Big Stripers Are Being Caught, And Released

The striped bass slot limit experiment — cuz that’s what it is — is getting a solid workout in the waters off Montauk again this summer.

The big stripers are holding in the rips off the lighthouse and have been fairly easy to catch, day and night. Not being able to easily find keeper slot fish from among the abundant “overs” and “unders” has been frustrating but anglers rarely complain after spending hours battling trophy-sized fish.

Anything over 35 inches has to go back, of course, thanks to the coast-wide slot limit, and that means that a lot of big fish are being tossed back again this year — for better or worse.

As has been discussed here often, this has been a controversial management decision. Much frustration at throwing back large striped bass has been voiced by fishermen who are forced to return fish to the sea that are sometimes the largest they have ever caught.

And sometimes — sadly, maddeningly — those fish do not survive after being released. Big striped bass wear themselves out fighting against the pull of a hook and line. Especially in the summer they can exhaust themselves to the point that they need to be diligently revived. And sometimes that is not even enough.

I have experienced it, and it sucks. I have motored over to a big fish that was put back and went belly-up and hung over the gunwale struggling to breathe myself, holding the tail until the fish starts to kick again. And before last year, sometimes that fish just clearly was not going to kick again, and it came aboard with a sigh.

This is happening now too, of course. Waters are warming up and the big fish are struggling. On large boats, it is often essentially impossible to lean over the side and hold a fish upright until it catches its breath, so to speak, and can swim away on its own.

I see the efforts made by charter boat crews and those on the bigger boats. The tendency has come to be to chuck the fish overboard from far above the water, angling the head down so it hits the water like a high diver. Fish released this way seem to shock themselves awake and shoot off into the depths. I don’t think appearances are evidence of the truth and this method of releasing a fish is probably more detrimental to the fish’s survival chances than it is helping. But it does tend to get the fish out of sight, so the evidence that it is dying is obscured.

Fish populations are impossible to really keep close tabs on, so there is no way to really know whether our efforts are having an impact. A lot of folks wanted to simply set a higher minimum size limit and bank on the large numbers of young striped bass to rebuild the stock.

This summer, that would have mean marina fillet tables stacked with huge striped bass, fish that would never spawn again and would never be caught by a fisherman for whom that is a fish of a lifetime.

If the slot limit is working, we are going to be a lot better off than we would have been had that been the case. And therefore we all should be doing all we can to release those big fish that have to go back. I wish someone would figure out a better system for reviving fish from boats with a high freeboard — a tether, a cradle like they use with muskies, something, I don’t know what.

If you can, give that trophy striper a good hand-holding until you feel him kick. If you can’t, do your best.

Tuna fishing has continued to be outstanding in the canyons and in a few inshore spots. The Montauk Canyon Challenge last week at the Montauk Yacht Club saw busy scales heavy with bigeyes and large yellowfin. The next leg in the canyon tournaments triad is the Tri-State on Block Island next week and then the Hamptons Offshore Invitational, out of Shinnecock Inlet, begins August 13.

This will be the 20th anniversary of the HOI and its charity benefiting Big Brothers & Big Sisters of Long Island and a big field of the top canyon boats is expected. Entry forms can be downloaded at BBSLI.org.

Catch ’em up. See you out there.