Sign up to get updates from us
Curious about the inner workings of fishing and the politics that surround it? We promise you an enlightening journey in our latest episode, We delve deeper into the fishing world with the revered John McMurray, dissecting his significant contributions that shaped fishing laws, current regulations, and the potential looming shutdown of the spring striped bass season.
Fishing enthusiasts, brace yourselves as seasoned angler, John McMurray, uncovers the exciting evolution of his fishing charter business! Catch McMurray as he throws light on the transition from casting topwater lures for largemouth bass to venturing into offshore trips. Listen to his tales of the resurgence of bluefin tuna and the adrenaline rush of having them on the hook. The discussion takes an interesting turn as John highlights fishing techniques and popper selection, underlining the importance of setting the hook when a fish strikes.
As we tie a knot on this captivating episode, we scrutinize the current state of the fishing industry, discussing the increase in fish population from the lower New York Harbor area all the way up to Canada. We navigate through the data recalibration of 2017-2018 and the government-set spawning stock biomass target. Rounding off, John McMurray harks back to his days as a conservationist and charter captain, recounting the impressive shifts in the Northeast's fishing industry over the past three decades and its effect on the striped bass fishery. Join us in this insightful debate on striking the right balance between fishing participation and conservation. Don't miss out on this episode filled with fishing tales and deeper discussions on the industry's future!
Be sure to visit our friendly and informative fishing forums at www.nyangler.com
Hello New York Anglers. This is George Skaka and you're listening to the New York Fishing Podcast that would be brought to you by nyanglercom, your secret spot online. I don't talk enough about NewYorkAnglercom. That's my website, which is run by many of the same folks around the old Norsecom, and it's just a treasure trove of fishing information which many, many anglers have discovered here in New York. So make sure you stop by. If you don't, I guess you're not a real angler. Just remember everything there is free. We don't charge a dime for anything. So just go on there and you're going to find articles, fishing reports, all kinds of great stuff. So before we get to our guest, who is a great guest, john McMurray. He's a great tuna fisherman, probably one of the better, if not the best, pop and jig tuna charter operations here in the Northeast. He's also a great bass fisherman. He's a conservationist. He's been involved for very long. I know him forever, so we'll get into that in a little while, but before we do, I want to bring you an update on the saltwater fishing license here in New York. Some of you may not want to listen to it, so jump to the next chapter, if you do and you have an agent. First of all, if you don't want to listen, shame on you. You know, look, this is an issue that's going to affect everyone and if we unite we can beat this thing. We've done it before and we can do it again. So I just do want to mention that the as I'd like to say, and so it begins. So a letter went out on October 5th. For the record, today is Sunday, october 8th. So on October 5th, the Edward Romain, the town supervisor out in Brookhaven, who's been around for a long time, carries a lot away politically sent a letter to Governor Huckle who, thinking, has no clue what a fish even is no offense, god, but it just don't look like the fish in type. And, regardless of my overall feelings of Governor Cuomo, you know he truly cared about us. Anyhow, he sends this letter stating we're writing to express our deep concern with the recent actions taken by the DEC to reintroduce the solar water fishing license. This is on behalf of my 500,000 residents in the town of Brookhaven. So, like I say, and so it begins, there are many other politicians in the background that do want to hear from us and know where we're at. They're not sold on this. They know it's just a money grab that's really not going to do much. It's hard to believe. Like we don't know, you know. I mean I'd like to point out one thing that while everyone's saying it's the DEC and I guess it is the person behind and in charge of this whole entire thing is someone who's retired from the DEC. So I kind of don't understand. You know I got to be missing something, but from what I understand, it's been hired as a consultant to move this solar license through. Why would that be? Why would it not be coming from our elected officials, the people that we elect, to decide who's going to tax us? Because you could call this and you could like. They say you could put lipstick on a pig, but a pig is a pig. And let me tell you something this solar water license is a tax. No getting around it. So, look, everyone's going to make their own decision. If you look at the facts, please, I do not. I'm not sending out any disinformation or misinformation. I don't know. There's so many different words they use now for that term. I am bringing just the facts period and I can tell you right now. The facts are a. We have a MRAC, which is Kind of unbalanced on the recreational side. There's a few folks on there that have been there like forever and kind of reminds me of of our government. There should be term limits. There's just some people that have out live their stay on these boards, so they're not hearing from us, and there's a few guys on a board or gals, whatever. Actually, there is a gal on that board that I really like a lot, in that we think the same way. In any case. Look, we can beat this thing. We need to get people vocal. So visit NYAnglercom. There's a hit list there, or there will be on by Tuesday, a hit list of folks that we need to email and let them know that we are opposed to assault or to fishing license. So I'm going to jump right into my guest, great guy Jomik Murray. I've known him for many, many years, in fact. I look I could be wrong about this, but I do believe that I introduced him, not just myself, but me. Charlie Wittig, I'm going to say Willie Young was there at the time, so was Bill and Nikki. God bless both of their souls. I miss them both so much. You know, though, all those folks were there at the time and we decided to hire John McMurray and let me tell you what that was for the CCN New York, which had just started and we needed an executive director. He stepped in from the Coast Guard and he took over and went running with the thing and we did really well. I can't recall I mean I know it sounds like a low number but we had over 2500 people that were paying into the CCN New York to be a member and help us do our work, which we really did a great job in those days. We got the bunker bill passed, we got the bass bill passed, we got the black fill blackfish bill passed. So John had something to do with all of those and he is here to talk about tuna fishing, striped bass fishing, and he also gets into his thoughts about the current striped bass regulations and the potential for a possible total shutdown of the spring striped bass fishery. Not saying that's happening, but I've been saying for years if you listen to me or go to myanglecom, I tell you this was coming, this and also I give it two years, you won't be able to take a bass out of the water to take a picture. So some like two predictions. Anyhow, I'm not going to keep blabbing, we're just going to jump it over to Captain John McMurray, my good friend and fishing conservationist and charter captain. I'm on the line with one of my old friends and one of my favorite anglers who really he's stayed in the game and managed to make a living out of it. Many people don't know that I was one of the first people to hire this guy straight out of the Coast Guard and we have forever maintained to be friends. This is John McMurray, tuna fisherman extraordinaire, and we're here to pick his brain on tuna and whatever else I can get out of them. So tell everyone, john first. Welcome to the show. And tell all listeners what exactly I mean. You're in the charter business. Talk about your business a little bit.
Captain John McMurray:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, george, and it's interesting to hear about the CCA stuff. That must have been 20 years ago.
George Scocca:Oh, yeah, no longer, I think it was yesterday.
Captain John McMurray:Yeah.
George Scocca:I know Wow.
