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Cape Cod fishing report/update

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flyfishvt

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3 mins ago, Jim McFeeley said:

Your logic is only looking at one small area of where striped bass live and migrate too. Striped bass are not constantly being hunted by seals in most areas  in there migration route. Seals are on the cape because of the abundance of bait/ forage fish. People are the reason for the striped bass  population being low.  ONLY PEOPLE . NOT SEALS . NOT SHARKS. 

 

You have no proof. No one is pumping the stomach contents of seals. They just seem to multiply. I have stated they are part of the problem. Not the exact problem. The bait fish that they do eat which I also cited in my post in this op was already over fished commercially so that compounds the problem.  Really sharks do not pose a threat to the fishery. Again no one is taking stomach contents to identify the menu. Strange the many stripers I have caught were full to the gills keyed on a certain fish, eels, sea lances, peanuts and I can go on and on. Yet the very premise of an out of control seal population couldn't contribute to the plight of the striper is far from intelligent. Your ignorance on this subject is perverse. Everything in the food chain is related. Those Great Whites did not just show up with out a reason. That would be the menu of seal, striper, bluefish and whatever they fancy. Man is always a part of any problem. The smartest solution is to investigate all possible causation and rule them in and out. To dismiss all relative factors is careless.  That is why they call it management.

In a single year the Great White Shark eats 11 tons of food. So if  20 Great whites come to the Cape for 6 mos they would consume 110 tons of food. What percent of that is striper?

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Is this an equable and fair system for recs and commercial fishermen?

 

A 55 lbs. striped bass measures 51 inches on the charts. I will use that as the standard benchmark in both cases.

My calculations are based on 51 inches being every inch equals one unit. It's possible a commercial angler could also catch a longer fish increasing their range and success rate over 51 inches.

 

Here's the examples.

 

Recreational -  Limit regulations, 28"-35",  that's 8 units of range over 51 units = 15.6 % success rate

Commercial -   Limit regulations 35" and over, that's 17 units of range over 51 units = 33.3 % success rate

 

That means commercial guys have twice the spread, or two times the range, or two time the chances of keeping a striper than recs.

Every striper over 35 inches is probably a egg laying spawning female, the healthiest in her class removed from do so. Gone are 5 million eggs. Who removes them? ... only commercial people right now.

Commercial guys get to take 5 stripers on the days they get to fish in RI. Recreational anglers 1.

I know of commercial guys who hold MA commercial license can take 15 stripers a day @35 inches or greater.

If you do both states, you could almost fish a full week.

On their non commercial days they can  also become recreational anglers, limit one fish.   

Just something to dwell on!

 

 

Edited by Capt.Castafly

Nothing flies by me without a hook!
If my fly is down, That's a good thing.

Public Access.....It's a shore thing. My daily requirement of "Vitamin Sea".


Capt. Ray Stachelek

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I filmed a seal among a big school of bass and was surprised to see the bass not only didn't seem threatened by it, but they followed it and hung around it. I haven't seen videos of seals happily swimming around great whites.

 

Maybe I could see a seal getting one spaced out bass every now and then (I've filmed enough bass to see the ones that appear totally pre-occupied), but I believe seals are smart enough to know that every once in a while they'll get a free meal of a hooked/wounded/released fish, rather than banking their lives on catching them free-swimming with any frequency and ease to sustain the balance of effort vs. calories. The video below should start when the seal enters:

 

 

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5 mins ago, Ambergris said:

I filmed a seal among a big school of bass and was surprised to see the bass not only didn't seem threatened by it, but they followed it and hung around it. I haven't seen videos of seals happily swimming around great whites.

 

Maybe I could see a seal getting one spaced out bass every now and then (I've filmed enough bass to see the ones that appear totally pre-occupied), but I believe seals are smart enough to know that every once in a while they'll get a free meal of a hooked/wounded/released fish, rather than banking their lives on catching them free-swimming with any frequency and ease to sustain the balance of effort vs. calories. The video below should start when the seal enters:

 

 

Nice video.... Keep an eye on your friends, keep a closer eye on your enemies.  Notice they are following danger, maybe alert the fish in front knowing where he is?  When he turns around, watch them scatter. Great footage!

Nothing flies by me without a hook!
If my fly is down, That's a good thing.

Public Access.....It's a shore thing. My daily requirement of "Vitamin Sea".


