StripersOnline.com - Surf Fishing Striped Bass Archives

The tease of Spring
February 16, 2004

Apparently, I didn't have as much to write about this past month as I had suspected I haven't done any kind of fishing in about four weeks...it feels like a lifetime. Winter usually isn't that tough on me, so long as it's not that lock yourself inside kind of cold that we've had so much of this winter. My heart goes out to you folks that live in Maine and Mass and even Rhode Island - you guys got some real cold this year I guess it's a pretty fair tradeoff though, you'll have better striped bass fishing than NJ will for all but about 6 weeks out of the year. I know I'd trade a longer, colder winter for some real, season long bass fishing around here. Winters just don't seem as long or as cold when you've had 8 solid months of real, honest striped bass to chase around at your leisure. It's not bad enough that the fish themselves no longer spend the whole season on our beaches like they did for decades, but now, once again, our state is trying to make it even tougher to even try to fish. NJ seems to love to fight the fishermen - we're an easy target. We're not easily organized...which should be no surprise, striper fishermen that had any access to the old school are inherently loners. As a group, we're easily manipulated - get the same folks that gives us the fishing reports we live on to tell us to be angry at something and we'll not only believe it, but will ignore even what we see with our own eyes. Oh yea, and unless it's shiny with glitter on it, we're also very cheap NJ started making it difficult to smile when they started burying our beaches almost 10 years ago...but nature was there to quickly reclaim much of them. Then they started to rip up and cut all the jetties so they were no longer accessible from shore Prior to the jetty destruction, everything they had done was just temporary damage...cutting the jetties was permanent. Still, we fished. Ten times the anglers crammed into 1/20th the space chasing 1/10th as many fish...but we fished. Then just this past week, another serious blow was silently administered - the Coast Guard at Sandy Hook erected a fence that goes from the end of Fishermen's Trail into the water. There will be no more access to anything west of the cove at the end of the trail - no more fishing The Rip, no more fishing the Bug Light area...and as soon as the notion strikes them with Plover fever, they'll close off the beach to the east of Fishermen's Trail There's a thread on SurfTalk with much discussion and lots of directions on how you can get involved - it's titled "Goodbye to the Sandy Hook Rip" - if everyone makes an effort to get involved, we can win this one...but it's going to take getting involved.

Our friends in Delaware are currently fighting another major battle - the Indian River Inlet/Turbine battle! Seems UEK Corporation of MD and UEK-Delaware are proposing to place a series of bi-directional hydroturbines suspended right in the middle of Indian River Inlet. In fact, they are planning on installing not just a single pair of turbines, but 28 pairs in a string! Here's a turbine manufacturing company looking to make millions of dollars generating electricity by potentially destroying the most spectacular fishery in Delaware! One more example of a company willing to destroy a precious and fantastic inlet for their own pocket books. These turbines are enormous - I can only imagine the physical size of a string of 28 pairs of these things hanging high up in the water column. As is required by law, before a travesty of this magnitude is allowed to take place, there is going to be a public meeting - this is a very important meeting! Even if you do not wish to speak at the meeting, it is imperative that you go with your fellow fishermen to be seen and counted! The meeting is this Wednesday night at 7p, at Lord Baltimore Elementary School - Route 26, Ocean View, Delaware. There's a thread on SurfTalk if you have any questions or need directions - it's titled "IRI is threatened" - please, if you can make it, grab a buddy or two and go to the meeting - you won't have to speak, but you need to be there! Ask them to address the physical size of these turbines - how deep will they be - will fishing still be allowed - can they guarantee that fishing will always be allowed - how do these turbines impact the inlet during storms - what level of noise will they produce - how will that noice level increase as the turbines wear - what peer reveiwed research has been done on the environmental impact? So many questions...anyone at the meeting should get answers to these questions. Someone should tape record the meeting.

It seems there's always something trying to get in the way of our fishing, doesn't it? Has it always been that way? I don't remember so many obstacles to surf fishing even in the mid-80s. But then again, that's back when I still believed that the government protects us from corporations trying to maximize profits at the cost of pollution, unsafe products and irresponsible use of national treasures like IRI. I believed then that the folks managing our fisheries knew what was best and were working to make sure there were more and bigger fish for us to catch. And I believed everything I read in the Asbury Park Press and Newark Star Ledger fishing sections like they were gospel. I can tell you one thing, it's much, much easier to just believe in all those things than to consider the ugly reality of the truth

On to happier things...like Spring! We had our first taste of it in this area just last week...temps in the upper 40's during the day...even one day in the 50s! Boy that was nice! It's nice just to go outside and not have every breath sting your lungs and burn your nose :-) The forecast was so nice for this past Saturday that Phil L and I even attempted to go toggin'...but the reality of the weathermen bagged that trip when the forecast 10-15kt west winds were already blowing 23kt and gusting to 28kt by 7am. We're working out the details now on opening up a season for weathermen who seem to be working entirely against fishermen - it'll be a long season, no bag limits There's always the reports of continued miserable ling fishing to get excited about ;-) One of the most abundant, reliable winter time critters, it's almost unbelievable that in the past 3 or 4 years, ling catches are counted on your fingers instead of by the bucket. Whiting used to be the winter time staple for our party boat fleets...try to find one these days. Is it just me...or does everything seem to always come back to some problem with our fisheries? :-) It's probably just me...maybe I love fishing that much that each time something disappears I have a hard time with it? Maybe we all take our fisheries too much for granted? I look at Shark River with 5 fyke nets in there all winter long taking every flounder that dares to move - and then look at the flounder season being closed for recreational angling from 1/1 through 3/15. By the time flounder season opens in mid March, the one single commercial fishermen in Shark River with 5 (some years 6) fyke nets has already removed the flounder that were wintering over in there. Flounder don't migrate into Shark River in the spring, they come in the fall. By the time you and I are allowed to grab a rod and catch flounder in there, they simply aren't there. And yet every spring people seem to be shocked - "Where are the flounder?" To me it's astounding that the 3 or 4 tackle shops that rely on that winter/early spring flounder fishing for business have not taken up arms about the fyke nets - it's a tiny river, it's 3/4 dry at low tide...but the fyke nets remain year after year. Is that just weird to me or is that kinda stuff weird to everyone? Maybe it is just me :-)

One thing I'm very much enjoying is my new 120 gallon saltwater aquarium I set up recently. It's still in the early stages of development, but I do so much look forward to having a little window into the habits of some of our saltwater friends :-) Right now there's primarily just some critters in there that were in my crab trap when I pulled it up for the last time this year...but I'm waiting on info about some permits from the state so I can put a couple little representatives of a few different local species in there. Until then, the couple white leggers, green crabs, tarantula crabs and mud crabs will keep the half dozen sticklebacks and 20-30 grass shrimp on their toes

One last thing...I almost forgot - Vinny, you are not only a handsome man, but a powerful one as well. That oughta be enough affirmation to carry you through till the next page