Captain John McMurray:Well, listen, I guess this is my 20th year in the charter fishing business. I guess it had been full time for about 10 years. We got three offshore boats, three tuna boats 27 T they're all contenders a 27 T, a 31 and a 36. And the tuna thing, of course. I kind of grew up or started this thing on inshore trips and I've always been kind of an inshore guy, grew up largemouth fishing and throwing poppers and swimbaits and topwater stuff for largemouth and that's kind of. When I came up here in the Coast Guard back in the early 90s that was my thing. I liked to throw topwater stuff for bass back in the marsh and use light tackle and the whole fly fishing thing was just kind of coming on the scene back then. And as I grew the business Striper started a tank way. Back then they became less available and that kind of killed that solid fly fishing light tackle business. I mean you still get the guys. It just wasn't something you could really make a living on. So I kind of expanded into the offshore stuff. Everybody was talking about the resurgence of bluefin tuna, which, by the way, it was like the poster child for overfishing fisheries back then and reasonable management. I mean, they started to come back in spades and like, unless you've been living in a cave, you know that the access we have to these fish now, compared to 10, 15, 20 years ago, is absolutely extraordinary. So, yeah, I started venturing a little farther offshore Back in 2003 or maybe 2004,. We had a slug of smaller fish that moved into Ambrose Channel Right at the Ambrose Light. I remember we had like eight or nine fish days and it was all throwing like small poppers and fly gear at them. They're all like 30, 40 pounds, really fun fish and that kind of got me hooked. And you know, I started looking for offshore boats. I got that contender, the 23T, in 2005. And then I started like seriously running offshore trips and I guess what differentiated me from other guys that did that was, you know, I kind of brought that like tackle thing over. I like to throw poppers, I like to jig the light stuff and it's not that other people weren't doing that, but it kind of I don't think anybody is really running charters doing that. And I started to bring these inshore guys and striped bass guys, these fly guys and bringing them out to do that. And they were like man, holy shit, this is awesome and the business kind of blew up from there. You know it allowed me to build and you know I got let go from Norcross, which I worked there for over 10 years and by that time I built the business up enough to where I could just say, all right, well, guess what? I'm not looking for another job, I'm just going to do this. Yeah, you know that gave me a little bit of a severance to test it out for a year and I did and it worked and I made enough money. And here I am, man, I'm keeping going and I got a bunch of guys that worked for me and, fuck man, between all three boats would probably do pretty close to 200, 250 trips a year to weather.
George Scocca:That's a lot of fishing.
Captain John McMurray:So, yeah, it's not all tuna, but you know a lot of it. Certainly most of our trips and most of the money comes from the tuna stuff.
George Scocca:All right, we have many listeners who hear about you know this inshore tuna fishery, right? When I say inshore, I'm talking 20 miles. You know inside of that and you know there are many greenies, people that really have little experience at tuna fishing, that are catching some nice bluefin. I you know I've seen some videos of guys catching release and bluefin inshore, but there's a lot of people like you know the first, everybody wants to know where all the fish, right. So what? I'm not asking you for your spots or and we all know there is no one spot. But what are you looking for? Let's say it's money at first, tuna trips a year, right. So what are you looking for? You're looking for a certain water pattern, weather pattern, bait pattern.
Captain John McMurray:So yeah, I mean, with the elephant stuff where you're running long, you're looking for pretty specific water temperature and water color, but with the inshore bluefin stuff you're not really looking for any of that. I mean, I've had those fish in like 45 degree dirty green water before, wow, so that really doesn't have anything to do with the bluefin stuff. What you're looking for like if I had to boil it down is life, you know birds Same old, same old thing, yeah. Well, it's not like strippers, where you kind of want to find them busting on the surface. You're just looking for any sort of life. You know like it's those storms?
George Scocca:That's off shore.
Captain John McMurray:Yeah, so there's storm petrol. We call them tuna, chicks and slicks. When we're talking about that inshore fishery right now, particularly the one where they're kind of keyed in on those squid right, it's all about slicks. Man, you find that smooth water in the birds and you set up there and you start working it pretty hard. A lot of people you know just kind of go to like the broadcast or one of those well-known spots where they, you know, they read it on a report somewhere, but it's really it's not about a specific spot, it's about finding slicks. Whales are another really good indicator. If you got whales A lot of the fish that we caught on that inshore fishery this year we're chasing around dolphin and throwing poppers at dolphin and they're right under the dolphin. Wow, really, you know it's kind of any sort of thing that indicates you know some, there's life there, some things being eaten, you know, and you might not always find the tuna there, but you always want to stop and work it pretty hard and then move on.
George Scocca:So how deep are these fish?
Captain John McMurray:I don't recommend just going to a spot that you heard somewhere, because it's not really the right.
George Scocca:Yeah, that doesn't work by the time you get there I mean, we're talking about bluefin tuna that can swim pretty much as fast as they want.
Captain John McMurray:Right, right, and you read something on the interwebs about a bite at a certain area. By the time you know you get there, it's probably pretty spent.
George Scocca:So you're looking for when it's bluefin, you're just looking for life, which is what we always did when we went offshore, even shark, and you know you look for life and you kind of set up there so, like you kind of, I mean, I don't see many people or I don't see photos or videos of many people doing what you do. I'm sure they're out there, but, and I have to tell you, you take that same picture all the time, but it doesn't get tired. I can look at every single one of those things and even though I kind of look the same, I'm like wow, look at that fish, look at the eyeball, look at this, Look at that.
Captain John McMurray:I'm like so you can't do Beautiful fish. If you could manage to take a picture before they they flop around and get all bloody and you lost them off. They're extraordinarily beautiful and, like you know, do you see the guys with like the eight or nine fish lined up on the deck all gray? That's kind of not my thing, you know?
George Scocca:No, never was, and it's not mine either.
Captain John McMurray:Yeah, people got all been out of shape because I said that was kind of gross, but it is man, it's ugly, you got to call it.
George Scocca:As you see it, john, we all feel differently about different things, but we, ultimately, we all want the same thing, right? We all want a good fish, yeah, so all right. So you're so all right. So you come up. Let's say now your, how deep are these bluefin? Anyway, I'm curious, some guys are coming to get them like 40 feet.
Captain John McMurray:Yeah, it's a little different every year. Well, we had those giants move in man. They were in 50, 60 feet of water, but that's so. That's not really my thing. You can't really. And there's a certain level of fish that you could catch on spinning gear. Once they get over like 150 pounds, 200 pounds, it's like it's not fun anymore. After that it's possible, she's not fun. But you know, we did that, that inshore thing, a few times and I bought 80 wides and all that gear for that and I got to admit it's it's pretty fun. You know, your first time I went I'm letting a bunker out and 30 feet away from the boat explosion in the water. It gets ripped out of my hand.
George Scocca:Oh, I love that.
Captain John McMurray:I love that. Oh, it's so cool man and we're looking at, we're looking at rock away, you know, while this is happening. You know I just don't look at trips. So my kind of my deal is it's just spinning gear, the poppers and the jigs and stuff. But those fish were 50, 60 feet of water. This, this 55 to 65 inch class of fish that we had this year, that was in kind of like 80, 90 foot, you know, but it's still pretty shallow.
George Scocca:Oh yeah, it's not like you know. I got a second place down in Florida 80, 90 feet. You're running 60 miles yeah.
Captain John McMurray:Yeah, well, we're running 15 to 20 miles, exactly, exactly. It's pretty cool yeah.
George Scocca:So you're looking for life, and what kind of plugs do you guys use it? And I'm curious. But go ahead, keep going, I'm sorry.
