October 16, 2023 • 25 mins
The numbers speak for themselves, and they paint a concerning picture. Recent data reveals a significant decline in the Chesapeake striped bass stock. Yet, an often overlooked fact is the thriving Hudson Striped Bass Stock, which is currently experiencing record highs.
Given the alarming situation in the Chesapeake, the Striped Bass Management Board is poised to take severe measures. Unfortunately, this typically translates to restrictions for the recreational angler.
Currently, New York's coastline is buzzing with anglers catching an impressive number of large bass, a sight I haven't witnessed in my three and a half decades in fisheries management. Meanwhile, the board convenes today to determine their next steps.
New York's anglers have been diligent, taking necessary actions to safeguard the Hudson Striped Bass fishery. Their efforts, from conserving menhaden to regulating commercial quotas and transitioning away from J hooks, have clearly paid off in ensuring the fish's survival upon release.
Given these distinct scenarios, should we consider managing these fisheries as two separate entities? It seems only just that New York's anglers enjoy the fruits of their labor without bearing the brunt of Chesapeake's challenges.
It's undeniable: the majority of the bass in the Bight each year are migrating to the Hudson. This flourishing fishery is essentially under a de facto moratorium due to the minimal slot size permitted for catches.
We've upheld our end of the bargain; now, let us fish. It's crucial to acknowledge and reward anglers for their commitment to reviving New York's striped bass fishery.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
George Scocca (00:00):
This is George Scocca and you're listening to
the New York Fishing Podcast.
For those of you that havelistened to me in the past, I
talk a lot about fisheriesmanagement.
This is in reference tobreaking news that happened this
week that's kind of gone underthe radar, and that is that the
(00:23):
juvenile striped bass index inMaryland is showing a really bad
trend.
There is no getting around itthat fishery in the Chesapeake
is witnessing some of itstoughest times.
For those of you that listenedto this podcast, you know I
(00:45):
often say there's one thingthat's missing in every piece
and part of fisheries managementand that's common sense.
There's just no common sense inany of it and I'm going to show
you just a little bit aboutthat right here and now.
I can't get to.
I'm not going to get really toodeep and get into any of these
(01:09):
different acronyms because it'sprobably 50 or 100 of them.
I'm going to try and lay it outin layman's terms For those of
you striped bass fishermen whowant to fish for striped bass
next year, because what's beingdiscussed behind closed doors
right now and actually some ofthe doors are open and that's
what's got me very concerned isa total moratorium, probably
(01:36):
until sometime in June Total nocatch and release, no targeted
fishery whatsoever, being thatthey label us a 9% mortality
rate, which I'm going to justtouch in a few minutes.
Because that number again, ifyou put a little bit of common
(01:59):
sense behind it, you know thenumber is incorrect, yet it's
still being used.
So when I talk about commonsense, first thing I want to
talk about is the striped bassfishery, the entire management
plan, and in fact this goes forjust about every single fishery
there is, or a very heavycommercially fished fishery, and
(02:24):
that would be.
We regulate these fish in pounds, not fish.
So I want you to think aboutthat for a minute.
Do we, as recreational anglers,care, like about pounds A fish?
Do we count our overall poundsof fish or do we care about the
(02:50):
size of each individual fish wecatch?
And what is pounds got to dowith fish?
I mean, isn't it the number offish we're trying to save?
I never got it.
I'm sure I got to be missingsomething, but no one has ever
explained to me why all of thesefisheries.
(03:11):
When we look at young of theyear indexes, we're looking at
numbers, we're not looking atpounds.
Yet Then we turn around, wetake those numbers, we
extrapolate numbers, we make itharder to predict what's going
to happen, and then we spit outthese crazy management
(03:34):
regulations.
So one of the things that'salways bugged me, and it's
always going to until it'saddressed and it should be
addressed and I'm really notsure why it's not and that is
the bycatch mortality of 9%,which is, you know, they claim
(04:03):
that the fish that we catch,right, every striped bass, just
so you understand what thismeans you catch a striped bass,
you let it go.
Nine, one out of 10, or 9%, aregoing to die, so it's a little
under one out of 10.
I have been pushing that back.
It was a study.
(04:24):
Let me tell you now.
Look, here's the common sense,think about it.
So that study was done.
I don't know.
It was 1995 that that study wasdone on catch release.
Think about what the fishery wasin 1995.
