SPOT ON: A small but fun surfcasting quarry is in the suds, as Sherry Taddeo finds out twice over. Spot are a very come-and-go species that come on hard in certain years. They are taken as secondary catches on kingfish rigs. (Supplied Photo)
SMALLER IS NEW NORMAL: Over the weekend, a national news broadcast ran with a catchy story that the world’s fishes are getting smaller, literally littler. The story was almost singularly predicated on a drop in the average size of a single type of Alaskan salmon.
The overall decline in salmon size has actually been duly noted for years now. It only became prime news fodder when some expert or another attributed the size drop to, ta-da, climate change. Now you’re talking newsability, right? Wrong.
Even a modicum of solid research would show a highly demonstrable drop in the average fish size of most marketable fish species. It is not climate change at this point. Enter instead, the impacts from, of all things, fishery management.
Get this: An overall drop in average fish size is likely a sign of successful conservation – as in, a good thing.
We know that virtually all popular seafood species were long overfished, both commercially and recreationally. It was a dark period for many a fading fishery, even more so for larger fish that garnered bigger bucks, tuna being a perfect example. The most genetically gifted representatives of a species were quickly removed from the gene pool for later consumption.
As many a sought-after species neared the point of imminent collapse, sounder mankind minds stepped in with creative conservational thinking, leading to a now world-recognized – though not always followed – concept of sustainable fishing/harvesting.
In wiser parts of the world, like America and Canada, stringent fishery recovery plans have given suffering stocks a new lease on life, based primarily on allowing them to reach a certain degree of plentifulness. However, even the best management baselines – target points where a species’ biomass is considered relatively recovered – does not mean a return to the way fisheries once were, speaking in terms of average size. It means stocks are both healthy and plentiful enough to allow controlled harvesting by fishermen, though it concurrently spawns a reduced average size of the fish.
What does this mean to the angling record books? While the downsizing of average fish size, along with controlled fishing pressure, might lessen the chance of record-breaking fish, it doesn’t totally eliminate the possibility. A potential trophy fish might still reach its maximal growth, which is mainly based on longevity. That said, there is quite the minefield for it to navigate, net- and line-wise.
As to global warming holding average fish size down, it might very well throw a wrench into the best laid plans of mice and fishery management, someday. For now, mankind’s less vicarious impacts rule the size realm.
CLIMB ABOARD!: It’s high time to get out there and sign up for the 67th Annual LBI Fall Surf Fishing Tournament. The kickass “Classic” will begin Oct. 9, sharp! It will again run for nine solid cash-packed weeks, right up until Dec. 12, 2021. To steal a slogan: You got to play to win.
I’ll just take a minute to emphasize that the new striped bass slot regulation is a boon to Classic entrants of every ilk. You no longer need to be a striper sharpie or herring-swimming basser extraordinaire to reel in big winnings. Anyone besting a bass in the humble 28- to 37.99-inch range can be a grand prize winner, earning a cool gran. What’s more, everyday run-of-the-slot bass are instantly eligible for more prizes and cash than I can list here. The collection of winnings – along with the rules and what not – is listed in the paperwork you get when signing up. You can also go to lbifc.com, click on “Fall Classic” up top, then scroll down to “Rules and Regulations.”
I won’t wax overly poetic on the fall Classic’s kingfish angle except to say small has never looked so good – or so valuable. A single pound-or-so kingfish can land a cash prize, including $25 (65 daily prizes), $50 (nine weekly prizes), $250 (three segment prizes) or $500 (grand prize). There are also some special prizes for entered kings.
I’ll taunt the fishing gods by suggesting we just might see Classic-worthy bluefish this year, meaning fish of the enterable minimum length of 28 inches. The best of the blues can land a $1,000 grand prize.
Last year was the first tourney when nary a single so-called slammer blue came to the event’s scales. This year might very well end the bluesless streak. I base that on boat fishermen recently hooking some larger “gators” not that far out. Of course, such hoping springs infernal for me since blues are a personal favorite.
Another fish which will wax Classic are stripers. Yep, the fish that started it all will shine. There will be enough eligible linesiders a-swim to keep entrants hopping. Get ready to pull up a beach chair … and sit on the floor/sand. Slot bass will be very obliging, as will some jumbos, begging for their picture to be taken before release.