Capt. Ray Stachelek

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One possible suggestion for rec catch ( that would include charter fishing) is that is that once you keep a fish, you are done for the day, period, akin to some atlantic salmon fisheries.  From what I have read, the "recreational" C&R mortality is due to:  Baitfishing without circle hooks and "high-grading", prior to the slot, folks would keep their 28" fish and then get a bigger fish and dump the smaller fish over the side.  Slip & Slide- the worst behavior I see releasing fish tends to be young guys who have just taken up fishing.   I will not seek to rationalize or justify  the way I go about my fishing beyond that.

Edited by titleguy

I would ******* LOVE a grave blanket. icon14.gif
 

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Just to add a lot of charters allow the Capt and Mate to keep 1 catch each for the client or “ boat catch “additional to their catch Now is that fair to the amount of 

catches total ? 

Edited by Hook I

  If it has fins i want to catch it 

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11 hours ago, Jim McFeeley said:

We have scientific proof at least an idea of how many fish recs and commercial take. You sir are the one who has no proof except a seal eating your fish on the end of your line. 

If a Great White eats 11 tons of food per year and 20 Great White visit Cape cod for half a year that is 110 tons of food.

Now lets say at a min. 50% is seal meat. That is 55 tons of seal meat. Should the seal colony see a decline or incline in population that year? What makes up the 55 tons that is not seal meat? Lobster? Maybe striper, bluefish?

Now a 400lb seal eats up to 25lb of food daily. Say a population of 400 seals would eat 10,000lbs approx 5 tons of food. Wait a population of 400 seals could eat up to 5 tons of food daily. Are there 400 seals along the Mass coastline? Sure not every seal is 400lbs. Lets estimate 4 tons daily for the month of June. That is 120 tons of food in a month. So seals in 1 month eat as much as 20 Great Whites in 6 months.

 

You keep talking proof but crickets. I never said anything more than which I witnessed. I suggest looking at all causes and determining a cause. The above estimations are not an exact number as females during pregnancy eat far more. I did not add that in. So explain to me how seals don't tax the biomass and contribute to the peril of the stripe?

Edited by flydog777
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22 mins ago, flydog777 said:

If a Great White eats 11 tons of food per year and 20 Great White visit Cape cod for half a year that is 110 tons of food.

 

:eek: Do they really eat that much?

 

I guess so, just looked it up.

 

Edited by DAQ

Embrace American Privilege

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On 7/6/2020 at 10:34 PM, flydog777 said:

In a single year the Great White Shark eats 11 tons of food. 
 

This seems like an internet inaccuracy (crazy right?)...I saw that on “how stuff works” as well.

The Tasmanian study released in 2013 showed a 2000 pound great white eats approx 150# a month, which was 3-4 times as much as was previously thought. This sounds a bit low to me, although I have heard they go a long time without eating after a large meal. 11 tons a year seems absurdly high.

Edited by triumph19
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18 mins ago, triumph19 said:
On 7/6/2020 at 10:34 PM, flydog777 said:

In a single year the Great White Shark eats 11 tons of food. 
 

Where are you getting this statistic?

From books- scientific journals

 

The great white shark diet seems to be as diverse as they come. These carnivorous creatures prey upon fish, such as tuna, rays, and other sharks, as well as cetaceans, which are dolphins, porpoises, and whales. They are also known to attack pinnipeds such as seals, fur seals, and sea lions, as well as sea turtles, sea otters, and seabirds. Great white shark pups will predominantly feed on fish since their jaws are not wrong enough to withstand the forces required to attack large animals such as seals and whales. Once they grow to about three meters in length, their jaw cartilage begins to strengthen, and can begin to withstand the forces mentioned before. Once they grow to about four meters in length, the great white shark diet begins to expand. They will begin to target marine mammals for food since they prefer prey will high contents of fat.

 

How much do sharks eat in a day?

Some sharks seem to eat all the time. For example, the Great White Shark is always on the hunt: in a year it eats 11 tons of food! (An average person eats more like half a ton of food per year). The Blue Shark is a glutton: it will eat until it regurgitates, and then go right back to eating. Most sharks eat a meal every couple of days. If necessary, though, they can go for a few weeks without eating. Like people and most other animals, sharks can store extra energy as fat, for use later when food is limited.

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10 hours ago, Ambergris said:

I filmed a seal among a big school of bass and was surprised to see the bass not only didn't seem threatened by it, but they followed it and hung around it. I haven't seen videos of seals happily swimming around great whites.

 

Maybe I could see a seal getting one spaced out bass every now and then (I've filmed enough bass to see the ones that appear totally pre-occupied), but I believe seals are smart enough to know that every once in a while they'll get a free meal of a hooked/wounded/released fish, rather than banking their lives on catching them free-swimming with any frequency and ease to sustain the balance of effort vs. calories. The video below should start when the seal enters:

 

Pretty common mobbing behavior, like tarpon do with bull sharks. When conditions become optimal for the seal or shark...maybe low light, turbid water, etc....the game changes.