Captain John McMurray:No, it's fine, so well. Yeah, this kind of relates to the plug selection thing too. When we first got those fish, I would love to say I found them. I did, and a friend of mine found them very early, before anybody knew about any of this, and called me in and we had a good two or three days where they were just crushing poppers. You know no other boats around you get on, you get on these slicks and you wouldn't see in bus or anything. But you know, occasionally you'd see one in the distance, maybe it was a dolphin, maybe it was bluefin, you don't know. But you set up on these slicks and you just blind cast poppers and they were getting absolutely crushed. I mean, it was crazy. We had good three days of that before the fleet found them. But the poppers that I'm using and I can't really tell you if it's this specific popper that works so well or if I've just developed so much faith in it, but it's those Mad Manus cherry pops or I guess I don't know. He's changed the name a bunch of times, but they're Mad Manus and they're the white and I guess you call the frostbite. They're white and they glow and they have the red spots on them. It's nothing crazy. It doesn't look terribly unique to me, but I just caught so many on that particular plug. I'm afraid to use anything else. They make another one. I guess it's called Ghost, you could see through it. We caught quite a few on those this year. I think it came out with them a couple of years ago. It's really just those two poppers and for a while we're catching them on stick baits. But that seems to like you know, that was when we first started doing this. Everybody was like no, they don't eat poppers, they don't eat poppers, they don't eat stick baits. But you know, clearly that was bullshit or it was a case of odd thing, I guess, because down here they absolutely, absolutely hit poppers.
George Scocca:So well, I mean, you would think they would.
Captain John McMurray:Yeah, right, I think the deal with stick baits. You know the sinking ones in particular, like the gosh what's the name of those? The Rhode Island, anyway. You fish them underneath the water so the sheer waters don't get them. We don't really have that here, so they absolutely murder poppers. And man, there's nothing in the world like seeing a you know 100 pound class or even 150 pound class fish crush a popper. It's like somebody drops a piano in the water and the whole boat freaks out. Everybody starts screaming.
George Scocca:No matter how many times you see it, it's still fucking nuts, you know oh, it's got to be because I can recall well, you know I don't my tuna fishing in my days, but I mean I'm like I'm no expert, but I have landed a lot of fish and you know we didn't fish the way you are. But even you know trolling green machine, whatever the heck we were trolling, you know you would. If you're always looking right, if you're a real fisherman, you're not looking anywhere except at those freaking baits for every second and to see those fish come up and take the bait. Or even I'll go down to Albacore, you know violent, there's no other way to describe. Oh my God, they are freaking craze and they're 100% solid muscle, you know.
Captain John McMurray:And I mean I had one. One thing that I want listeners to hear and understand very clearly is that when you get a fish to hit that popper and you freeze like a deer in headlights, it's going to get out. Every time you got to set that hook, I tell people rip his face off three times as hard as you can. Really, what I don't often tell people and I forget to tell people it's got to real. While you do it, some people try to set the hook and the line goes slack. Anyway, sometimes you're fishing all day for these things and you get one strike and if you fuck that up and you don't set the hook and I mean you try to, you try not to be these people are paying you good money to do is you try not to get annoyed at people, but sometimes you can't help it, you know, especially when it's your own show.
George Scocca:So wait, John, hold on. Have you turned into a grumpy old captain already at this young?
Captain John McMurray:age? No, man definitely not, but because I get yelled at, sometimes even till today.
George Scocca:I'll go on a charter. What the hell are you doing?
Captain John McMurray:I'm sure you saw that video of this guy screaming at his clients and that was totally unacceptable. But on the other hand you kind of understand where the guy was coming from, you know? Oh my.
George Scocca:God, I have to laugh at that.
Captain John McMurray:Yeah, Anyway some people you get on the boat. They're really good fishermen. No, they're doing other ones. You know, you tell them a million times not to do something and they do it. So you tell them to do something, they don't do it. It's hard not to get angry or annoyed, but anyway, when I do that and I end up screaming at somebody, I always apologize profusely.
George Scocca:Yeah, but I got to tell you as the guy yeah well, you know what, john, as the guy who's been screamed at, ok, I can tell you, don't get over it. It's very hard when they get over it. The time they get over it is when they get another fish on. Then they forgot about all of that crap. And you know what? I've been one of the best captains. I mean, I used to fish on a party boat for Bluefin and it was crazy back in those days and I fished on the Klondike with Pete Pearson and he was a maniac. Right, he'd be up on that fly but he'd be running around a boat screaming at every single angler. I brought my own tackle right. I brought a 80 pound Y but I only had 50 pound test. So somehow he happens to look at it. What the hell is this? I go. Well, it's a 80 Y and I got 50 pound test. Back in those days I was snicking give the fish a chance. I had no clue that I'd be hooking up on these 300 pound, freaking big eyes and I couldn't even use my own stuff. But I get it because when I switched his tackle I was catching him. I was managing to land them. So nothing wrong with beating an old salt, kind of comes with the game. So, john, again, when I see your photos, I mean I'm not the biggest Facebooker kind of guy, but I go on there and I'll see your photos and I'll see what you become and how you stayed with the fishery and how you respect the fishery. A lot of people may think you respect it a little bit too much. I don't, but I know where you're coming from, I know you're better than most people. I'll just put it to you there outside. I mean I know you for the longest time so I got to ask you. So we're talking to my uptuna and we kind of got past that a little bit. You know what? Talk to me a little bit about the yellow pin. How deep are you going for those?
Captain John McMurray:Sometimes it's 125, 130 feet. Most of the time it's in that 240 foot range. We had them in between the channels. I don't know, gosh, that's trying to figure out what time of the year it was. It was this year. We had them right at the end of the channels and barely 100 feet of water. But that's anomalous, it doesn't usually happen. But yeah, it's the same kind of deal. You're looking for life Right now. It's kind of specific to the squid trawlers. If you find squid trawlers you're always behind there. I mean right now, like late September into October, is probably the best the elephant fishing gets. It's just a matter of getting weather windows to get to them. But you have all these squid trawlers and they're not terribly hard to find. You just look at AIS and sometimes they're pretty far, sometimes you're close but you get right up on them and you always get on your way with a couple of eyeballs full of peanut bunker and you get to find them and you start throwing them and they come up and you throw a beer can at them and they'll eat it. They get fired up like that.
George Scocca:You drop it Like a bluefish, huh.
Captain John McMurray:Yeah, yeah, and you know that's going back to like respecting the fishery. That's when you could pretty much clean up. But I kind of put a cap on seven fish, which again I think is a lot. When you're talking about 50 to 80 pound fish, it's a lot of me. It's a lot and you know, technically they're allowed to keep three per person. You know you've got four guys who talk about 12 fish but you know what the hell happens to all that fish you got to, you got to question and the guys that want to kill all these fish, it's like they show up with one 65 quart yeti. You know it's like what the after you get all the fish, or try to, I try to shut it down. Unless somebody can clearly articulate you know what they're going to do with. Right, I shut it down at seven fish and even at seven fish, I end up having to keep a lot and give them away to my neighbors or you know like. Well, you can always call me.
George Scocca:I'll try. I'll try wherever I have to, because I'm buying online half the time.
Captain John McMurray:The whole term limiting out. It always kind of rub me the wrong way. Fishing isn't about limiting out and sometimes you know you go out there and you grind it out all day and you get one fish out. But that one fish that's such an extraordinary experience to some people that you know it ends up being a great trip and everybody is stoked and I really it really rubs me the wrong way when you get back to the dock and everybody's like how many did you get? How many did you get? Like it's a fucking competition. You know it's not. Yeah, you guys to be happy, you know, and I'm happy with a handful of fish. You know, even one extraordinary fish, that's a great trip.
George Scocca:Yeah, you know, I'm not happy as well.
Captain John McMurray:I don't catch shit. I'm not going to lie to you about that.
