i'm undecided. but I'd recommend changing the minimum weight to 38 or even 40 for surf caught fish. that's what it'll take to win, and second place is worth nothing.

i think that you have your balls lodged in your eye sockets!!

the Striper Cup impact on the migratory stock is far less significant than the by-catch kill by the fleets of draggers and the refusal by the ASMFC to adress the ACMenhaden issue, IMHO!!

fix the forage, 1 @ 36"~~ release more than YOU kill!

but iffin i get blessed with a COW big enough to win myself a VS250,
then there is no weigh in HELL i'm throwing her back! besides,,,,,,,,,,it's not US, it's the weather~ MIKE~ haven't you been keepin' up on yer Winter readings??
:wavey: :hihi: :hihi: :wavey:

and i]m INNNN~~

for sb.com, surf only,,,,,,,,

gonna be a GREAT year for us,
WE ARE DUE, MEN, FISH HARD!!!

and there we have it! :smash:

Jess, Mike has been through the moratorium and has also caught a ton of fish as well. He is not biased. He calls it like he sees it. When he talks about the stocks I listen...

and spends more time on the water in a month than most do in a year

in, if still open.

How many guys kill a fish, take it to a weigh station for an accurate weight, and decide not to enter it because it won't affect the team/weekly/monthly standings? How many guys stash a good fish in a cooler for a few days, hoping they'll catch something bigger, and then get the bigger one, as you can only enter one a week? I'd love to see the stats on how many fish are weighed in on a Friday or Saturday, as opposed to a Sunday or Monday.

What's winning worth, in the grand scheme of things. A chance to drink cheap beer from the Cup? At least when we won it, the beer was Harpoon. Two years ago, the winning team got to drink warm Gansett. At least the 10 monthly winners get a shot at 10 grand.

Sorry I opened a debate .

I,ve been there /done that &

I could argue to the end of time / but everyone is entitled to their opinion /& with that they justify their reasoning .I could do the same & go on & on .

But until you witnessed it / to most it sounds like crying wolf .

For everyones pleasures & enjoyments , income & whatever . I h0pe Im wrong /, Im getting real tired fishing nites in the winter ,because its better that nites in the season >>>>> don,t jump on it .... that is better for me .:fishin:

Starting to get a little bit :topic:


In or out is starting to turn into rants and raves

the writing's on the wall for all to see. also been there seen that as have a few others.

Mike, you are entitled to your opinion. You know I lived thru the moritorium with you. You know when I was in the surf with Bryan and before I fish 100 night a year all in the surf. Cape, Narr, Napatree and everything in between.
Bass Dawg you are also entitled to your opinion and so is Mike and myself. I believe you are wrong. The fact of the matter is the stocks are down for whatever reason. The assigning of blame does nothing to solve the problem. Oregon Inlet in the Winter. Comms in Virginia all year. Comms in MD, RI, MA during the commercial season. Recs all the time. 2, 28" (which is absurd to begin with). They are all contributing factors to the demise of the Striper. Until the beauracrats smarten up and declare the species a game fish and restrict the take to either a slot or 1, 36" we will see the further destruction of the Stripers.
You guys can believe anything you want but the facts are there in plain view. The species is again in trouble. Who caused this re-occurance doesn't matter. Someone has to fix this quickly or we will all be pissing in the wind trying to catch bass.
You young guys don't remember this but in 87 or 88, if we caught a couple of schoolies, Tom Mead in the ProJo would write a whole article. I remember catching 6 schoolies, (and I'm talking 16") at Deep Hole one morning. There use to be a bait shop in Narragansett at Monahans called Top of the Dock. I went in and told Joe about the fish and he called me a bold face lier and told me to get the *^&@* out of his shop because I was spreading BS.
You guys don't believe this but Mike and I and guys like Slip and AH and Makai will remember the total despair of fishing for DAYS & DAYS with out a bass.
Personally, I am in the OTW Cup and will participate. I killed 2 fish for the table last year. This year I will fish for the Catch and Relaese trophy and will not kill Stripers.