Many of you guys weren't evenfishing it then, or, gals, you
(04:45):
weren't even fishing for stripedbass back then.
I mean, I was and I could tellyou it was.
It was a lot different than itis today.
You did everything you could doto catch a striped bass.
I mean you would use lieblackfish.
It was legal.
Back in your it was probablybefore the 90.
They might have made thatillegal I don't know the exact
(05:06):
dates, but back in the old daythat's what we did.
We use every tactic on the sun.
Remember, we didn't have theelectronics we have today.
So you know we did what we hadto do to catch fish was all
legal within the law.
But let's face it, there were alot of good hook fish there were
.
You know, there was clamchumming, which, as we all know
(05:29):
what that turns into.
So over the years we wereeducated and we became very
cognizant of the fact thatstriped bass needed to be taken
care of when we release them.
You just can't catch them andgive them a, you know, a double
back flip when you throw themback in the water.
(05:51):
So people started realizingthat.
And then, you know, I owned afishing magazine for 30 some odd
years.
So I know what anglers weredoing and I've been here and
lived through this change.
No one could tell me it didn'thappen.
It happened.
So back then we'll say, okay,it's 9%.
(06:11):
I still don't even believethose, those tests.
But that's okay For the sake ofargument.
All right, it showed, it showed9%.
Now again, I'm making thisstory short.
I'm sorry if it sounds long,but it I'm making it short.
So you know, the internet is agreat thing and the introduction
(06:33):
of AI is another great thing,and it manages to find things
for you that are very hard tofind.
Yet I somehow found this studythat was conducted.
It was a 1300 fish study with1300 fish caught in all
different water taps and thiswas down to Maryland, and these
were striped bass and they weretargeted by Jay hooks and then
(06:58):
they were targeted by circlehooks, something that we have
today.
We use circle hooks, obviously.
It showed that deep hooking wasreduced by 81% 81% over the J
hook on a gut fish.
On a gutted fish, it showedthat there was a 76% reduction
(07:25):
in mortality.
Ok, so now that's like 2, 3.
I don't know, I don't even knowwhat it is, but every
percentage point, one point, isa huge number.
It's a huge number.
I mean, if you look at this,they're always like every chart.
You see, they make sure to putthe recreational fishing release
mortality number in there, andit's always huge.
(07:48):
But it's not right.
Sorry, I got to calm down.
It's incorrect.
Whether that's intentional, Idon't know, but it is incorrect,
literally.
I'm looking at it right now andit said that bigger fish were
(08:09):
more likely to be deep hooked.
Odds of dying were 15 timeshigher if the striped bass was
hooked with a J hook.
So last week, if you listened tomy podcast with John McMurray
and if you haven't, you probablyshould he knows striped bass
well.
He and I we've been around theups and downs of this fishery
(08:35):
and we discussed various thingsabout the fishery.
Definitely you wouldn't want tohear that piece of it.
So anyway, no one listens tothis.
What I'm telling you right now?
I'm beating a dead horse.
I have discuss this over andover and over and this is just
(08:55):
top of the iceberg.
There I found over 14 studiesthat showed the use of circle
hooks with bait on striped basshave reduced mortality in those
fish.
You have reduced mortality inthose fisheries by 85%.
Now I'm bringing that upbecause we use them and you know
(09:19):
what we got for that?
Dots, we got balls.
That's what we got.
Ok, they gave us.
They give us nothing and, asJohn McMurray pointed out last
week, it's because they claimthey don't have a data point.
Maybe they don't, I don't know.
Maybe this study was.
I don't know.
(09:40):
I mean, it's literally.
I got it on the.
It's called a recreationalcatch and release mortality
research in Maryland.
It's from the state of Maryland.
I got a DNR Marylandgov.
So this is their stuff.
But OK, so forget about commonsense with how today the
(10:04):
mortality rates got me down over.
The last, I don't know, was at18 years you think we've been.
We have a different ethic now.
I can remember when Stripe Basswould gap and release.
In fact they had to.
You know, they had to put aregulation in on that.
I'm not saying it was all greatand I never did it, but people
(10:25):
did.
It wasn't illegal and I, youknow they would lip gap them and
all.
But even still, you don't seeany of that stuff anymore.
So I don't buy that number andbut that's a number we're stuck
with for now.
So here's another thing.
So here you're trying to savethis fishery and all of a sudden
(10:48):
last year there is an emergency, dire emergency.
We have to go to 28 to 31inches.
