Striped Bass Action in North Carolina

[Mark Laboccetta]

Yesterday two friends of mine drove a couple hours south of Virginia Beach to Nags Head and we had a nice dive. Water in what is the tail of the season here for us was 65F, green clear and we hit the incoming tide. We dove in 20ft or less all day, perfect when you’re not in great shape and haven’t dove in over a month like us.
In North Carolina striped bass have a two per person over 28” limit on the ocean side, 2x 18" or over in the sound, sheephead are so rampant the limit is 20per day per person and mullet (like the ones they shoot in the Med) are considered only good for bait so they don't even have a limit or it may be 500lbs per day! So the boys and I had at it as it’s been two months any of us had gotten wet and we’re looking at a long winter ahead of us with the only prospect of contact with diving being the keyboard…
I speared a nice flounder and two hefty over 40” stripers I think we’re probably 20-30lbs each and my friends Alex and Justin came short of their striper limit by one fish. The other fish they speared which I didn’t even see were the mullets, and the way those fish swim it’s like skeet shooting and they’re great sport and a lot of fun with the smaller 60 and 75cm single band Excaliburs we were using. I also saw a nice Red Drum, channel bass/red fish/spot tail bass as they’re known elsewhere, and they’re unlawful to take by spear or gig or gaff. That’s fine by me as I enjoyed seeing what is usually a spooky and rarely seen fish.
Regards to all,
Mark
Ps- on another note I see people dwelling on the issue concerning how many sheephead it’s appropriate for one to shoot, let me just say let’s leave it to Fish and Game to make the regulations and limits, as long as we abide by the law who cares how many you shoot. You get out once in two months when the conditions are right and you shoot 10 fish in a day, or you go hook and line fishing and get out every day and land one or two fish what’s our impact-negligible.
pps- get out shoot fish and have fun, we're not the problem to the fish

 

[Fondueset]

That looks like a blast.
Here the water is around 50f and nearly everythings illegal I'm channeling my spearfishing frustration into photography and getting as close as possible to otherwise skittish species. Down to about 24 inches now...I wonder if it's illegal to punch a trout.

 

[Mark Laboccetta]

It boggles my mind that to go jump in a lake and hold your breath to shoot a fish is illegal, I mean just think about it, maybe they're more worried you're a danger to yourself.

Speaking of spearfishing laws, we have a lot of Striped Bass in virginia waters as well, actually more than NC probably but they're illegal to shoot. It's the same thing for Mass. That's why we drive to NC and dive there, there's a two fish per person bag limit and it's really worthwhile if conditions are right. I used to think you had to go to RI to dive to get good stripers and now I find they're practically accessible in our backyard so long as we really nail the conditions just right and get at least 5-10ft of vis. NC just has it all I guess, inshore diving for flounder,sheephead,stripers and tautog and blue water hunting offshore and reef diving for grouper and snapper. I consider myself lucky for it. The one problem is you need a really good boat to get offshore but thats what my rich friends are for

Mark

 

[Fondueset]

The two things I do have going for me here are visibility and access. Five or ten minute drive and very rarely less than 30 ft. fishing with a speargun is the most restricted form of fishing - bow and handspear are both much more open. It would appear they went based on popularity - least restricted is most popular. You can legally spear Carp, suckers, gar and bowfin. Bowfin have the highest mercury level of any fish, Carp and gar are also not for eating (gar are so docile you could pretty much just grab them anyway). The only one on the list that is reputed to be decent eating is suckers.

Lake Trout, salmon and steelhead are all very challenging and edible species - and they are stocked in the great lakes and doing quite well. In fact it's even legal to snag salmon some of the time. I'm in the process of trying to sort out how to get this in front of ...yech...politicians...
:yack

Meanwhile I am getting pretty stealthy The fish seem to prefer my Alien - in with my other mask - a cressi matrix, and barely saw anything. Maybe they've just got used to my green eyes. I know it's not my ankles.

 

[Jon]

Hey Fonduset,

I know what you mean.
Ted, Brian and I were out last Saturday and saw a ton of fish that we couldn't spear- walleye, catfish, bass, ect.- and almost nothing that we could spear, like panfish and carp. In the end we tagged a couple of carp just because they trash our lakes in a pretty serious way- Ted's boss at the university is actually doing a really interesting study on this right now that makes you want to blow them all away.