George Scocca:Hey look, there's no guarantee, right, it's fishing and if you're not catching there aren't. there aren't a heck of a lot of people there that are catching. But you know I can relate to what you said regarding just that one fish, because you know I did a lot of flu fishing out at cholera in that whole area this year and it was just red hot. And then one day we went out and there was. It was just horrible. We couldn't even come come across a keeper, but there was one keeper and it was pushing eight pounds and that carried us for the day. You know that one fish.
Captain John McMurray:Even though we didn't get any other keepers we kind of didn't care, because we had that one fish.
George Scocca:So yeah, that's an extraordinary fish.
Captain John McMurray:So a couple years ago, the elephant we had a lull in the elephant bite and it was a Saturday and it was flat calm. Everybody was out and I had the in reach. So I got a pretty wide network of guys I communicate with and you know, I had guys at Picardie, I had guys at Coimbra, I had guys on the West wall, I had guys on the East wall. Nobody was doing shit anywhere and we found some fish at the Virginia which, as you know, is pretty close, compared you know where all these guys are running. We had dolphin there, we had dolphin life and birds and we stuck on those dolphin all day because I knew, you know, there's nowhere else to go. I'm not going to go burn fuel to not catch fish somewhere else. We chased them around all day and we had one fish that was probably, you know, a hair over 100 pounds, you know 62, 63 inches. We had one fish come up in front of a dolphin school and absolutely just destroy a popper and everybody went fucking nuts and we landed this thing and everybody got a photo with it and we got back to the dock. That seems like it was. It was definitely the only fish. It was caught in my network. But the point is like it's not. It wasn't about like how many we killed, it was about that one fish and that made the day like awesome. I still talk about it.
George Scocca:Yeah, yeah, look again I've seen that over and over where one time you're going to have that one fish that can carry today and you're happy with that fish, you know. So I look, let's. So we discuss tuna. I'm going to say, from what I can see, you're like this seems to be your space and I know you're really good at it and folks, if you want to get in touch with John, we'll set that up at the end of the podcast. But I want to discuss something else. I'm hoping that you may want to talk about it and it's the current situation in Stripe Bass. I mean, you're in the industry, right, and I'm just going to give you my take real quick. You know there's got about going around about shutting this fishery down. There were people I spoke with. Actually, we've been talking about this for three years. We kind of all saw this coming. I believe it's all based on poor data and I don't blame any manager. You know they get data and then they have to respond. But I'm curious what your thoughts were the way asmfc handled the 28 to 31 inch fish. I'm going to tell you I I oppose it in for a number of reasons, in that, if it's an emergency was such an emergency and they just they gave Chata boats no heads up and they just kind of shut it down. And why are all the commercials allowed to bigger fish If it was an emergency? And I'm not going after commercials, I'm not making this a recreational commercial thing.
Captain John McMurray:I'm just saying so, yeah, no, I hear where you're coming from and it's kind of difficult for me to tiptoe around the subject without burning bridges on one side or the other. Got to be honest. Honestly, dude, I don't really give a shit. So let me, let me just be honest, okay. Yeah, I've got an extraordinary fishery in the New York bite, in the lower New York Harbor area in particular. It's the last two years there are more fish around I seen in 20 years, and folks will will say that that's just specific to New York. Well, you know, we're kind of at the epicenter in the spring, in the fall and, yeah, maybe a lot of those fish are Hudson fish. But when you start to look up the coast it's hard to not acknowledge that it's not gotten better in the last several years up and down the coast, with the very blatant exception of the Chesapeake day, that's. That seems to have completely shit the bed, and why? You know, the folks argue that it's climate change. I overfishing contributing. But you know, I think, I think there's some sort of northward movement of the striped back. Absolutely, and they're going to follow the bait I don't have a lot of science to to prove that, but it just, it's intuitive. Now, you know, folks will argue that that the Chesapeake produces 68% of the coastal stock and you could just look at a chart and understand why it's huge. And then those fish go back to the natal rivers, and that's to some extent true. But, but there's also fish that go back to the Hudson and the Delaware and you know, while the data doesn't really show it, those, those fisheries seem to be more prolific than they were. And then you work your way up the coast all the way up to the Canabac, and certainly the Canabac seems to be producing more fish. You go up to the freaking Merrimachie in Canada and that's, there's a huge spawning population there now. So so something is happening, I think, and in the data, let's let's be clear about the data here we're being this target, this fishing or this spawning stock biomass target that we're trying to reach, is kind of a side effect of the data recalibration, which was what 2017, 2018. And we're being asked, and, without getting into too much detail about that, it showed that the fishing effort was a lot higher than they thought and that so the spawning stock biomass must be higher than they thought. So they ended up setting that, that biomass goal, at a pretty damn high level and some would argue almost unattainable, particularly given the poor recruitment that's happened in the Chesapeake. I mean, when you look at the time series, we've only achieved it in four years out of a 40 year time series. You know, and it's possible to achieve, and if we have good recruitment which we kind of don't right now, but it's going to be really hard to achieve that, and even with that tiny slot limit that we have right now, it's showing that we're not going to achieve it by the deadline, which is 2029. Now, you know, with all that in mind, I do you know, kind of on and off the record, I guess I think you know maybe we're overreaching with that. I don't. I think these people that talk about a moratorium are fucking batshit crazy. You know, you can't. Just having seen the amount of fish, I just can't imagine shutting it down. It just doesn't seem warranted to me. And, george, I'm not, I'm not a kill all guy, I've been a conservation guy since since you know me. But I also think you have to be reasonable in your management.
George Scocca:You have to have some access, or else you, or else you lose people, the people that advocate for it, you know, because that's a firm believer in exactly what you said by cutting out or restricting wrecks from this fishery will only hurt the fishery.
Captain John McMurray:I really believe because, say the stewards we should be very clear about one thing here, and that's that you know the catch and release guys and you know, to be honest, most of my clients don't want to keep strikers. You know, some do. I'm not going to argue that.
George Scocca:Well, they like to eat them.
Captain John McMurray:Yeah, you got it Right, but the discard mortality accounts for 50% of the total mortality. So these guys who think they're innocent by releasing every fish are not. And guess what? When they shut this fishery down, if they shut it down, if they do what's called no target closures, guess what that means? It's illegal for you to even target them. So when you go around talking about shutting it down in a moratorium, guess what that means. You too, buddy. So you know I'm a little concerned about how we're going to get to this biomass target in 2029 without shutting it down.
George Scocca:Well, john, let me ask you now isn't, isn't it kind of like an arbitrary number, that like a number that was picked, that's like it's doesn't have to happen by then?
Captain John McMurray:Yes, I'm not going to argue that it's not arbitrary, but it's 10 years from the time when the stock was declared over fish. We have a stock assessment that says the stock is technically below the spawning stock, spawning stock biomass threshold, it's over fish. And then the commission approves it and that sets the clock at 10 years. Now, yeah, it's arbitrary, but if you don't have some sort of timeline, you know, having sat on both the commission and the council, they will. They will just put it off and put it off and never achieve it. So I do understand that 10 year timeline, but what I question really is whether or not we've managed to set this biomass target too high. Right and just given, given what I've seen on the water and what folks see all the way up to Maine. You know there's there's a lot of fish around and how the hell are we going to keep fishing mortality at a low level when there's all these fish around? It's like that sort of opportunity drives participation. It's more guys are going to fish and there's more fish around. So it's it's a fucking big problem and it needs to be figured out before we unnecessarily shut this down.