Essentially what they said, butno one heard, was you're going
down and catch and releasefishery Because you're allowed
to catch it.
A 28 to 31 inch fish areprobably I don't know 10%, 15%
(11:12):
maybe, and according to the areayou're on, 0%, 0%.
They're all going to be bigger.
So we got all these big fish,but for some reason, they want
to.
They see this emergency and I'mgoing to explain to you why
(11:33):
that is.
Next time is I want you to takea look.
We hear about the Y-O-Y in theChesapeake, right, so I want you
to take a look at the Y-O-Y inthe Hudson River.
Those are art fish.
(11:54):
No one can say that any of thestriped bass that are in the New
York bite in the spring aregoing anywhere, but up the
Hudson River.
These are not Chesapeake fish,these are Hudson River fish.
(12:14):
Now look at the Hudson Riverchart.
I believe it was 2020, 2021,that they had the fourth largest
Y-O-Y and if you look at thatfishery, it is at or above
target.
That's in spite of theso-called slaughter that we do
(12:35):
in the spring.
But now we're hearing that'sgonna get all shut down To save
the Chesapeake fish.
So here's my question.
This is what I'm leading up toand I hope you guys are getting
it and gals, here we are.
(12:58):
We're looking at the HudsonRiver fishery, which we don't
know the number, but themajority of those fish that we
catch and we fish here, andevery single one of those fish
in the spring are all HudsonRiver fish.
So why can't we fish them?
(13:18):
We've been fishing them and theHudson River is doing great.
Are we relying now on theHudson River to carry this
entire striped bass quota?
I don't know.
Maybe or we supposed to do allthe heavy lifting and hard work
(13:39):
while Chesapeake continues toallow 5 million pounds a year
and striped bass commerciallytargeted.
Even worse, over 120 millionpounds of men hated are pulled
out of the Chesapeake everysingle year.
That fishery is collapsingbecause it's been mismanaged.
(14:03):
If you look at theirregulations, they got an in and
an out.
They shut it down for a coupleof weeks, but if you look at
them, they have always caughtwhatever they wanted.
I'm doing this for 30 years.
I've sat at the table over andover and over.
Chesapeake always gets whatthey want they always have.
Now look, this is not a slide onChesapeake anglers.
(14:24):
I'm just saying the state hasput these regs in.
You guys haven't done the heavylifting.
You folks in Virginia.
You're allowing all those menhating to be pulled out of that
bag.
And now here we go again.
Common sense, believe it or not, in striped bass amendment that
(14:48):
came out recently.
It's discussed, it's still on atable that they wanna transfer
commercial quotas from one stateto the next.
You see, it's always something.
To give an example what thatmeans, let's say well, you got
(15:09):
New Jersey actually right.
They have a commercial quotathat they don't take.
So should they sell that then?
Because it's gonna be worthmoney.
They could transfer thatwherever they want.
Think about that.
So they're looking for moreways to take fish.
At the same time, they'retelling you that you are not
(15:33):
allowed to fish.
I think it's time that weseriously look at managing these
fisheries differently.
New York has time and againdone the heavy lifting, gone out
and did fought the fights thatwere not easy, and our
(15:57):
commercial fishery is not fivemillion pounds, it's a million
pounds and we don't allow.
Rather, all the fish are tagged.
So we know what's going on incommercial fishery here, while
at the same time, half of thefish coming out of Chesapeake
(16:20):
are all going to commercialfisheries.
Now, if they don't catch them,they want to transfer the quota.
So New York has saved the menhating.
You think that has something todo with why our striped bass
fishery is so healthy.
Come on folks.
You're on the water.
How healthy are those fish thatyou are seeing out there?
(16:44):
I mean these?
I've never seen so many bigfish ever in all the years I'm
doing this.
So, yeah, so let's talk aboutwhat New York has done to make
the Hudson what it is today.
Number one A there is nocommercial fishing.
There are no nets.
(17:05):
There are no gill nets, becauseremember those, that's a 50%
mortality.
Half the fish that are caughtat gill net that they can't keep
die, and I think the number ishigher.
But we'll leave it at that.
So we don't have that.
And that wasn't simple.
There is no commercial fisheryin the Hudson River period.
(17:31):
So we did that.
We saved our bunker, we keptthe reduction boats out of New
York waters and we saved all ofour bunker.
Look at what we have Whales anddolphins and more wildlife than
we have ever seen.
