitely changed.

Edited by Hollywood9s
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Maybe something to do with lack of fish this past week. Right off the beach in Fenwick.

*

Edited by TimS
Please don't post links to commercial sites here - thanks :-)
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8 hours ago, Hollywood9s said:

You guys aren't seeing stripers in numbers because they haven't been in the bay in numbers the last few years. I have been fishing trophy season on the bay for about 11 years now, and it has been steady decline for probably the last 6 years or so. When I first started fishing the bay we used to be able to catch a 3 man limit trolling only 4 or 5 rods without planer boards, and now I have not caught a single fish the last two seasons running planer boards and trolling twice as many rods. I have a friend that runs a charter boat out of the mid-bay area and we exchange intel once the season starts. Opening day there were roughly 30 charter boats that came back to the same marina without a single fish caught......I have never heard of anything even remotely close to that since I have been fishing the bay.

This isn't just my observations but just about everyone else's that I have talked to up and down the bay as well.

 

There was a little bit of a bite around the first and second weeks in May, but it was minimal at best. The spawning class stock just aren't here like they used to be. Don't know the exact reasons, but I suspect the numbers are lower than they were 5-10 years ago. I have also heard some theorizing recently that the spawning stock is staying further North and spawning more in the northern rivers, like the Delaware River and Hudson River and the fishery is trending more northward. Reports coming out of Raritan Bay during the end of April were very good and they were hammering them up there at the time when they are typically supposed to be spawning in the Chesapeake, so maybe there is something to that theory.  Don't mean to sound like the party pooper but something has definitely changed.

I don't think many realize the commercial pressure from the bay bridge tunnel north to wallops every year.  I'm not talking a local small boat with one or two nets, these guys have fleets out of VA beach.  Long story short, all the fish we had been catching before 2013, those many 40" plus breeders... are all dead.  Maybe when they wipe them out completely, then someone will figure it out.  The thoughts have entered my mind that fishing for stripers will end soon pretty much, once things completely collapse again, it will be another 10 years or so before things begin to improve.  Not moving north, may pickup and head south in a few years.

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2 hours ago, JPO said:

Maybe something to do with lack of fish this past week. Right off the beach in Fenwick. *

saw that too, couple pilot wales feeding on bunker are not the issue... i saw a lot of bunker swimming last week with nothing on them for the most part

Edited by TimS
Facebook links are not allowed here - that's why that post was mod queued :-)
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9 hours ago, Hollywood9s said:

You guys aren't seeing stripers in numbers because they haven't been in the bay in numbers the last few years. I have been fishing trophy season on the bay for about 11 years now, and it has been steady decline for probably the last 6 years or so. When I first started fishing the bay we used to be able to catch a 3 man limit trolling only 4 or 5 rods without planer boards, and now I have not caught a single fish the last two seasons running planer boards and trolling twice as many rods. I have a friend that runs a charter boat out of the mid-bay area and we exchange intel once the season starts. Opening day there were roughly 30 charter boats that came back to the same marina without a single fish caught......I have never heard of anything even remotely close to that since I have been fishing the bay.

This isn't just my observations but just about everyone else's that I have talked to up and down the bay as well.

 

There was a little bit of a bite around the first and second weeks in May, but it was minimal at best. The spawning class stock just aren't here like they used to be. Don't know the exact reasons, but I suspect the numbers are lower than they were 5-10 years ago. I have also heard some theorizing recently that the spawning stock is staying further North and spawning more in the northern rivers, like the Delaware River and Hudson River and the fishery is trending more northward. Reports coming out of Raritan Bay during the end of April were very good and they were hammering them up there at the time when they are typically supposed to be spawning in the Chesapeake, so maybe there is something to that theory.  Don't mean to sound like the party pooper but something has definitely changed.

 

not to start a fight but you don't think that tons of boats fishing "trophy season" and killing all the breeders has no effect on the fish?

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11 hours ago, DEmaggIRI said:

being as ive only been fishing in the salt for a few years im probably not the best person to gauge this years Run from years past...i did better than i did last year but im sure that has more to do with me being more experienced and putting more thought into what tides and baits i use..i sure as **** didnt have any 20+ fish days...The old timers all seem to think while there were good days here and there it wasnt how it used to be

This spring bite has sucked, a sporadic unpredictable day here n there is weak.  The bite was awful everywhere too; rivers, bays, coast.

Edited by kurazy kracka
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