George Scocca:Well, you know, we need that, we need people to be part of the process, which we don't have really anymore, you know, not as many. It's like kind of down to just listen, enjoy.
Captain John McMurray:I did that shit for for too long, for 15 years. Me too, and it sucks. It's like you're banging your head against the wall and I'm not going to say your voice doesn't matter, you don't achieve things and certainly you can do more when you sit behind the table. But you know, when you got a business to run and kids to raise and everybody's going to fucking hate you. Whatever decision you make, one side's going to hate you and, believe me, they're very vocal about it on social media etc. And they don't. They don't pull any punches either, man.
George Scocca:Yeah, I know you were fine for a while.
Captain John McMurray:Yeah, so it's hard to find good people to take on that role and represent fishermen and you. Just it's really difficult to find the right person. I understand why, yeah no, I do too.
George Scocca:Hey, what do you think I didn't know? You know what I've been through. So, but it's to me it's just part of the process. Most people don't really understand what's happening. But there's striped bass fishery. I've always been an advocate, you know. I mean I'm a conservation mind, the guy, but at the same time I want fairness amongst both sides and we didn't see that in this case. They came out, it's an emergency. They gave you guys when I say you guys, I'm going to say to Charterbone industry like zero time for you to tell your clients sorry guys, they just reduced the slot in half.
Captain John McMurray:People really got screwed on that and it's not me particularly, because I don't get a lot of guys that I mean it'll probably affect me a little bit, but not much, but I couldn't imagine some of my colleagues are really gonna. You know, people fish. It's different parts of the industry. People fish with certain guys is they want to take fish home and it's going to be pretty damn hard to find fish within that slot.
George Scocca:Well, the more we fish it, the less there are. It doesn't to me, it doesn't make any sense at whatsoever. And why are we protecting all these monster fish, the big fish that are going to die in a couple years? And we're freaking, killing every? Well, we're not killing everything, we're not killing many. And let me ask you do you buy that 9%?
Captain John McMurray:I don't buy 9%, release mortality, I just don't buy it, let me let me give you my opinion, which is just an opinion, but you know it's based on the last 20 years of fishing for these things. I do think. I do think probably one in 10, one in 11 fish I release die like they get gill hooked or gut hooked, or it does seem reasonable to me and it's a lot lower than it is in other fisheries. I think bluefish is 10% or 12% or something like that, but it's just the sheer number of people targeting them and releasing them that makes the overall discard mortality so high. Because when you extrapolate that 9% across all the guys fishing for them, then it's going to be significant.
George Scocca:Now I know, but I've seen so many studies when I say so many, like half a dozen that and one of them was done here in New York by John Pellegrino. He used to run a boat on North Shore and DEC or ASMFC this year ago probably when you first got in here they commissioned him to do a catch and release, to help them with a catch and release study, and they set up a pen somewhere in Huntington Bay. They caught a bunch of fish, they threw them in there and they had a 2% mortality rate. Every single one of those fish was caught on a hook and line. So you know, like they kind of don't look to me but they don't look at all the data, I can see you agreeing with it because you know you got gut hooked fish and people are pulling them.
Captain John McMurray:There's been a lot of work at UMass I think maybe it's in my team, but they're doing some work on discard mortality and, you know, nothing has been peer reviewed yet. From what I understand, their numbers are pretty close to what we're currently using. And again just back to anecdotal shit, in my experience it's like all right, well, you got the fly guys who are holier than now and never kill any fish and say they don't got a good catch.
George Scocca:They're cooking.
Captain John McMurray:That's not true, because you're stripping that fly through and there's that like in between, when you're pulling you're going to grab the line. They'll eat that fly and they'll get it right in their gill every time. Right, I also, when you're fishing plugs and you know, I went through a phase where I use single hooks and I didn't want to kill all these fish, but you know you get guys that don't fish well and you just miss a ton of fish. Yeah, you can't tell me that you're going to, even if you legislate it, that people are only going to use single hooks and there's no way to enforce it. So I do think I mean I'm not going to sit here in bullshit and tell you that the discard mortality isn't significant. It is. But I also think it's kind of like a red herring for managers Like you can't really address discard mortality. I mean you could try to do things like require circle hooks for bait or J hooks for plugs, but you know, and most people are going to be compliant, but that's really not going to make much of a difference. You can't even quantify it from a science perspective. You can't quantify that savings. It's always going to exist in the fishery and you can't address it, in my opinion, is that you address the things that you can't you address. You know the commercial side. They're killing every fish that they catch and it's a drop in the bucket compared to the recreational side. My point is you manage targeted deaths. You manage killing fish because that's the only thing that you really can manage. I think all this bullshit with trying to focus on discards isn't going to help out at all. What it is going to do is it's going to put me out of business If they close down. You know, april for striped bass for me, or May.
George Scocca:Oh look, John, I'm saying for years, just so you know, for years that this was coming and they were coming out and they were going to specifically go after you guys because those fish are headed to the Hudson or headed out of the Hudson and I mean I totally predict. I'm going to give you another prediction. I'm going to give it one year, maybe two, where you will not be able to pull a striped bass out of the water unless it's legal size. These people, in no look, it's in Florida, you can't take a snowsuit out of the water.
Captain John McMurray:I could live with that. I could live with that, george. I wouldn't be ideal, because people want photos. You know if you're catching, release fishing? People want their Instagram and Facebook pictures, right, right. They don't say that they may or may not fish with me. But you know I could probably survive that. What I couldn't survive is no targeting. Because if they tell me I can't target striped bass in April, may because they're going up to Hudson, then you know I can't. First of all, most people are not going to be compliant. You get bored. They're just going to say they're fishing for bluefish. But guy like me can't do that.
George Scocca:I can't do that and get away with it.
Captain John McMurray:You know those party of guys that have a fuel day on me if I was marketing bluefish trips in April. There's no fucking bluefish around in April, so it's really going to hurt if it happens and, honestly, everybody keeps telling me, god, they're not going to do that, they're not going to do that. Well, I don't see how they're going to avoid it. It's 50% of the mortality and there are people on the commission that really want to see that happen. They want to see, you know, the whole year, the now catch release guys much more included get punished for this, and they're not wrong because we're part of the problem.
George Scocca:Yeah, but no, they are. I'm sorry, they are wrong, because let me tell you something If you take it all away from us and we don't care about that fishery, that fishery is going to end up 100% in the hands of the commercial fishermen and we don't want that happening, right? So you know? Let me ask you this question so in fisheries management they manage by pounds, right? We don't really care about pounds, we care about the numbers of fish, whereas commercial fishery cares about pounds. So are we a lot of X amount of pounds a year? I mean, I don't really get how they're managing our piece of it. And you know, like I've actually seen states that have, like they have, regs in pounds for commercials and in inches for recreation.
Captain John McMurray:I'm not sure how that works, and once you get into the science side of things it's kind of like above my pay grade. I was never a math guy, yeah, but it does seem kind of silly. And I know there's folks that have been asking for that sort of poundage versus fish method to be changed. But I don't know enough about it to say something All right.
George Scocca:So here's another question. So again, you probably don't know, but I want your take on it. So they force, they tell us how great circle hooks are right, and I agree, I'm not disagreeing. And so they implement circle hooks over the last. What is this third, fourth year? And why are we still at 9% by catch mortality? Should that be reduced?
