By Lou Caruso

The future of our fishery

First off let me state, I am not one of those guys that is insanely adamant about releasing every fish caught. I keep an occasional fish for the table as my family all enjoy a meal of fresh striped bass. This has more to do with the fish we are taking.

I recently took a trip to Cape Cod Canal. My wife bought me a bike for Christmas from Canal Bicycles in Bourne, Mass forcing my hand. I’m always saying I want to try new places but never seem to find the time. She made sure I would go. At 63 years old I’m still learning and for me this is a whole new arena…

I went for a few reasons, first being I’m trying to break my personal best, second access is much easier than doing the south side walk in Montauk and third this all being new to me has renewed my vigor in chasing striped bass..

As most of you know, there are some really big fish up at the canal. Just look at Facebook or Instagram and every- body and his brother is holding up a 30 pounder from there.….

What I saw kind of made me sick and concerned. The amount of 30-40 pound fish being kept is amazing. I saw bike after bike going by with these huge fish strapped to the back. Monday and Thursday are Commercial Days where anyone with a commercial license can keep 2 fish. The last day I was there which was not a commercial day, I counted in 1 parking area over 50 fish taken out of there. Many over 30 pounds. That is one location over a 7 mile stretch with 2 sides of parking areas.

My concern is there are 2 pods of big fish right now. One in the canal and one off Montauk. Both of these pods of fish are getting hammered….. If we continue to take all of the prime breeders out of the gene pool a few things will happen. First, the generations of fish following may not be a big as these bass today as breeders will be smaller and smaller. Second, if you look back at the collapse, just before it occurred most of the fish being caught were over 30 pound cows.

Our biomass of big fish is dwindling very quickly. It’s up to us to be responsible stewards of this fishery. If you can, release the monsters and keep a nice 10-15 pound fish. They taste better and will give those 30-40 pounders a chance.

Thanks for letting me vent,

Lou Caruso

Special Gigantic  50th issue of the Surfcaster’s Journal Online Magazine is live and ready for your reading pleasure 

some thoughts on  how I fish Cuttyhunk..from Cuttyhunk

ps

Some big news from ODM rods…they just unveiled new line of D.N.A. rods …in $200-$300 range

Check it out at https://www.odmrods.com/dna-surf-rod

D . N . A surf rods are engineered to give the best combination of performance and value!  Built with proprietary carbon nano technology to battle game fish that roam our waters.  It features Fuji tangle-free Alconite K-Guides with NGC layout to maximize the performance expected of  D . N . A.  It includes custom spiral non-slip foregrip and split butt grip for that extra comfort and ergonomic power. Welcome to new era of value and performance  –  D . N . A surf rods… It’s in the Fisherman!
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Results:

– Sensitive and Powerful – Power to handle big game fish.
– Crisp and fast recovery with moderate to moderate fast action
– Excels in many different type of lures: swimmers, pencil poppers, bucktails, metals, darters,  etc
– Long distance casting surf rod

Features:

– Carbon Nano technology with proprietary layering and patterning process
– 2 piece: 60/40 split – Design to flex and behave like 1 piece rod
– Top manufacture Components – Fuji tangle free Alconite K guides and ODM custom ergonomics reel seat.
– Custom Spiral Grip – Comfortable non-slip foregrip and split butt grip.
– Built on Fuji New Guide Concept layout
– 1 Year limited warranty

This is in my opinion a very interesting development in sub $200 reel market.

No, it will not replace your Van Staal. No ,you can’t reel it under water or swim with it.

Yes they added enough seals to get a IPX5 certification , they adding CNC gears on all models, brass and aluminum, new drag system , ridiculous number of models and a live liner with a very interesting feature….AND two Bail Less models !

Check it out and judge it for yourself

The 2018 Striperthon has commenced and the results are showing , in my humble opinion, exactly here our fishery is  today.

You really could not blame it on weather , as we had near perfect conditions in many places. Plenty of smaller fish were available in a lot of places but not many that would have made a 34 inch STRIPERTHON cutoff. And lets be fair, 34 inch is not a humongus hurdle to overcome, or at least, it did not used to be.

All of top fish came from Cape Cod Canal, again, no surprises here. It seems like what’s left of bigger fish population is either o bunker schools in deeper water or at the Canal. Which will make the upcoming moon bloodbath even harder to take for those of us that care about the fisheries.

I do want to congratulate our winners on their effort and for supporting catch & release . We also had a fish that would have placed second disqualified due to the fact that angler had no active SJ subscription. And another that would have placed very high if his tag did not flew out of window when lighting up a cigarette on the way to canal. I tell you, quitting is best thing I ever did, lol. He had some nice pics but without a tag, again, we could not enter them into the contest.