And that's because, again, wedid the heavy lifting that they
(17:53):
can't do down there and theycan't ever do it, because Omega
is out of Virginia and the Omegais the company that owns the
reduction menhaden fleet.
Have you ever heard such crazyname Reduction fleet.
Like they don't want us tofavor by reducing the amount of
(18:15):
bunker.
So, anyhow, new York has doneeverything it possibly can.
It was a time when we went fromone fish at 36 inches to two
fish at 28 inches.
Many people in New York opposedit.
I did also took a lot of heatfrom my advertisers.
They wanted the two at 28.
(18:36):
I felt going from one at 36 totwo at 28 was a little bit crazy
and, sorry to say, I wasproving right.
Later on All the states had aback down to one fish at 28, but
we fished on one fish at 28when the rest of the entire
coast fished it too.
We did the heavy lifting on ourown and now we're being
(19:01):
penalized for it.
Now they're expecting theHudson River fishery to carry
this entire mess that theycreated.
I think it's time to split thisthing up.
Get this some intomingo?
Yeah, some of them do, but wedon't know what that number is.
(19:23):
I mean, there's guesstimatesout there, but there's no real
hard studies on that.
I just don't see what closingour spring fishery will do to
help the Hudson River Y-O-Y.
(19:45):
It will do nothing, nothing.
Their Y-O-Y is going tocontinue to go down, because
just take a look, go toNYanglercom.
I don't want to get into itright now?
It's because they have like themost convoluted regulations
you've ever seen in your life.
They can fish up to with 35inch fish in the spring.
(20:08):
Maybe now they can't because ofthe emergency rigs, but these
guys have an angle foreverything.
They close a couple weeks hereand a week there.
There's still fish in 19 inchfish.
They've been doing this forever, forever.
Just a few years ago they wentto the commission See, this is
(20:32):
why I don't get this.
They managed to go from a 20inch fish to a 19 inch fish,
saying that they use encirclehooks.
Now it's amazing how theylisten to them then, but they're
not giving us any credit forwhat we're doing.
So listen everyone.
You need to take this seriouslybecause is for real and I've
(21:01):
been telling you for a long timethat this was coming we kind of
a lot of people in the knowfelt this was coming.
Is it fair?
I don't believe it's fair.
A lot of people don't like myattitude of trying to get as
(21:22):
many fish as I can for therecreational fishery.
You see, I always felt, and Istill feel to this day and will
always feel, that recreation, aslong as a fishery is in the
hands of the recreationalfishery fishermen.
It will be fine Because we dowhatever we have to do to
(21:49):
sustain that fishery.
We don't want all the fish here.
We don't want to kill fishneedlessly.
We have changed our ethics 100%from 1996 until now.
I hope regulators will listen.
I know some of them are.
(22:10):
Take a look at the charts.
I'm sure you see them.
I don't know why no one else isspeaking about this.
The Hudson River fishery isgolden.
The temperatures in the springare the coldest they are all
year.
Every catch and release studyproves that fish survive much
(22:31):
longer in cooler temperatures.
That is the number one factorin mortality rate.
Catch and release mortalityrate is water temperature.
That much I agree with them.
All Kind of makes sense right,use common sense.
Hot water Okay, and the fish isgoing to stress more.
This is spring.
(22:51):
Those waters are freaking.
You don't want to fall in I'lltell you that much, because
it'll be awfully freaking cold.
Don't shut us down, guys andgals.
You need to stand down.
If you care about striped bassfishing at all and the future of
striped bass fishing, you needto listen to this what I'm
(23:18):
telling you.
Stay on top of it.
However, you do that, whetherthat be Facebook, instagram,
tiktok, whatsapp, whatever thehell you're using.
I'd hope you go toNewYorkAnglercom because we will
give you the facts and keep youup to date on everything that's
happening behind the scenes.
Well, the last thing I'm goingto do before I run right now is
(23:47):
give two minutes on thesaltwater fishing license in New
York.
I can tell you right now thatthere is not a great appetite
for this license.
We've been keeping our ownrecord of how anglers are
replying to the survey thosethat have filled out a survey
and have responded to us in ourquestionnaire.
(24:10):
It does seem like it's slantedpretty heavily towards no
license at all.
I guess NewYorkers have had itwith fees.
But this is going to take a hugeeffort, organized effort.