Captain John McMurray:I touched on this. I touched on this earlier. There's no way to quantify the benefit of gear changes. There has to be a scientific method that allows you to say we've saved x% on using this gear type. And one doesn't exist. So we could put all these gear type regulations in the books that we want. It will not help that 9% number one bit. Is it the right thing to do? Do you want to reduce discards, whether they show up on paper or not? Yeah, but let me just say something about that circle hook requirement. There are no fewer people snagging and dropping now than they were before. That requirement, oh yeah. No look it's unenforceable, so they're not going to comply, and if they do get boarded you just say you're targeting bluefish or something. So it's kind of silly.
George Scocca:Yeah, look, I always said fisheries regulations and rules are voluntary. You know, when a fisherman goes out, he's a poacher that doesn't give a shit about regulations or sizes, or he's the kind of guy that's you know, or gal that's going to stick by the regulations.
Captain John McMurray:So the managers would argue that most people are going to be compliant by nature, and I agree with that, with something like size and bag limits. But when you talk about something that most people view as ridiculous, like no target closures or even gear restrictions, they just won't comply, particularly if there's no repercussions for them not complying. So folks, you know, like Mike Luisi and the Maryland contingent, will argue yes, we can implement these no target closures where you can't even, you know, be out there targeting for stri bass and and yes, they will work, but they're just, there's just no way in my mind that they would have any discernible effect on the stri bass population. You just, you just have people continuing, people are not going to stop fishing, and she's not going to happen.
George Scocca:Well, they could ruin it for us, you know, they could ruin it for me they just did.
Captain John McMurray:The average Joe is it's not going to reduce fishing mortality at all, so yeah, but it's going to reduce his participation. I've made that argument, george, around the table at the commission and, and you know, people just flat out disagree. They're like you're wrong. Data shows that there's X amount of compliance, but I think it's bullshit.
George Scocca:Yeah, I look. I think we all know that where you're talking about fishing specifically, there are more freaking striped bass in there than there have ever been. Ever. And whether that be because of the water's warming, more fish moving out of the bay, I don't know why fish would stay in the chest peak when there's just enough time for them to eat, I mean nothing. So so that's why they're kind of moving. So they come here where you know we pass thanks to you, you were part of it. We passed that bunker build back in the days and we are the envy of the coast and we have all this life and all these bass coming in here and we rebuilt this. And now they're telling they I mean, they haven't yet, but there's a good chance they're going to tell you you can't target those fish. Well, at the same time, you're probably aware they're doing PCB studies to open that section up to the commercial fishery. So they're going to shut us out and at the same time say, okay, the PCBs are low enough, let's let these guys fish commercially in that area. And again, I don't want them to make this recreation or commercial. What I'm trying to point out is that the basis for this whole idea is wrong. We have the fish. The fish are here. We have more fish than we ever had. They have some spots where you know you hear, oh, there aren't that many, but there aren't that many in the 28 to 31 inch size because we're targeting them all. Just that makes sense to me. We're going to wipe out a whole year class. I don't understand that for the life of me.
Captain John McMurray:But anyway, you know the bottom, so it's. So a couple of things. Yeah, I mean it's it's hard to understand that small slot and how it won't just whack like a one solid year class. But those you know, it's not really about targeting specific year classes or reducing mortality on specific year classes, even though we tried to do that with the last amendment, amendment seven, where we looked at different scenarios that would hopefully protect those 2015s the Chesapeake Bay 2015s, which is a really strong year class None of them showed any sort of benefit to the overall fishery in achieving that spawning stock biomass target by 2029, because they just shifted effort to other year classes. So that's where that came from. That was the. That emergency regulation was a way to reduce fishing mortality in a quick, expedient manner. Now the commercial thing. When you talk to Emerson Hasbrook, who was the other commissioner and he's one of the guys, one of the leads for that study and he's got a good argument, you know, okay, well, yes, we're looking at allowing our fishermen to maybe kill more Hudson fish so they could sell them, but it's the commercial guys that have been responsible for the overfishing, not the commercial guys. The commercial guys are managed on a flat quota and when they can't kill any more fish. We're size and bag limits. So once the effort increases, which is usually the result of abundance, then you know our fishing mortality goes through the roof. So we should be the ones that have to shoulder the burden, not the commercial guys. And you know it doesn't seem fair, but it also doesn't seem unfair when you look at it from Emerson's perspective.
George Scocca:No, no, first of all, I'm not saying that. But don't shut us down and open them up at the same time, Because it's pretty obvious you're shutting us down to open them up, you know. And another point, john, you got to think about is these regulations didn't only they don't put something like this into effect in an emergency just to reduce I don't know bycatch, take whatever they do it to reduce effort, and that's the thing that you know. As an advocate for sport fishermen, it's one thing I cannot stand when they pull that. And the bottom line is I know for a fact, I've asked so many anglers that like to take a fish home. They're not bass fishermen, they're just not. I mean, what is that? Maybe, even if it's just 10%, it is. You know people like to take a bass home to eat. So you know they're not going to do it with this lottery slot. I mean, you know these party boats. You know as well as I do they would. They would freaking pack in them for striped bass not happening now.
Captain John McMurray:So I was talking to oh God, what's his name? The guy from Capture Pride.
George Scocca:Oh, okay, yeah, I can.
Captain John McMurray:I can get on that team. Yeah, ken Haggins, oh, kenny, good guy, really good guy. So I'm talking to him the other day and, and he's, you know, he's very honest, he's like I know he does agree with me on this stuff, which I actually don't disagree with him. A lot of stuff he says. You know, this is going to kill me. I'm not going to get the guys, but I, you know, when I did talk to him a few days later he was telling me that he was booking up pretty good for those bass shows. My point is that you know, as long as there's the opportunity to kill one, as long as there's the chance, I think those people are still going to go. But once you, once you start telling people you can't target them, then you're fucked. Man. Oh, I told him that's going to be the end, that's going to be the end of shit. So that's, that's really what's got me real, real worried and and and again, like a lot of the advocates for striped bass conservation keep telling me that's not going to happen. But you know, I sat around the table and I'd listened to people at the hospitality suites talk about it. I mean, hopefully the right it doesn't happen, but it seems likely to me that it can and will happen. Well, at the very least, we're going to lose some seasons, we're going to lose part of the season. I think that's, that's inevitable at the next meeting.
George Scocca:And it's going to be the spring season, they're going to protect those spawners.
Captain John McMurray:And the early spring and the late fall. That's when it peaks for us, and those are the most likely months to get whacked.
George Scocca:That'd be horrible. I mean that would be a disaster. That would be. Like you know, when I started in the Northeast in 89, you know you couldn't catch a striped bass. And here we are now where there are more fish than I have ever heard of or seen. There are people right now that they can't catch a fish under like 30 pounds. Imagine you used to look for the big fish and how you can't catch anything within that slot. And you know it's interesting, george.
Captain John McMurray:There's. You remember when you wanted to get a 50, I'm thinking about Willie Young's gut, oh, I still want a 50. Well, listen to get his 50, he spent a week every year in Block Island in like mid October, late October, and he was fished the beach all night to get that 50. He did it for years. I was probably close to a decade and he finally got his 50. Now any jackass with a sea ray could go out, you know, at 10 o'clock and snag a bunker and get a 50. It's totally changed the fishery as I've seen more 50s and 60s in the last three years and I've seen in my entire life. Yeah, I mean, it's the size of these fish is like. I've never seen anything like it. It's not just fish, it's, it's slot fish. It's. It's small fish and there is. There does seem to be a dearth of schoolies, but otherwise there's just a way. Like I said, it's the best fish and I've had in 20 years. Yeah well, they're saying they're on.
