SGR Weakies
 

Headed out of Manasquan this morning ocean like glass. Hit a couple lumps between the inlet and the reef. Covered with fish. I couldn’t figure out what they were. Dropped a jig tipped with spearing, bang fish on, spike weakies 8-10” by the thousands ! School after school under the boat for a good mile. Hopefully they return when they grow up.

Re: SGR Weakies
 

Like clockwork them small weakies show up in that area around this time of year. They are a lot of fun to catch. It's good to see they are still around. Tight lines!

Re: SGR Weakies
 

Every year, they show up as spikes, and then promptly disappear never to be seen again as adults.. Bluefish/Striper food.....

Re: SGR Weakies
 

Bob the spikes are coming from somewhere. For the old timers on this site, check out John Skinner's video in the below link which was filmed May of this year. Sit back and enjoy, it'll bring back memories of just how fantastic weak fishing was, how it still can be if properly management and certainly give hope we get a second chance at rebuilding what once was an amazing fishery that was destroyed. Every inshore stock with predictable migration patterns and inshore spawning is subject to exploitation if not managed properly. Protect the tide runner breeders, protect the spawn, regulate harvest and this fishery will flourish the same as any fishery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCZH97CJap8

Not exactly sure where the video was filmed, my guess would be Long Island Sound or the general Montauk area.

Either way, some of those thousands if not millions of spikes are obviously getting through and promoting the future of the stock. Hopefully this time around, measures are put in place to manage the stock properly and we learn from our mistakes. Also take note of the comments below the video, sounds like weakfish are staging a comeback in other areas as well. Would be a tremendous success story if this fishery was revived to what it once was.

Re: SGR Weakies
 

I saw that Skinner video a while ago.. Not overly impressed.. He got intel as to where they were, and as we know, when they around, they are typically willing biters IF there aren't a million boats on them in which case they shut right down. They are always around in eastern LI[Peconics] in spring and summer, if you know where and when...

As someone who remembers being able to go out and catch BIG tiderunners fishing out of a 8HP rental skiff at the end of the Ammo pier all summer long[as long as you got there EARLY in the morning before the fluke guys got out], that fishery is still in a collapsed state as far as I am concerned..

Don't know where all those fish went, but once they were gone, that was the end of it, like Whiting... Porgies came back as did Stripers, and to a lesser extent Sea Bass which was down for a few years... Weaks have been MIA for what, 15-20 years???.
The young ones that are seen in fall every year never seem to make it back north.. I think most of them get eaten, but of course, could be way off base..

Re: SGR Weakies
 

Bob wasn't trying to impress you or anyone else, just pointing out I've heard of more weak fish caught in the last 2 or 3 years than I have in the last 30 combined. I take that as a positive as I do the reappearance of blowfish in Barnegat Bay. Some of those spikes I agree succumb to predation from stripers and blue fish during their southerly migration. No different than they did back in the '60s and '70s when the stock was healthy and they're were just as many if not more blue fish and stripers around. In my humble opinion, natural predation isn't the reason the fishery collapsed. Commercial and recreational overfishing was and if the regulations are changed to address protecting the spawn and over fishing, the fishery has a chance of recovering after more than 40 years of being as you put it MIA.

Fwiw, I'm not sure I've ever seen a baby weak fish in the stomach of a striper or bluefish. Bunker, mullet, sea bass, small sea robins, mantis shrimp, sand eels, snapper blues, herring, flounder and fluke yes. Never cleaned a bass or blue with a weakfish or saw them spitting them up on deck. I'm sure they have, just don't believe that's where many of them end up. Have seen spikes the size mentioned at Shop Rite, Wegmans and Kings but that's a whole different conversation.

Re: SGR Weakies
 

Saw that video when Skinner first posted it. I’m 99% sure it was in Peconic Bay.

The east end of LI has had a very good weakfish run the past 2 years.

Re: SGR Weakies
 

Thanks. Would be great to see that fishery come back. In my opinion, not a great eating fish but not bad either. But great to catch and no more beautiful fish in the ocean. Loved the fishery.

Re: SGR Weakies
 

I just never saw Weaks as a great food fish.. They are ok, a bit above say Bluefish, but not in the same league as Sea Bass, Flatfish, Cod/Hake/ Pollock/ Haddock etc,, I guess I didn't realize they were getting blasted still by netters.. I DO recall the "pound nets" in Raritan Bay somewhere between the ammo pier and officers row if I am not mistaken... I think those nets took a LOT of big breeders back in the day but that was decades ago... If guys are seeing foot long weaks on ice labeled "sea trout" these days, well then there's our answer as to why we don't see the spikes back the next year as young adults.... bob

Re: SGR Weakies
 

they caught them as far north as new hampshire this year.