Those of you folks in thefishing industry, you know
you're going to be affected themost by this and the average
(24:31):
angler we're all going to beaffected by it.
I'll tell you this.
Stay in touch with us here atNYUAnglercom and NewYork Fishing
Podcast.
We're going to keep you up todate on what's happening with
this license.
There is going to be anorganized effort to knock this
thing down.
It's being handled right nowbehind the scenes the NewYork
(24:57):
fishing industry, tackle shops,party boats, charter boats and
everyone's selling tackle andbait, and wholesalers are
organizing as I speak to stopthis license from moving forward
.
That's a wrap, folks.
Thanks for tuning in and besure to check out NYUAnglercom
(25:20):
and subscribe to this podcast soyou can stay up to date on
everything that's happening herein NewYork waters.
This is George Scocca and you're listening to
the New York Fishing Podcast.
For those of you that havelistened to me in the past, I
talk a lot about fisheriesmanagement.
This is in reference tobreaking news that happened this
week that's kind of gone underthe radar, and that is that the
(00:23):
juvenile striped bass index inMaryland is showing a really bad
trend.
There is no getting around itthat fishery in the Chesapeake
is witnessing some of itstoughest times.
For those of you that listenedto this podcast, you know I
(00:45):
often say there's one thingthat's missing in every piece
and part of fisheries managementand that's common sense.
There's just no common sense inany of it and I'm going to show
you just a little bit aboutthat right here and now.
I can't get to.
I'm not going to get really toodeep and get into any of these
(01:09):
different acronyms because it'sprobably 50 or 100 of them.
I'm going to try and lay it outin layman's terms For those of
you striped bass fishermen whowant to fish for striped bass
next year, because what's beingdiscussed behind closed doors
right now and actually some ofthe doors are open and that's
what's got me very concerned isa total moratorium, probably
(01:36):
until sometime in June Total nocatch and release, no targeted
fishery whatsoever, being thatthey label us a 9% mortality
rate, which I'm going to justtouch in a few minutes.
Because that number again, ifyou put a little bit of common
(01:59):
sense behind it, you know thenumber is incorrect, yet it's
still being used.
So when I talk about commonsense, first thing I want to
talk about is the striped bassfishery, the entire management
plan, and in fact this goes forjust about every single fishery
there is, or a very heavycommercially fished fishery, and
(02:24):
that would be.
We regulate these fish in pounds, not fish.
So I want you to think aboutthat for a minute.
Do we, as recreational anglers,care, like about pounds A fish?
Do we count our overall poundsof fish or do we care about the
(02:50):
size of each individual fish wecatch?
And what is pounds got to dowith fish?
I mean, isn't it the number offish we're trying to save?
I never got it.
I'm sure I got to be missingsomething, but no one has ever
explained to me why all of thesefisheries.
(03:11):
When we look at young of theyear indexes, we're looking at
numbers, we're not looking atpounds.
Yet Then we turn around, wetake those numbers, we
extrapolate numbers, we make itharder to predict what's going
to happen, and then we spit outthese crazy management
(03:34):
regulations.
So one of the things that'salways bugged me, and it's
always going to until it'saddressed and it should be
addressed and I'm really notsure why it's not and that is
the bycatch mortality of 9%,which is, you know, they claim
(04:03):
that the fish that we catch,right, every striped bass, just
so you understand what thismeans you catch a striped bass,
you let it go.
Nine, one out of 10, or 9%, aregoing to die, so it's a little
under one out of 10.
I have been pushing that back.
It was a study.
(04:24):
Let me tell you now.
Look, here's the common sense,think about it.
So that study was done.
I don't know.
It was 1995 that that study wasdone on catch release.
Think about what the fishery wasin 1995.
Many of you guys weren't evenfishing it then, or, gals, you
(04:45):
weren't even fishing for stripedbass back then.
I mean, I was and I could tellyou it was.
It was a lot different than itis today.
You did everything you could doto catch a striped bass.
I mean you would use lieblackfish.
It was legal.
Back in your it was probablybefore the 90.
They might have made thatillegal I don't know the exact
(05:06):
dates, but back in the old daythat's what we did.
We use every tactic on the sun.
Remember, we didn't have theelectronics we have today.
So you know we did what we hadto do to catch fish was all
legal within the law.
But let's face it, there were alot of good hook fish there were
.
You know, there was clamchumming, which, as we all know
(05:29):
what that turns into.