As far as spearing salmon goes, I talked to a local game warden when I was doing some research for a chapter I wrote for a local book and he had some intersting info. It turns out that he also liked to freedive/spearfish, but in the islands only. He and another warden have petitioned the state of Wisconsin to allow us to spear salmon under whatever kind of restrictions they wanted, such as a single fish a season and no tanks allowed, but were turned down cold becuase of the strong fishing lobby- and these guys are in the know on how this would actually effect things. It didn't matter what kind of extra stamp we would have to buy or resticitve gear we would have to use, they just wern't interested. So, we're back to just spearing rough fish in the great lakes.

I am not sure how good the great lakes fish populations will be in the future. My brother-in-law is a commercial fisherman out on Lake Michigan and they're talking about the whole lake going dead in the next ten years due to zebra mussles and quaga mussles- which can go really deep and reproduce all winter long so that they can even outcompete the zebra mussels. In the end the lower level of the food chain will be gone and everything else will come down like a house of cards. I guess they have even had problems in the Detroit area with ducks eating the mussles and then dying from the toxins they concentrated in their systems.

I will say that the vis has improved quite a bit in the past 20 years, but the wrecks aren't half as interesting to look at these days since their now covered with thick layer of shells. :waterwork


Jon

 

[shaneshac]

AWESOME SHOOTING MARK

Tell us, what techniques you are using to shoot those monsters?

I see a little gun used. Was the water murkey?

 

[Marwan]

Nice fish mark,
totally with you on the threat to the fish bit
cheers

 

[Memo]

Really really nice fish Mark, is the behaviour of stripped bass close to its european cousin??

 

[Fondueset]

Jon - I do know I saw ALOT of Freshwater Drum this summer out in Lake Michigan. I spoke with a DNR guy and he said they are eating the Zebra muscles - as are Round Gobies and a few others. When I was out in the big lake I often noticed round rocks - weighing at least a couple of pounds - turned over. They were allways just one rock turned over amidst many others. I wonder WHAT is doing that! It takes a bit of force to dislodge and flip those rocks - they are sort of embedded in the bottom.

Went for a great dive today - fantastic visibility. The Trout had moved down to the end of the breakwall and were very wary for some reason. Vis at that end is not as good due to water coming out of the Marina - this is about as close as they'd let me get before I gave up due to shivering

 

[Jon]

I've speared, and eaten, some drum and they aren't too bad. I have never seen any deeper than about 30'.

I know the zebra mussles go down quite a bit deeper than that. A friend of mine was running dive charters out to the Carl D. Bradly this summer and the pictures I saw showed lots of quaga mussels on her- and she sits in 370' of water! Too deep for any freshwater drum that I know of.

Jon

 

[Fondueset]

Of course here it is illegal to spear drums...Got some cool pictures of them though. I like the 'X-Wing' configuration of their fins from straight on. They have the same sort of transient curiosity as carp - move on quickly and no sudden moves. I agree on depths for the drums - but where I dove this summer in Lake Michigan is miles of relatively shallow rock, marl and clay bottom - hard to find depths greater than 40 feet.

You've got a different sort of carp over there. There are very few in the inland lakes here - if any - and I've never seen that species.

I was practicing 'aspetto' today with the Trout - since they were so edgy - lying on the rocks. I'm really starting to wonder if the green omer alien breaks up my profile or something - I've gotten extremely close to them while wearing it - but have had less luck on dives with my Cressi matrix. Too bad if true - the matrix covers those sensitive nerves in the forehead that seem to turn on the nausea in really cold water. Upper 40s here now.

In any case - at the very least I'm able to work on my hunting technique with the camera - which is loads of fun even if it doesn't put anything on the table.

I'd not heard of those deepwater muscles. I think the lakes will find their balance - but it may be strange for awhile. I was surprised to see a lamprey hanging off one of the trout early this month - and even more to see the fish had shaken it. Two in the school above have scars.

Back on topic - I'd be interested to hear from Mark about his hunting technique with the stripers - also range, vis etc. I've got some connections out east

Also - the new Riffe 'Euro' is up on their site now. It does not look as graceful as the MA and Cobra - but still quite cool.

 

[land shark]

mark
strippers are legel to shoot here.
but because of our latitude they only get to be about a pound

yes they are considered a panfish so they have to counted in the bag.

theyr fun to shoot! really fast and at mid day good camo


jim

 

[Mark Laboccetta]

mark
strippers are legal to shoot here

.

Why would you want to shoot strippers, they make lonely guys happy and put a smile on a man's face! I thought only wives and men who got their wallets stolen from strippers wanted to shoot them :duh

Seriously, Its curious inland stripers are so small, must be a sup-species of striped bass or a fresh water species that's different from ours. I bet the latin name is different too.

