More like 6 million, I would think. The MD and MA quotas are over 2 million all by themselves. NY is around half a million. Then you have VA and NC, and RI with a small quota.

NY regulates its commercial fishery on numbers, not pounds, too. Each commercial angler is given a set number of tags based on his/her historical landings, and NY has a comm slot limit. What people have to understand is that coast-wide, the commercial quota is spread out across the population. MA puts a premium on harvesting big fish with a 34" minimum size. 34" may be the maximum allowed size under a slot limit. MD allows the harvesting of 18" fish in the bay.

Is some of the harvesting in MD net or is it all Rod and Reel now?
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gillnet is considered to be the dominant gear used to harvest comm bass. what percentage it is compared to rod/reel I don't know

I'm just going to use this as my response - it will keep John from having to edit anything else I'd like to post.
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cmon jay - lets hear it. when was the last good flame war this place had. it was fun back then

So comm guys can whine about a 25% reduction while the poor rec angler suffers at a 50% pace?

stir the pot dangles

chris was once the master.

It's all fuzzy math when you are dealing with an unknown.........
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I thought about this thread when I got a bass on the first cast this evening while I was throwing at breaking Albies.
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Edited - dont post hammered.

Fishing bliss is catching both hands with your ass.
Niko would be happy foul hooking man ass
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hey trophy husband - I know you're bummed out because it's rainy and you cant play disc golf or whatever the hell it is you do all day. but if u were nicer to me maybe i'd bring you crabs and let u drive me to the albies

Hilarious......
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I was out on the charlestown breachway today at daybreak with ranger Joe. The fishing was well not happening at all. 3 hours of casting practice.
We got to talking and he said he started fishing there in the 60's and there was fish everywhere (big fish) as he said. Then the 70's come along and people started killing everything. On to the 80's and if you were lucky enough to catch a bass of any size people would come and ask what kind of fish it was because no one knew what there were.
90 ' s come around and the bass started to come back and uneducated people started killing again. 2000's the bass start to be less and less. He said I lived the first crash and I see it happening again.

I hope not but time will tell.
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I don't want to be an alarmist, but I fear the numbers are worse than we realize.... there are vast areas on the coast that are devoid of bass. the last stock assessment is approaching 2 years old and I think the decline has been precipitous in the interim.


time will tell- but I think we're in for a long dry spell.

how does "sea-bass.com" sound??

Gill nets and pound traps up north. NC may still allow haul seining. Not sure. Thankfully, the movement to restore it on Long Island never prevailed, despite all of Billy Joel's benefit concerts.
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The fishery is set up to exploit what fish are available to the comms in their area.....

you better believe that the MD guys would love to be catching 34" fish.....

You do know that reason they set that 18" limit was to allow the harvest of male fish, that don't get too much bigger than that and DO NOT migrate out of the bay?

yes I do know that.... it also allows them to fully exploit their fishery, and I also that enforcement is a joke down there and poaching is rampant. the fishery in the Cheaspeake is possibly the most perilous of all

Maryland dnr is actually pretty active. We would regularly get checked when I was down there. Way more than up here. The tilghman island boys poach, but they get caught and prosecuted. No fishing midnight to 5 or 6 am. Closed seasons to protect breeding( used to be anyway). In much of the bay, a 32" fish is big. 18" isn't unreasonable. Slot would make sense though. The winter slaughter in VA and NC is/was a problem, but the sorry state of striped bass lays in the bloody hands of rec fisherman from the mason dixon line north as much or more so than anywhere.

MD is the only state that I know of that has actually jailed striped bass poachers. Go look it up. MD DNR is very actively enforcing their regs, much more so than MA, RI and NY.

many of you guys stated that before the first crash you couldnt find a bass under 15 pounds. the lack of school bass was alarming. While im in the group of 1 at 36 I have to say im pleasantly surprised by the amount a school bass i have seen this fall. Narr Bay and to PJ has had acres of 15-25" bass mauling bait this fall.

That being said this was not a great bass season for me.

They are from the 2012 (maybe it's 2011) which is the last big year class in the Chessie.

Friday afternoon there were thousands of busting bass, blues, and albies from Castle Hill to the Rockpile (oooooh spotburn) and not a single surf guy on some of the most easily accessible ground on the coast.

I think if more people fished rather than sit around complaining on their keyboards, they might find out the world doesn't suck so much.
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You're right - its encouraging to see small bass. But its not about a short stretch of good fishing which were seeing now. This happened last October also for a week to 10 days... then it as nothing for weeks. You have to look at trends over the course of the past few seasons and see it spread out through the entire range of the fish. Been some comments lately about more bass than I've ever seen - beware anyone that tries to paint a rosey picture of the future based on what they see on their electronics. Think big picture.

i was out friday and saturday morning. I couldnt believe that no guys were fishing the shoreline. I saw maybe 2 surfcasters and a couple bucketheads. albies were basically jumping onto shore. i was surprised.

Hahaha

I know a lot of guys that fish hard and fish well all up and down the coast, that know how, where, and when to fish and the catch numbers have gone down considerably.

One good day a good fishery does not make.
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I absolutely agree with you Eben, and I made my comments to the ASMFC supporting a 25% reduction year 1 and going to 1 fish (a move that will potentially cost me $, but its what I believe is necessary for the long term success of our fishery).
My overriding point is this - its become en vogue to bitch and complain about how #^&#^&#^&#^&ty bass fishing is, and anyone that is still doing well and having success is some kind of short sited monster. There is alot of great fishing going on right now, and I think too many people would rather sit home and complain than go out and see for themselves.
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