So over the years we wereeducated and we became very
cognizant of the fact thatstriped bass needed to be taken
care of when we release them.
You just can't catch them andgive them a, you know, a double
back flip when you throw themback in the water.
(05:51):
So people started realizingthat.
And then, you know, I owned afishing magazine for 30 some odd
years.
So I know what anglers weredoing and I've been here and
lived through this change.
No one could tell me it didn'thappen.
It happened.
So back then we'll say, okay,it's 9%.
(06:11):
I still don't even believethose, those tests.
But that's okay For the sake ofargument.
All right, it showed, it showed9%.
Now again, I'm making thisstory short.
I'm sorry if it sounds long,but it I'm making it short.
So you know, the internet is agreat thing and the introduction
(06:33):
of AI is another great thing,and it manages to find things
for you that are very hard tofind.
Yet I somehow found this studythat was conducted.
It was a 1300 fish study with1300 fish caught in all
different water taps and thiswas down to Maryland, and these
were striped bass and they weretargeted by Jay hooks and then
(06:58):
they were targeted by circlehooks, something that we have
today.
We use circle hooks, obviously.
It showed that deep hooking wasreduced by 81% 81% over the J
hook on a gut fish.
On a gutted fish, it showedthat there was a 76% reduction
(07:25):
in mortality.
Ok, so now that's like 2, 3.
I don't know, I don't even knowwhat it is, but every
percentage point, one point, isa huge number.
It's a huge number.
I mean, if you look at this,they're always like every chart.
You see, they make sure to putthe recreational fishing release
mortality number in there, andit's always huge.
(07:48):
But it's not right.
Sorry, I got to calm down.
It's incorrect.
Whether that's intentional, Idon't know, but it is incorrect,
literally.
I'm looking at it right now andit said that bigger fish were
(08:09):
more likely to be deep hooked.
Odds of dying were 15 timeshigher if the striped bass was
hooked with a J hook.
So last week, if you listened tomy podcast with John McMurray
and if you haven't, you probablyshould he knows striped bass
well.
He and I we've been around theups and downs of this fishery
(08:35):
and we discussed various thingsabout the fishery.
Definitely you wouldn't want tohear that piece of it.
So anyway, no one listens tothis.
What I'm telling you right now?
I'm beating a dead horse.
I have discuss this over andover and over and this is just
(08:55):
top of the iceberg.
There I found over 14 studiesthat showed the use of circle
hooks with bait on striped basshave reduced mortality in those
fish.
You have reduced mortality inthose fisheries by 85%.
Now I'm bringing that upbecause we use them and you know
(09:19):
what we got for that?
Dots, we got balls.
That's what we got.
Ok, they gave us.
They give us nothing and, asJohn McMurray pointed out last
week, it's because they claimthey don't have a data point.
Maybe they don't, I don't know.
Maybe this study was.
I don't know.
(09:40):
I mean, it's literally.
I got it on the.
It's called a recreationalcatch and release mortality
research in Maryland.
It's from the state of Maryland.
I got a DNR Marylandgov.
So this is their stuff.
But OK, so forget about commonsense with how today the
(10:04):
mortality rates got me down over.
The last, I don't know, was at18 years you think we've been.
We have a different ethic now.
I can remember when Stripe Basswould gap and release.
In fact they had to.
You know, they had to put aregulation in on that.
I'm not saying it was all greatand I never did it, but people
(10:25):
did.
It wasn't illegal and I, youknow they would lip gap them and
all.
But even still, you don't seeany of that stuff anymore.
So I don't buy that number andbut that's a number we're stuck
with for now.
So here's another thing.
So here you're trying to savethis fishery and all of a sudden
(10:48):
last year there is an emergency, dire emergency.
We have to go to 28 to 31inches.
Essentially what they said, butno one heard, was you're going
down and catch and releasefishery Because you're allowed
to catch it.
A 28 to 31 inch fish areprobably I don't know 10%, 15%
(11:12):
maybe, and according to the areayou're on, 0%, 0%.
They're all going to be bigger.
So we got all these big fish,but for some reason, they want
to.
They see this emergency and I'mgoing to explain to you why
(11:33):
that is.
Next time is I want you to takea look.
We hear about the Y-O-Y in theChesapeake, right, so I want you
to take a look at the Y-O-Y inthe Hudson River.
Those are art fish.
(11:54):
No one can say that any of thestriped bass that are in the New
York bite in the spring aregoing anywhere, but up the
Hudson River.