George Scocca:I think what's happened is like you said, look, with everything else, I did a whole series on on a podcast on this. I mean, things are changing. The waters are. I'm not just saying, yeah, the waters are warming, but the climate is warming and everything is changing, fisher moving out of areas, new fish are moving in. I mean there's literally a targeted tarpon fishery in Massachusetts this year. I'm like what? People catching freaking tarpon up there. So you know, we're in the middle of this change, but one thing is not going to change, and that is that the Hudson River, I believe, has developed into the greatest sporting ground for striped bass on East Coast, because there's no commercial take there's no netting, there's no shit in there.
Captain John McMurray:So anecdotally, it does seem, that does seem to be the case and and it you know that entire spring rare in fishery there's got to be Hudson fish, right. How could they not be Hudson? They are but right. And that fishery seems to be getting better and better every year. Absolutely the question that fishery is under is extraordinary, but it doesn't seem to be knocking it down at all, which is which is interesting. But you look at the, at the juvenile abundance indices in the Hudson River, and they're not. They're not a whole lot. If you draw a line through them, it does appear to be a huge draw line through them. It does appear to be on the upswing, but it's, it's not extraordinary Over the over the entire time series, and you would think that the Hudson is producing more of the fish, but it's, it's not really Well, and now it goes back to.
George Scocca:you have a lot more faith. You have a lot more faith in the numbers than I do, like I kind of just look at what's happening and I don't look at their numbers, and I'm like you know this fishery is the greatest fishery ever.
Captain John McMurray:Yeah, and I think that's how most people think about things. But if you start to just, you know, rely on what people say and what people experience and you have no data, then it kind of allows people to represent their own interests. You know, like the data is. There's no subjectivity, it's it's the data, and that's kind of like what you in the end and when you're making management, so that's what you got to rely on. Otherwise it's chaos.
George Scocca:Now I get that. But there's just times where you look and you see what's happening. And then you look at the data and you're like I don't even in my mind the Hudson River. They could keep everything the way it is. Keep, keep the commercials out, don't be talking with Gilnets, they'll destroy that fish. It's bad enough with the shad fishermen in there with their nets, but if you can continue to keep it the way it is, that fishery is going to thrive and thrive and thrive. We have more bait than anyone. So you know, look, I kind of I when I say I feel bad for the charter industry right now that that built up this beautiful following of striped bass fishermen. They're teaching etiquette. My other point is we go on with a 9% catch and release number. That hasn't changed. John, I want you to think about this. That hasn't changed for like 20 years. So are you telling me in the last 20 years we haven't changed our etiquette, we haven't done more as anglers to save more fish?
Captain John McMurray:You're not going to give us anything, I mean we're doing more to save those fish. People are definitely more conscious of how they handle and release fish. Now, that's an interesting point that you thought of. We're not Don't expect to get rewarded for that.
George Scocca:No, I know that that's my point, because they can't find data on it, and my complaint I always have I might have said it before, I'll say it again is fisheries management lacks common sense. They need absolutely some common sense in there to say you know what?
Captain John McMurray:What are we doing? So the problem with that and I'll just give you a quick example we sat there at the table for four fucking hours and talked about whether or not a tube and worm was legal under the new regulations. That's how fucking stupid that sort of thing is. Like common sense, you know. Let the guys use it. It's not bait, it's you just tipping them.
George Scocca:Exactly. You've never got hooked to fish that way, ever. You can't. It's not talking about it.
Captain John McMurray:Right, but the problem is you can't make those sort of common sense decisions without data to support them, because if you do, one of the NGOs will come right in and sue the shit out of you, not necessarily at the commission, but at the council.
George Scocca:Right, right, right.
Captain John McMurray:So I do understand, but yeah, I mean that conversation in particular was so frustrating and I think I made a comment on the record about how ridiculous it was, but it didn't slow it down at all. You know, these guys who sit there and talk in circles for hours, it's terrible. Drown me nuts, yeah.
George Scocca:Well, I tell you, look, I'm glad that we got to talk and it sounds to me not that you have come around. I think you've known these things all the time and you've been trying to affect it.
Captain John McMurray:but now, the fishery is different now. Like back when we started focusing on conserving Strybast, the fishery was starting to shit the bed and we all saw it on the water and the data hadn't manifested. Now we have a tremendous increase. So, you know, I still consider myself a conservationist and you know, if I don't have this resource to utilize, it's not only do I go out of business but I lose my fucking mind, like I'm addicted to this now. But if you inch over into one side of the argument at all, if you try to take a middle ground, you try to explain to people what you see on the water and how maybe this flat limit is gratuitous or an overreach, and certainly shutting the fishery down is not necessary. And you know it might be good for the bass but it's not good for the people who you know stand up for bass and always have, and that kind of puts you in the crosshairs for some people and I think it's a reflection of just the political climate in general. You are everything is so polarized you either on the left or on the right and you can't be in the middle, or else you know you're a trader to someone. Well, I think that's kind of the way people are. Some people might be perceiving me right now as like I thought he was the conservation guy. Well, yeah, I am, but there's a fucking shit ton of fish around right now. Do we really need to be talking about a closure? I mean, it's all counterintuitive and anyway. I just wanted to explain my thinking and my views on things now, and they're quite a bit different than they were half a dozen years ago, and that's because fishery is quite a bit different.
George Scocca:Well, that's what I was going to say. I don't think your views are different. The fishery is different and you know what you're speaking, you're looking at it and you're seeing it. I'm glad you have, I mean, I know you always have and as far as you being a conservationist, you don't need to explain that to anybody because you are People know that I mean most. I'm not going to say most, but many charter captains are conservationists. Most want to keep that fishery alive so they can continue to work. And without you folks, you can't introduce people to fishing. So, in my mind, keeping you guys going is very important to us, very. And to just shut you down on what we would call bad data at a time when there's more fish, all because they don't want you to catch fish, they're making it so hard for us to catch fish that you know, look, you had no choice but to look at it both ways and I respect you for that. I always did. We haven't always agreed on things, but you and I, we don't like you probably more in favor of a license than me. Maybe you are, maybe you're not, but that's OK, you know. So I don't care what side of the aisle you're on left or right, I care about fishing participation. It's all about getting new people and fishing. And in New York it's not really. Is New York we do. We get in the way of so many different fisheries and once things start going there's always cutbacks. And the way I see it in this state is recreational anglers really are treated as second class. Maybe that's the same up and down the coast, I don't know, but in this state we are. You know, think about it. Go down the coast. How many states have these huge fishing peers, that they have educational classes? They take people out fishing to see you know what they have to offer. We don't have any of that. So don't feel like you're not being conservation minded because you want to continue fishing for striped bass. We all want to, and if there, were no fish we wouldn't want to.
Captain John McMurray:I'm not. I'm not thinking. I'm not a conservationist anymore, but I do. You know, I hear scuttle blood from other people, yeah but you know, yeah, they don't oh, he wants to keep fish now or he wants to keep it open, even though there's well.
George Scocca:He wants to keep it open because when he goes out there it's freaking bass paved everywhere and you know, the only spot that's that's a little weak and they actually aren't. It's just slotfish is not for. But everywhere else there are tons of striped bass, some more striped bass than maybe I can ever recall. I mean people that don't even want striped bass and catching them at times. They're talking in albies, I see, and they're getting striped bass.
