I finally was talked into this fishery after years of convincing from a good freind of mine that lives back east. I was there for 4 days and caught 2-3 stripers everyday from 6-18lbs(my buddy easily caught 2-3 times as many as I did). I crackered 2-3 fish everyday as well. The peak of the fishery is still not for a few more weeks. What a blast fishing in the surf for these things. We used 5" poppers and Storm's plastic shad baits. I tell you what, it is awsome to see a big striper explode on that top water bait. It is very hard not to set the hook when you see that, you must wait until you feel the fishes weight because some times the initial attack is only to stun the fish. These guys that fish the surf are as diehard or more so than most steelhead fisherman I know. I would recomend the fishery to anyone.

I also had a chance to fish a charter with one of their local legends Jimmy George. We caught stripers near 30lbs fishing with him.

http://www.thenicolemarie.net

Wow, cool report. The guys you went with must have known what they were doing inorder to get a googan like you to get a fish!

I was a Googan for sure.

That's pretty cool. Something I've always wanted to do but with a fly rod in hand.

Are they a good eating fish?

They are very good eating. I saw a few fly guys and they had success as well. Although with the wind they had trouble casting very far. From what I know, the bigger fish are farther out.

Great report, thanks!

They are great eating fish.
And the politics involved with east coast stripers is almost as ferocious as salmon politics. Unfortunatly it took the commercial guys fishing themselves out of business before the conservationists were able to get the regulations changed. Since the late '80s they have made a huge comeback. And with every dam that comes down the number of stripers and shad keeps going up.


Vince

Nice report.
I have alot of family on LI, but we have always fished for blues and snapper on long Island Sound. Those look like nice fish! Watch out for those creepy Horseshoes!

I still say the trip would have been better if you would have taken me :p

You can thank my childhood neighbor on Narragansett Bay, the late Senator John H. Chafee, with pushing through the federal legislation stopping all commercial and sport take of stripers for nearly a decade. When I was in high school we would cast poppers in the estuary below the senator's house, and some spring evenings hook 50 or more fish....by the 80's, catching a decent size fish was rare (this sound familiar?). Senator Chafee saw the demise of these great fish firsthand in his front yard and had the perseverence to get something done about it.

It's amazing what the combination of habitat enhancement and a no-kill regulation can do to make a threatened fishery rebound. Fortunately for the stripers, their fate was unencumbered by either tribal interests, a Boldt decision, or foreign fisheries. One can only hope our dwindling salmon runs might one day have the opportunity to rebound as the stripers have....though I for one am not holding my breath.

Very cool, CraigO!

The striped bass were restored because the folks on the East Coast made a very simply, but difficult decision.

That is: We need to stop killing them!

Once they decide to stop killing striped bass, the rest was easy. Sort of.

But the fact is, it worked. That philosophy will work in the PNW too. But as yet, we don't have the political will to do so. If we stopped killing all salmon between their spawning grounds in Idaho to the Gulf of Alaska, and back again, the salmon would return. But the public doesn't have the stomach to do that yet because it would require wholesale changes to our standard of living. Restoring striped bass didn't require such heavy lifting. Thus, it was successful.

BTW - Nice fish! They are great eating. That's one reason the striped bass stocks collapsed. They taste great!!

Less Filling!

Yea, it's funny to think that the states in that area did it without using money collected from fishing licenses. States like NY and MA don't require fishing licenses to fish in the salt.

The striper protection was a federal ruling that applied to all states:

Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act -- P.L. 98-613, approved October 31, 1984, (98 Stat. 3187, 16 U.S.C. 1851)

Link:http://www.fws.gov/laws/lawsdigest/atlstri.html

Skuyguy those horseshow crab are weird looking. The guys I fished with talked quite a bit about protecting their fishery. Right now they are doing a lot to keep their beach rights. I believe there is a slot limit on these fish. A fisherman is allowed one fish over either 28" or 34"(I can't remember) and one over 40" per day.
As little as a couple years ago, these guys reported catching 30-75 fish per day when the bite was hot. I think they have done a very good job to keep a good fishery strong.