These are not Chesapeake fish,these are Hudson River fish.
(12:14):
Now look at the Hudson Riverchart.
I believe it was 2020, 2021,that they had the fourth largest
Y-O-Y and if you look at thatfishery, it is at or above
target.
That's in spite of theso-called slaughter that we do
(12:35):
in the spring.
But now we're hearing that'sgonna get all shut down To save
the Chesapeake fish.
So here's my question.
This is what I'm leading up toand I hope you guys are getting
it and gals, here we are.
(12:58):
We're looking at the HudsonRiver fishery, which we don't
know the number, but themajority of those fish that we
catch and we fish here, andevery single one of those fish
in the spring are all HudsonRiver fish.
So why can't we fish them?
(13:18):
We've been fishing them and theHudson River is doing great.
Are we relying now on theHudson River to carry this
entire striped bass quota?
I don't know.
Maybe or we supposed to do allthe heavy lifting and hard work
(13:39):
while Chesapeake continues toallow 5 million pounds a year
and striped bass commerciallytargeted.
Even worse, over 120 millionpounds of men hated are pulled
out of the Chesapeake everysingle year.
That fishery is collapsingbecause it's been mismanaged.
(14:03):
If you look at theirregulations, they got an in and
an out.
They shut it down for a coupleof weeks, but if you look at
them, they have always caughtwhatever they wanted.
I'm doing this for 30 years.
I've sat at the table over andover and over.
Chesapeake always gets whatthey want they always have.
Now look, this is not a slide onChesapeake anglers.
(14:24):
I'm just saying the state hasput these regs in.
You guys haven't done the heavylifting.
You folks in Virginia.
You're allowing all those menhating to be pulled out of that
bag.
And now here we go again.
Common sense, believe it or not, in striped bass amendment that
(14:48):
came out recently.
It's discussed, it's still on atable that they wanna transfer
commercial quotas from one stateto the next.
You see, it's always something.
To give an example what thatmeans, let's say well, you got
(15:09):
New Jersey actually right.
They have a commercial quotathat they don't take.
So should they sell that then?
Because it's gonna be worthmoney.
They could transfer thatwherever they want.
Think about that.
So they're looking for moreways to take fish.
At the same time, they'retelling you that you are not
(15:33):
allowed to fish.
I think it's time that weseriously look at managing these
fisheries differently.
New York has time and againdone the heavy lifting, gone out
and did fought the fights thatwere not easy, and our
(15:57):
commercial fishery is not fivemillion pounds, it's a million
pounds and we don't allow.
Rather, all the fish are tagged.
So we know what's going on incommercial fishery here, while
at the same time, half of thefish coming out of Chesapeake
(16:20):
are all going to commercialfisheries.
Now, if they don't catch them,they want to transfer the quota.
So New York has saved the menhating.
You think that has something todo with why our striped bass
fishery is so healthy.
Come on folks.
You're on the water.
How healthy are those fish thatyou are seeing out there?
(16:44):
I mean these?
I've never seen so many bigfish ever in all the years I'm
doing this.
So, yeah, so let's talk aboutwhat New York has done to make
the Hudson what it is today.
Number one A there is nocommercial fishing.
There are no nets.
(17:05):
There are no gill nets, becauseremember those, that's a 50%
mortality.
Half the fish that are caughtat gill net that they can't keep
die, and I think the number ishigher.
But we'll leave it at that.
So we don't have that.
And that wasn't simple.
There is no commercial fisheryin the Hudson River period.
(17:31):
So we did that.
We saved our bunker, we keptthe reduction boats out of New
York waters and we saved all ofour bunker.
Look at what we have Whales anddolphins and more wildlife than
we have ever seen.
And that's because, again, wedid the heavy lifting that they
(17:53):
can't do down there and theycan't ever do it, because Omega
is out of Virginia and the Omegais the company that owns the
reduction menhaden fleet.
Have you ever heard such crazyname Reduction fleet.
Like they don't want us tofavor by reducing the amount of
(18:15):
bunker.
So, anyhow, new York has doneeverything it possibly can.
It was a time when we went fromone fish at 36 inches to two
fish at 28 inches.
Many people in New York opposedit.
I did also took a lot of heatfrom my advertisers.
They wanted the two at 28.
(18:36):
I felt going from one at 36 totwo at 28 was a little bit crazy
and, sorry to say, I wasproving right.