Bassers, please keep in mind that a striper coming in at exactly 38 inches is technically too large to qualify for the Classic. It’s also too large to legally keep.
Per the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife’s 2021 Marine Digest, the true size of a bass is measured with the tail pursed/squeezed. This sizing issue has loomed large, especially for Fish and Wildlife enforcement. Micromanage your measurements.
ALL-TIME TERRIBLE: I have to pass on a recent “all-time” Island happening … from bloodsucking hell. It centers on a despicable one-day black fly biting event that quickly rated as the worst anyone had ever seen … or felt.
As cringeworthy proof of the swarming event, photos of bare legs covered in stable flies got prime coverage upon social media landing points. A prime photo featured my very own legs under a biting fly attack like nothing they had undergone in the past. But the graphic pics couldn’t hold a flyswatter to an account offered by famed first-responder Deb W. who related an emergency call she covered. It’s almost too cringey to bear.
“Yesterday, we had a first aid call at 106th street for an 89-year-old man who simply wanted to walk to the beach. He was attacked so terribly by thousands of black flies, he rushed back, tripped and fell to the ground. By the time we got there, his whole body was covered in flies and the police and bystanders were trying frantically to protect him, to no avail. I have NEVER seen this that bad! We couldn’t get this man into the rig fast enough…”
Can you imagine surviving to that grand old age to almost be done in by biting flies!?
The rescue adds yet another dimension to the diehard dedication of first responders, who were also unmercifully swarmed under while rescuing the gent.
Trying to get a smile out of this bug thing, I think back to one of the most wonderfully weird – and buggiest – cartoon cells of all time. It was drawn by the incomparable George Booth, famed for his regular New Yorker cartoons, highlighting a bizarre life playing out in a rather Spartan downhome abode. A constant in Booth’s cartoons is a rather mangy, sometimes scratchy, pit-bull-like dog with a large biker-like leather collar – and enough silent character to almost carry a crazy scene all on his own.
Anyway, the cartoon shows an older, overweight, obviously passive gentleman sitting somewhat forlornly on a veranda chair, sporting a black bow tie, baggy clothing, his hands on his knees. There’s an older gal entering the frame with a tray of iced tea, with the man casually remarking, “The bugs got your little drop-leaf table.”
And off to the side, the seated dog is facing away, looking up at the table, barely discernible on the distant skyline.
Now, whenever I hear any bug attack story, I can’t help but picture this fellow and the dog sitting there calmly allowing the bugs to swarm the table, lift it up, and fly off with it, never moving an inch. Hey, you had to be there, or maybe Google, “flies carry off drop-leaf table.”
By the by, I’m in the market if anyone has the original New Yorker with that cartoon.
RUNDOWN: I’m going a bit astray this rundown by offering what has come into my cast-net. It hints at what is out there.
So, I’m idly staring into the inlet water at Holgate, cast net at the ready, awaiting any mullet movement, when I catch this off-color patch of water in my peripheral vision. Not wanting to lose focus – the peer point where you’ve homed in on a specific place in the water column – I ignored it. It wasn’t until the brownish patch entered my focal zone that I realized it was a super slew of small cow-nosed stingrays.
I’ll rehash that the stingray presence we’re seeing in recent years is new here, going back centuries. I have read news and historic accounts about fishing in NJ back to Native American times. I have seen no mention of a massive stingray ray presence. And they would have been talked about because there is much written about lookalike skates.
Making quite the net showing are tiny kingfish. This bodes well for the future presence of this favorite table fare species, now a prize worthy in the Classic. Back in the Fifties, my dad used to faithfully fish them, though they soon went missing, about the same time commercial shrimping in the West Atlantic became big business.
Also showing their spots are … spots. These smaller bay and shoreline panfish come and go based on, well, who knows. They just do. Spot are not heavily harvested, per se, though they also succumb to shrimp netters. While they are as good a striped bass bait as it gets, the current heavy presence of bluefish makes them dead ducks before bass sniff them out.
As to bluefish showing in the cast net, it’s almost like the good old bluefish days. They’re everywhere, from tiny to snapper-sized.
Filling out the cast net are small blowfish, also aplenty. What a returned fishery! jaymann@thesandpaper.net
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