Amazing footage

Edited by triumph19
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54 mins ago, triumph19 said:

 

The Tasmanian study released in 2013 showed a 2000 pound great white eats approx 150# a month, which was 3-4 times as much as was previously thought. This sounds a bit low to me, although I have heard they go a long time without eating after a large meal. 11 tons a year seems absurdly high.

The great white is the largest predatory fish in the sea, a fact that no doubt helps to drive humans' fear of being eaten by one. The maximum length for a great white appears to be about 20 feet (6 meters). While the great white isn't the biggest shark (an honor that belongs to the whale shark), the only sharks that are bigger eat plankton and small schools of fish. The great white tips the scales at 4,500 pounds (2,041 kilograms).

 

With advanced tagging methods, scientists are now better able to follow the great white shark's movements. In 2004, scientists tracking a great white found that they might have a record holder on their hands: A great white shark swam from South Africa to Western Australia and back in just nine months [source: Carey­]. That's a one-way journey of 6,800 miles (10,944 kilometers)! Scientists think that this is one of the fastest long-distance speeds for a fish. They're still working out why she took the trip -- her food source was already ample in South Africa, and she wasn't mature enough to mate. While most migrating animals use the ocean floor to navigate, this shark primarily swam near the surface, perhaps to use the moon or the sun.

 

The Great White is an apex predator. This means it is a killing machine, the skills to hunt, the efficiency is by design. I think it is absurd that a 4500lb apex predator that travels vast distances can sustain leaps out of the water and only come to Cape Cod and subscribe to150lb a month diet..

 

 

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44 mins ago, flydog777 said:

The great white is the largest predatory fish in the sea, a fact that no doubt helps to drive humans' fear of being eaten by one. The maximum length for a great white appears to be about 20 feet (6 meters). While the great white isn't the biggest shark (an honor that belongs to the whale shark), the only sharks that are bigger eat plankton and small schools of fish. The great white tips the scales at 4,500 pounds (2,041 kilograms).

 

With advanced tagging methods, scientists are now better able to follow the great white shark's movements. In 2004, scientists tracking a great white found that they might have a record holder on their hands: A great white shark swam from South Africa to Western Australia and back in just nine months [source: Carey­]. That's a one-way journey of 6,800 miles (10,944 kilometers)! Scientists think that this is one of the fastest long-distance speeds for a fish. They're still working out why she took the trip -- her food source was already ample in South Africa, and she wasn't mature enough to mate. While most migrating animals use the ocean floor to navigate, this shark primarily swam near the surface, perhaps to use the moon or the sun.

 

The Great White is an apex predator. This means it is a killing machine, the skills to hunt, the efficiency is by design. I think it is absurd that a 4500lb apex predator that travels vast distances can sustain leaps out of the water and only come to Cape Cod and subscribe to150lb a month diet..

 

 

Apex predator classification means it’s near the top of the food chain... btw GW’s are preyed on by orcas. The study spoke of a 2000 lb specimen and like I said 150 lbs a month sounds low to me too, but you can look up the study like I did. 

11 tons a year sounded very inaccurate to me and I’m pretty sure it is. 1 ton crocs leap out of the water and have incredible bursts of power and energy and often go months without eating...sometimes a year and then gorge (not on multiple tons, though). Migrating sharks expend little energy with efficient movement and hydrodynamic form thereby not requiring a “refuel” as often as you may think.

Edited by triumph19
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4 mins ago, triumph19 said:

Apex predator classification means it’s near the top of the food chain... btw GW’s are preyed on by orcas. The study spoke of a 2000 lb specimen and like I said 150 lbs a month sounds low to me too, but you can look up the study like I did. 

11 tons a year sounded very inaccurate to me and I’m pretty sure it is. 1 ton crocs leap out of the water and have incredible bursts of power and energy and often go months without eating...sometimes a year and then gorge (not on multiple tons, though). Migrating sharks expend little energy with efficient movement and hydrodynamic form. 

It has been my understanding that Great Whites are next to impossible to study. They are very elusive. Matter of factually their mating habits and mating grounds are secretive. No Great White has been successfully placed in captivity for longer than 6 months. The study to which a tag was placed which observed strange and unusual distances and traveling habits have also baffled theories of a higher intelligence. There have been other sharks tagged and those sharks were attacked. So in the limited number of studies and availability of information I used the information which was available. Seeing as my information has peaked your interest. What factual information on great Whites do you have? I did not mention anything pertaining to a crocodile which is a reptile or Orca's which are dolphins.

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