In the Mediterranean and surround waters for example, their Bass is also a smaller species that inhabits similar conditions to our North East american stripers. They do look quite different while their feeding habits, behavior and distribution patterns are similar to our stripers.
American striped bass: http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=353
Mediterranean bass:
http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?genusname=Dicentrarchus&speciesname=labrax
Canadian stripers:
http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=3308

As you can see they share similarities but they're very different in size and appearance. Ours, like everything else in America, are huge compared to their cousins!

While mine are surely nice ones as far as North Carolina stripers go, the biggest ones are caught/speared in the North East US. I just hear the Striped bass world spearfishing record was broken again up in NY with a 60 pounder from a guy who uses some of our equipment named Peter Papathanaseu(sp?). That's probably more than twice the size of mine!

In any event, stripers love current and cold water. While you can find them in the warmer 6 months of the year they prefer the colder months and usually get lock jaw when the water is warmer than 60F in general fisherman say. They are usually most active in 55F-60F water.

The best technique I found for stripers, and I've probably only speared maybe 20 or so although I've caught plenty on hook and line since they're illegal to shoot in my home state of VA, is to hide in a sheltered spot in the current and wait for them in ambush using "aspetto" known as "to lay and wait" technique. I try to surprice them as they are also doing the same in the zones sheltered from the current trying to surprise bait fish or resting in schools letting the current flow water through their gills. A small fast gun that is very agile in the heavy current is crucial, the vibrations otherwise will make it nearly impossible to aim quickly, especially when they're on the run.
The visibility was about 10ft/3m where I was diving and I consider that stellar considering normal poor vis in these areas. If you guys look you'll see that my friend in the middle is holding a Mullet (cefalo), pretty big mullet, I've seen some as big as 10lbs/4Kg's in these spots in the fall but usually don't waste much time shooting them as you're likely to see a big curious striper messing around underneath them that will only give you a quick glance before he satisfies his curiosity.

Mark

 

[Fondueset]

I've actually seen one of the first url's 'striped bass' here - last summer. They are not supposed to live in this area but this guy cruised by within about 18 inches of me. One of those types that do not alter their trajectory for much of anything. This one was approximately 17 feet long and had what a appeared to be a woman's leg sticking out of the corner of it's mouth - with a red stilletto heel I might add.

Seriously though - it was a pretty cool looking fish - very silvery - reflected the blue of my wetsuit.

 

[Amphibious]

Gorgeous Fish mark!!

so, how are they prepared? yum yum....

 

[miles]

Hiya

only wives and men who got their wallets stolen from strippers wanted to shoot them

Mark, NOW just HOW EXACTLY would you know that? rofl rofl

Regards
miles

 

[shaneshac]

MArk prepares them by saying:

Hey Stripeys, look at me, i am the diver with the short pants and the skinny legs. Get in position while i aim my crappy little gun at your huge head rofl rofl rofl

 

[Amphibious]

we just need to talk him into making a 75cm cobra

it will kill the fish DEAD-ER I am sure!!!

 

[Mark Laboccetta]

Ouch! This reminds me of a great quote a retired Marine who served in Vietnam and the Korean War once told me. The guy was a solid oak.
His words were "you may see a Marine with an ugly woman, but you will never see a Marine with an ugly gun that's not perfect" or something to that effect...Never joke a man about his gun!

Moral of the story, Miles I wasn't always married and Shane my $180.00 Excalibur 75cm has killed more fish than your Gibraltar Rock star fashion statement speargun

I could go through the door from my office into our warehouse and any time grab a high end carbon fiber, open muzzle, camo speargun or a new teak Master America 90 trophy gun like yours Amphib....but this little simple Excalibur alum. is lightning fast and perfect for the type of hunting we do in low vis. I've got a pair 20mmx20cm band on it and a 6.5mm tahitian shaft, good enough to stone the first fish and cripple the other one in less than 5 minutes without damaging the meat in a 3knot currernt. I don't even use reels or float line in that mess, if I don't stone the fish or grab it in the first dive while I'm still down there then I did something wrong. The gun fits the bill in my book.

On how to cook'em Amphib, I've been a big fan of fried fish lately. On lighter table fare with delicate white meat like stripers and grouper I like to cut the fillets after removing the blood line into fish fingers, dry the pieces in a paper towel, and dip them in milk and do them in Tempura batter in a frying pan with olive oil. A nice side dish of tartar sauce it's just right!
Mark
"God made food, the devil made cooks" - James Joyce

 

[Amphibious]

Shane my $180.00 Excalibur 75cm has killed more fish than your Gibraltar Rock star fashion statement speargun

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA rofl


that recipe sounds very tasty! good show Mark.