Captain John McMurray:So I was having a discussion with another charterboat captain a few weeks ago and about you know how much more difficult it is to book striped bass trips than it used to be, and that's because, well, his, his idea, his opinion was that was because it's so damn easy now, like you go out and your buddy Joe's C-Ray, like I said, at 10 o'clock in catchroom, whereas you know it kind of needed a professional when things weren't as abundant as it was.
George Scocca:Right, right, right, yeah, that kind of makes. That kind of makes some sense. Well look, john you, you've been around a long time. I respect everything you've done.
Captain John McMurray:Not as long as you've been Excuse me. No, I haven't been around as long as you.
George Scocca:No, no, no, no, no, that's for sure. I mean, geez, I've been around now what 30 something years, a long time, but I'm still here. This is actually my passion. I don't really make in fact, I don't make one dime on it, but I'm pretty much retired. So, but you know, I'm sitting here watching everything that's happening and there's no one doing anything about it. I'm going to just get into one thing for one minute and I'll give you an example. You got these guys that have been fishing shark off the beach like forever, and now there's a reg coming in that's going to seriously restrict them. And look, I get that many of the fish they're targeting are not that they're targeting them, but many of them that are being caught are protected sharks. But many of the boaters are catching sharks or protected sharks, and so they've been singled out. They basically I don't know if you know this they're going to shut them out of the fishery. They're forcing them to use a 12 inch leader for shark. They're not allowed to deploy. They were deploying with drones and kayaks and not allowed to do that anymore. Well, they're coming close to this decision, so like we're being attacked on every angle, and I just see it that way and remember. I'm sure you know this, but the best thing for striped bass, shark and everything else is if no one fished for them. That would be the best thing. Nobody was fishing. But is that what we want? I don't think so.
Captain John McMurray:You know, there's a lot of folks who constantly use the refrain whatever's best for the bass. Well, guess what Whatever's best is if nobody touches them Exactly and I don't think they are either, but you still hear it over and over again.
George Scocca:Yeah, someone always got. Look, you know, this one I'm going to kind of close with in that and I'm not including you in it because you're kind of really not in it as much as you were but we have dinosaurs in New York that are representing us. We have people that are sitting in very powerful places when it comes to fisheries decisions, that claim to be speaking for us and they are. It's. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I will tell you we will. We will start targeting each board member on the MRAC and we're going to go after the NCOM committee on all these things, and we're going to start getting legislators involved once again, because we're getting run, we're getting run over and that's got to change.
Captain John McMurray:No, it's interesting that if you talk to anybody on the decision making side, particularly the legislative side, they don't want to touch fisheries because it's such a contentious issue. They realize they're going to lose votes one way or the other, so they just and that's part of the reason we don't have a legislative commissioner at the, at ASMFC right now Nobody wants to buck and touch it.
George Scocca:So that would be picked by the administration, right?
Captain John McMurray:Because I'm thinking yeah, well, so it's yeah, the Senate and the I think the Senate and the problem with New York is that there's nothing codified about how you pick a, how you pick a legislative commissioner. It just, it just kind of happens and right now, if I understand the political situation correctly, is nobody really wants to step up because it's so contentious.
George Scocca:Well, is that something you'd like to do?
Captain John McMurray:I did it for seven years. I know I wouldn't throw my, I wouldn't make a concerted effort to do it. But if a legislator were to come ask me to do it, I would consider, yeah, but I've you know with it, dude, I got absolutely fucking murdered on social media for some of the positions that I felt were the right positions to take and I don't think if I tried to, if I tried to get that position without being asked I lobbied for it I would get skewered again. I think I don't think that they want those guys want me there, right? Well, look, I'm working on some things.
George Scocca:I've been reaching out. Well, there's nobody. And I've been speaking with a number of key legislators. See, no one does that. No one. They haven't heard from anyone. I got in touch with the Encon. The head of Encon committees, the Republican out East I'm trying to think I can't think of his last name, oh my God, I spoke Palombo and really nice guy had no clue that we have assault water license coming. So I'm not sure how they're doing it without talking to the legislature. I'm thinking it's got to be passed through the legislature. I had no clue about that, no clue about the striped ass situation, because nobody's talking to them, no one. So they're wide open. In fact, I should have one on a podcast next week and discussing what they can do for us. So we need to get we need to get the legislators back involved because, john, you were there. What we did was pretty amazing. I mean, the bill that we closed on Striped Bass is still enforced today, right as far as the commercial.
Captain John McMurray:take the bunker bill all those things we did Absolutely, and I think if you have the will and the people to help out to move the ship in a different direction, in the right direction, then it's certainly possible and you could do it. It just that doesn't seem to exist right now.
George Scocca:Yeah Well, people are in for a surprise. I mean, especially, I got like about six months and I'm putting my last company to bed After that. Watch out, I'm going to have a lot of time, although I will be in Florida for six months a year. So I had down there you were talking about largemouth fishing. I had down a couple of weeks and I'm on this gorgeous freaking quarry with huge largemouth peacock bass. I love it. I do whatever, In fact.
Captain John McMurray:I had skin around there. That's how I grew up, is doing that, you know that's. That's how I got the bug. I live walking distance from the Potomac and from the age of seven on, I walk down there every day with a bag full of plugs in a big caster. That was my thing, man.
George Scocca:Well, look it turned into. Look, you have a beautiful family. I was joking with you about what I said. I think you're looking great. You're a tough dude man. You're kind of looking like an old salt, though I don't know You're like a salty captain.
Captain John McMurray:I'm feeling pretty old too. To be honest, I'm not sure how much I'm going to be behind that helm.
George Scocca:Your son is going to be kicking your ass soon.
Captain John McMurray:Yeah, I know, I know he's almost there All right, Johnny.
George Scocca:Look, it's been really, really good. Is there anything else you want to discuss before we close it out?
Captain John McMurray:I don't think so man Make sure you tell people how they could get in touch with you. Yeah, yeah, it's. Nyctunacom is my website and there's a booking calendar there and everything and my you know you find my email address and my cell number on that on the website also.
George Scocca:All right, great, all right, john, it's been really a pleasure. I always love speaking with you and I wouldn't worry too much about you know. Just don't get yourself wrapped in it. They do it to me. I don't read it. Yeah, if I make a post on Facebook, I don't go back for like a month, so I don't care what they say.
Captain John McMurray:You know what it's like. You try to ignore it, but people keep sending you screenshots. But whatever, you got to have a thick skin, that's all. I think my skin's probably a little thicker now than it was back then when all that shit was going on, because I just wasn't prepared for it. But whatever, man, well look say hello to the way. Yeah.
George Scocca:All right, thanks, george, thanks a lot, and Johnny. I get this feeling we're going to be in touch in the near future, so but good luck, man. I hope you have a really good close out to the season.
Captain John McMurray:Thanks, buddy, appreciate it All, right, pal.
George Scocca:That wraps up another episode of the New York Fishing Podcast. I'd like to thank you all for listening. Please remember to hit that subscribe button and remember you can listen to the New York Fishing Podcast at any place and any time. So when you can't watch, be sure to listen. Until next time, folks, I want to give up before I go. I just want to give a quick shout out to my friends over at myanglercom. You know who you are and I appreciate everything you're doing over there. So until next time, folks, tight lines all, and God bless America.
