Dolphin returns PFBC striped bass tag

[Mike]

Received a tag return notice this past week from North Carolina. My colleague or I tagged a 16 inch striper immediately up from the Tacony Palmyra bridge on the NJ side of the Tidal Delaware in May, 2001. In 2007 or 2008 a dead 8 ft dolphin, the mammal, washed up on a NC beach. A researcher harvested the stomach and preserved it for later gut analysis. Well, later became 10 yrs later and just in the last few weeks the contents were thawed and examined. Striper parts were found along with the tab end of the tag, which was imprinted with the tag number and traced back through the US Fish and Wildlife Service's east coast striper tagging database to our fish., tagged in 2001. Otherwise, we have had very few tag returns from NC.

 

[troutbert]

Interesting.

On the topic of dolphins, have they always been present off the NJ coast?

When I went to the NJ shore in the 1960s through the early 1970s I don't recall ever seeing dolphins.

I don't get to the shore very often, but in the few times I have been there from the 1990s onward, dolphins seem very common.

Especially in the morning and again in late afternoon.

Have dolphin populations increased? Expanded northwards?

 

[Dave_W]

Cool story - should probably chalk this one up under the "yuh can't make this stuff up" category.

Interesting on the fish size. If it it was eaten in 07 or 08 it ought to have been around two feet on length, a good sized meal for a dolphin. Or perhps it got eaten in 01 right after tagging and the tag lingered in the gut(?). Also likely that the dolphin migrated to NC, rather than the bass.
Hhmmm...

Anyway, interesting stuff.

 

[phiendWMD]

troutbert wrote:
Interesting.

On the topic of dolphins, have they always been present off the NJ coast?

When I went to the NJ shore in the 1960s through the early 1970s I don't recall ever seeing dolphins.

I don't get to the shore very often, but in the few times I have been there from the 1990s onward, dolphins seem very common.

Especially in the morning and again in late afternoon.

Have dolphin populations increased? Expanded northwards?

When I was younger my brother spent 13 months in rehab in Atlantic City after a surgery. As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time at the shore that year. Later on I lived a little further North up the coast for 3 or 4 months. I've never seen a dolphin in NJ.

 

[fly_flinger]

We used to see them all the time in the 80s-90s when we went to Stone Harbor.

 

[afishinado]

phiendWMD wrote:

troutbert wrote:
Interesting.

On the topic of dolphins, have they always been present off the NJ coast?

When I went to the NJ shore in the 1960s through the early 1970s I don't recall ever seeing dolphins.

I don't get to the shore very often, but in the few times I have been there from the 1990s onward, dolphins seem very common.

Especially in the morning and again in late afternoon.

Have dolphin populations increased? Expanded northwards?

When I was younger my brother spent 13 months in rehab in Atlantic City after a surgery. As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time at the shore that year. Later on I lived a little further North up the coast for 3 or 4 months. I've never seen a dolphin in NJ.

Fredrick, SurfCowby and I chartered a boat to fish for albies this past fall at the Jersey shore. We spotted dolphins on the surface multiple times during our day on the water. It seems to be quite common right now. I'm not sure if is this is a recent happening or not.

I dug up an article about NJ dolphins:

The bottlenose dolphins come to New Jersey waters in the spring to birth and stay the whole summer, feeding on assorted baitfish. They'll come right into the surf and back bays.

"If you go offshore, you'll see 50 of them together. Then they break off into family groups of five to 10 dolphin and come right into the inlets," said Schoelkopf.

Bottlenose dolphins can grow up to 10 to 14 feet, weigh over a thousand pounds and travel at speeds of 18 mph in the ocean. Their curved mouths give the impression that they are smiling.

"You'll see their dorsal fin and head come out of the water to breathe. If you don't see their heads come out, then it's not a dolphin," said Schoelkopf.

Link to source: https://www.courierpostonline.com/story/fish-head/2015/07/07/dolphins-sharks-and-whales-at-the-jersey-shore/29829323/

.....and if you're really lucky, you may see a humpback whale!

 

[Fredrick]

There has been allot of whales around lately since they reduced the commercial harvest of bunker and the populations are booming because of the reductions . The whales feed close to shore targeting the bunker that are now in abundance . Its sad that Atlantic fisheries commission in a few years under political pressure will change the harvest back to the original limits that decimated the bunker populations.