I want to thank all our supporters, those who made 2018 STRIPERTHON possible,  Van Staal, Lamiglas Rods, Super Strike Lures ,ODM Rods,  Guppy Lure, Tsunami Lures, Costa Del Mar, Trailhead Deflators and Surfcaster’s Journal Magazine.

Since we did not fill all spots, I am thinking about doing it again in few weeks. Tommy and I’ll will have to put the head together and come up with something.

Again, congrats to all our winners, you will be contacted shortly by SJ for your shipping info

1st place  Shawn Lynch 44″

2nd place Brian DiMento 39″

3rd place Brian Killen 39″

4th place Matt Kraniak 34″

Leaderboard as of 1PM

1st place  Shawn Lynch 44″

2nd place Brian DiMento 39″

3rd place Brian Killen 39″

4th place Matt Kraniak 34″

Here is your official 2018 SPRING STRIPERTHON TAG

BEST OF LUCK

Largest Released Striped Bass

1. Van Staal 200BXP reel (www.vanstaal.com)
2. ODM 11′ Genesis Surf Rod 2-6oz (www.odmrods.com)
3. Lamiglas Super Surf 2G PRO 11′ 2-5oz  (www.lamiglas.com)
4. Costa Del Mar Sunglasses (www.costadelmar.com)
5. Super Strike Lures Set (www.superstrikelures.com)
6. Guppy Lure Co Set (www.guppylure.com)
7. Tsunami Lure Set  (www.biminibayoutfitters.com)
8. Trail Head Deflators (www.trailheaddeflators.com)
9. SJ Gear Package

On tap this weekend is 2018 Spring Striperthon. I was at Cuttyhunk last week and the fish were there as they were at Cape Cod Canal, Montauk and New Jersey. In fact, some monsters were weighted in local tackle shop on new moon tides (yes it kills me to see them hanged but i still respect everyones right to do what their conscience tells them is a right thing)

There won’t be no weigh-ins  for Striperthon as this is strictly Catch & Release Tournament. Please familiarize yourself with rules (you can click HERE) so you do not lose out on the leaderboard entry due to rule violation

The official 2018 SJ STRIPERTHON TAG will be posted 5 PM FRIDAY right here on blog.

here is an example what good picture looks like

Straight ruler or measuring tape

Legible # on ruler and full size picture (not reduced size)

measuring tape on size of fish NOT OVER or on TOP

Respect to all our sponsor who furnished this year STRIPERTHON prizes!!!

Here is the list

Largest Released Striped Bass

1. Van Staal 200BXP reel (www.vanstaal.com)
2. ODM 11′ Genesis Surf Rod 2-6oz (www.odmrods.com)
3. Lamiglas Super Surf 2G PRO 11′ 2-5oz  (www.lamiglas.com)
4. Costa Del Mar Sunglasses (www.costadelmar.com)
5. Super Strike Lures Set (www.superstrikelures.com)
6. Guppy Lure Co Set (www.guppylure.com)
7. Tsunami Lure Set  (www.biminibayoutfitters.com)
8. Trail Head Deflators (www.trailheaddeflators.com)
9. SJ Gear Package

We have another giveaway this week, this time from ODM Rod guys. They came out with new high quality hats recently and made few available here on the blog for our readers to have a chance to win.

ODM RODS Flex-Fit Hats – One Size Fits All

there will be two winners chosen random by the app

The winner/s will have a choice of either

ODM Gray Trucker Hat

or

ODM Solid Black Hat

Best of luck and catch them up

You can check the whole ODM line up at https://www.odmrods.com/

ENTER GIVEAWAY HERE

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The winner of Guppy Lure Giveaway is brendan.markett@gmail.com
Brendan please send us your address to info@surfcastersjournal.com and we will forward it to Guppy Lures. Again, hank you to guys from Guppy for making it possible. Don’t forget to visit their new online store at www.guppylure.com/ (now the only place to buy Guppy Lures)
The fishing  is heating up and in our opinion Guppy are one of the finest wood pencil poppers on the market.

Stay tuned for giveaway from ODM coming up next in a day or so

One new point of interest to some of you.
Tommy has decided to make a new line of shirts. These are going to differ from our usual stuff by being Made here is USA for the first time. They are heavier in weight than regular shirts
Full Cut; shoulder to shoulder taping; double-needle hems. Large print on back, smaller on front. Heavy weight 100% pre shrunk  cotton, and yes, MADE IN USA
you can check them out at www.surfcastersgear.com/ or by click on online store button in top right corner. We put a limited number of of shirts in the store this evening

By the way, many of you have asked where to buy a surf sling on line that was featured in  this video[youtube]https://youtu.be/yoxYqBJPmNk[/youtube]

We also added those to our online store although there are only few left in stock

Last and to me the most exciting , STRIPERTHON 2018 is almost here