Later on All the states had aback down to one fish at 28, but
we fished on one fish at 28when the rest of the entire
coast fished it too.
We did the heavy lifting on ourown and now we're being
(19:01):
penalized for it.
Now they're expecting theHudson River fishery to carry
this entire mess that theycreated.
I think it's time to split thisthing up.
Get this some intomingo?
Yeah, some of them do, but wedon't know what that number is.
(19:23):
I mean, there's guesstimatesout there, but there's no real
hard studies on that.
I just don't see what closingour spring fishery will do to
help the Hudson River Y-O-Y.
(19:45):
It will do nothing, nothing.
Their Y-O-Y is going tocontinue to go down, because
just take a look, go toNYanglercom.
I don't want to get into itright now?
It's because they have like themost convoluted regulations
you've ever seen in your life.
They can fish up to with 35inch fish in the spring.
(20:08):
Maybe now they can't because ofthe emergency rigs, but these
guys have an angle foreverything.
They close a couple weeks hereand a week there.
There's still fish in 19 inchfish.
They've been doing this forever, forever.
Just a few years ago they wentto the commission See, this is
(20:32):
why I don't get this.
They managed to go from a 20inch fish to a 19 inch fish,
saying that they use encirclehooks.
Now it's amazing how theylisten to them then, but they're
not giving us any credit forwhat we're doing.
So listen everyone.
You need to take this seriouslybecause is for real and I've
(21:01):
been telling you for a long timethat this was coming we kind of
a lot of people in the knowfelt this was coming.
Is it fair?
I don't believe it's fair.
A lot of people don't like myattitude of trying to get as
(21:22):
many fish as I can for therecreational fishery.
You see, I always felt, and Istill feel to this day and will
always feel, that recreation, aslong as a fishery is in the
hands of the recreationalfishery fishermen.
It will be fine Because we dowhatever we have to do to
(21:49):
sustain that fishery.
We don't want all the fish here.
We don't want to kill fishneedlessly.
We have changed our ethics 100%from 1996 until now.
I hope regulators will listen.
I know some of them are.
(22:10):
Take a look at the charts.
I'm sure you see them.
I don't know why no one else isspeaking about this.
The Hudson River fishery isgolden.
The temperatures in the springare the coldest they are all
year.
Every catch and release studyproves that fish survive much
(22:31):
longer in cooler temperatures.
That is the number one factorin mortality rate.
Catch and release mortalityrate is water temperature.
That much I agree with them.
All Kind of makes sense right,use common sense.
Hot water Okay, and the fish isgoing to stress more.
This is spring.
(22:51):
Those waters are freaking.
You don't want to fall in I'lltell you that much, because
it'll be awfully freaking cold.
Don't shut us down, guys andgals.
You need to stand down.
If you care about striped bassfishing at all and the future of
striped bass fishing, you needto listen to this what I'm
(23:18):
telling you.
Stay on top of it.
However, you do that, whetherthat be Facebook, instagram,
tiktok, whatsapp, whatever thehell you're using.
I'd hope you go toNewYorkAnglercom because we will
give you the facts and keep youup to date on everything that's
happening behind the scenes.
Well, the last thing I'm goingto do before I run right now is
(23:47):
give two minutes on thesaltwater fishing license in New
York.
I can tell you right now thatthere is not a great appetite
for this license.
We've been keeping our ownrecord of how anglers are
replying to the survey thosethat have filled out a survey
and have responded to us in ourquestionnaire.
(24:10):
It does seem like it's slantedpretty heavily towards no
license at all.
I guess NewYorkers have had itwith fees.
But this is going to take a hugeeffort, organized effort.
Those of you folks in thefishing industry, you know
you're going to be affected themost by this and the average
(24:31):
angler we're all going to beaffected by it.
I'll tell you this.
Stay in touch with us here atNYUAnglercom and NewYork Fishing
Podcast.
We're going to keep you up todate on what's happening with
this license.
There is going to be anorganized effort to knock this
thing down.
It's being handled right nowbehind the scenes the NewYork
(24:57):
fishing industry, tackle shops,party boats, charter boats and
everyone's selling tackle andbait, and wholesalers are
organizing as I speak to stopthis license from moving forward
.
That's a wrap, folks.
Thanks for tuning in and besure to check out NYUAnglercom
(25:20):
and subscribe to this podcast soyou can stay up to date on
everything that's happening herein NewYork waters.
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