I'm In.

Together we can do it...
 

I'm In. I going to focus on contributing at least one cow to the board.

Crawler - still open ;) - just add Team Striped-Bass.com when registering.

This is good to talk about this stuff. For those that want to abstain because of conservation, I'm perfectly understand. If things go south, this may be the last year to fish the tourney for S-B. Depends on the stock assessment.

nothing really, maybe bragging rights. but the same could be said for the gibbs tournament you already stated that you were fishing. not trying to start anything and i respect your point of view, just pointing out that the similarity. everyone has the right to decide how much of an impact they want to have. i'll probably end up registering and fishing catch and release (i like the pins, i think i'll be glad I have them someday), and if I get something that I think may go 50, I'll weigh it in because I'd be doing that anyway.

just figure if the site is going to enter a team, might as well make the goal winning and to make as little impact as possible. a few 35 lb fish that keep the team near the top of the board early on are just a waste as they either get bumped later in the tournament or become irrelevent because one of the pro teams kicks our ass anyway.

I'm in.

Not entering the cup won't do much to change things. If you really want change in Mass look at these two bills presently in the Mass house and senate. S00392 and H01145.

The bills look to both reduce the recreation limit and stop commercial fishing for stripers.

NH is looking at their striper regs this week and been asking for them to reduce to one fish.

There's a few major differences. One, the Gibbs tournament runs for a month, and only 185 people are in it. It's limited to the Canal. It's not spread from Maine to Cape May. It probably has less effect on the health of the stocks than the Vineyard Derby. And in any given year, no more than 10 fish get weighed into it.

More importantly, I can walk into Canal B&T any time that it's open, and find out what the leading fish is. It's one fish, one grand prize. That grand prize is a fleece top that's embroidered, and a small plaque on the trophy, which you don't get to have even for the year that you've won it. If there's a 42 pound fish leading, there's no need to weigh in anything that's clearly lighter. Second, third and fourth place get you a mention at the awards breakfast, and maybe a free sweatshirt, which most people don't bother trying to win. The lesser fish are usually those that get bumped down from the lead over the course of a month. At minimum, each team in the Striper Cup kills 10 fish. Most teams kill many more. In all the years that I've fished the Gibbs--since 2007--I've entered exactly one fish in it. Of the 185 people in it, probably 120 haven't ever entered a fish.

The only real similarity is that you need to kill fish to win it. But, in my tournament, you only have to kill one, and there's no real incentive to kill a smaller fish just to enter it towards an aggregate weight total.

Yeah, we do have a team thing in the spring, but it runs for all of 36 hours, and only a few guys seriously fish it. And team captains aren't calling other members all winter trying to "recruit" them for the sole purpose of winning a $25 gift card from #^&#^&#^&#^&'s. The raiding of other teams, and cherry-picking your team for the target goal of winning the Cup, has soured me on it as much as the mortality factor.

This is about having fun.
If one is worried about this practice, let all of your fish go this year. This will make up for the weigh ins and make you feel better.
If that doesn’t work, make a sign up and go down to the show and picket outside this will make you feel better.
John could create a new forum and keep everyone separated pros & cons... Then no one would know what the other ones are saying about each other.
However a thread just to weigh in your thoughts about this subject.
Group therapy sessions. This could solve every thing.
OTW/ or SB could raise the minimum weigh of fish to 45 pound and higher! This would eliminate 99% of all weigh ins!
I can’t believe this is an issue!! Get it out of your system before the fish show up.
I want you to think of nothing else when you are reeling in your next fish other than this thread!
NOTHING ELSE!!!
Life is short!

I'm in.
I was supposed to do it last year. If I had, my one fish would have put you in 2nd place.

I'll try to replicate. :smash: I suck.

use the force