Striped Bass, the condition of the fishery
 

This "IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT JAN. 14 2009 – LEGISLATORS WORKING WITH STRIPERS FOREVER HAVE FILED GAME FISH LEGISLATION IN THIS SESSION OF THE MA LEGISLATURE" has caused me to reflect on the condition of our striped bass fishery. I think many of us can agree that the fishery is not what it once was, after restoration. I'm not looking to finger point toward comm. guys, trophy seasons, rec guys, trawlers, environmental factors, etc.
I am wondering "what can be done about it". As long as fishermen are within their legal right to take fish, that fact can not be changed. So, that being said, I guess the fact of the matter comes down to state and federal agencies protecting the fishery for us. How does one go about making a difference?
Please take the time to read the entire attachment by Jim White. Your thoughts are much appreciated. Art

This year we saw many fish in the Buzzards Bay fishery with signs of infection. Again though, I think Stripers Forever has missed the point entirely. Stress induced deseases such as Myco bacteriosis have a much more profound effect on the stock if the stock cannot find the nutritional resources it needs to sustain itself, namely forage species such as Menhaden, River Herring, squid, crabs , lobsters and the myriad smaller species such as silversides, sandeels, anchovies and mullet.

Why elevate the bass to gamefish status only to watch it's stock numbers soar then be unable to feed itself? Human populations have demonstrated this is untenable over the centuries. One only has to look to china, India, North Korea and a host of African countries to see what affect over population verses the ability to adeqautely find or produce the staples of life have on a population. Starvation is a hard way to go for any animal including humans or fish.

The report by Capt. White acknowledges assumptions, responsible reporting on any given theory must always rely on fact not assumptive theory. This then leads to groups like Stripers Forever to take this assumptive "model" and spin it to thier cause.

That the fish are under some kind of stress is plainly evident, the cause of it calls for prudent action with solid facts and not rushing to action on a "carpe diem" basis.

The call to action should start in intelligent analysis with all factors considered. The most important factor in this investigation should be the state of the basses forage species. One shouldn't cry wolf without hard data and should do so without assumptions.

Well said again, Flap...:kewl:

Whoops, this is how it started the last time....

Relative to legislative actions to protect the fishery, I've almost finished reading Striper Wars - and at this point I think I can say at least the Prologue was accurate for the most part in terms of the basic biology and reproduction cycles...and after that it begins to swirl around the drain at a increasingly faster rate in some of the following chapters.

There are some real leaps of logic in the book regarding conservation that are glaringly obvious to me if you actually know the stories beforehand as well as a number of other important points that Russell either passes over quickly or ignores altogether. You do have to pick and choose through material wisely I guess -

Anyway, from my perspective, Flap has hit it dead on the nuts - fix the forage base first to reduce the stress if you want a more robust stock. And that's a very tall order.

Given the importance of the subject, let's try to keep the discussion gentlemanly and intelligent - while most of us are in the grips of the shack nasties, at the very least, we can agree to disagree.

We've got a good collection of pretty smart guys here at S-B from a lot of different disiplines and backgrounds and perhaps we can come up with an idea for an effective solution beyond what has already been proposed.

Well put gentlemen. So far so good. I am in no way a proponent for Stripers Forever. That is a totally different discussion. Issues of particular concern are the facts that ASMFC has not acknowledged any health isssue, claiming stocks to be in good health through 2015 (!), and the really low YOY class fish at 3.9. I may be incorrect but isn't the number considered "healthy" 8.0

As I recall anything over around 5 is considered good. 8 is very good and those were the kind of numbers that brought the bass back. Recent years have seen very low YOY indexes, but, those fish wouldn't have entered the breeding population yet anyway. ASMFC has said NOTHING about 2015, or any year beyond 2009. All they have said is that the stck is still in good shape as of 2008.

The source, Capt. Jim White's article in the RISAA newsletter, Myobacteriosis, paragraph 8, has a quote from ASMFC say SOMETHING about 2015. I have included the article as an attatchment in the first post. have you read it and know that quote to be false. Art

Couple different tracks with the same total problem - condition of the fishery and stocks.

Closing the commercial fishery is not going to do much to help the stock - just rearranges the deck chairs a little. It is an allocation issue. If you want to reduce pressure on the fish, reduce the take by all parties.

Forage, Pogies FohRevvah! - This is what we need - protect the forage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jim White's take on Myco - yes, there are a lot of assumptions. Sadly Fisheries Managements deals a lot in assumptions. Assuming (:rotf2:) that things are half as bad as Jim assumes, than we have a problem. This NEEDS to be looked into and factored into the stock assessments.

Sorry, I'm not big on Gamefish Status and I really don't have a dog in that fight. I really think Stripers Forever could do far more good for the Stripers we all want to keep for Forever if they focused their attention on the fish, not who gets to pursue them.

I lived through the "Striper Wars" and found Russells book quite accurate. Here is a posting from his website.

STRIPED BASS IN TROUBLE AGAIN:
WHAT IS TO BE DONE
By #^&#^&#^&#^& Russell
December 13, 2008

The comeback of the Atlantic striped bass has been called the foremost example of a fisheries management success story, proving that if strong enough regulations are put in place, even a fish population in the worst straits can make a dramatic turn-around. As I documented in my book, Striper Wars: An American Fish Story, this was only achieved because of the pressure applied on public officials by fishermen all along the coast. I also warned, however, that this could be all for naught if attention was not paid – and quickly – to a chronic bacterial infection among the Chesapeake Bay’s striper population, a disease that seems to be linked to their not getting enough to eat. The menhaden, their food of choice, is being overfished by a single corporation, Omega Protein, that grinds the little fish up into fish-meal and processes them into fish-oil.

Since my book was published in 2005, the situation has not gotten any better. In fact, all indications this year are that it’s a whole lot worse. The annual index showing how well striped bass have spawned in the Chesapeake is the lowest since 1990, when they were only beginning to emerge from their near-total collapse. At the same time, marine biologists at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science have released a report stating that the mycobacterial infection is a “stress disease” now detected in more than 60 percent of the bay’s stripers and one that ultimately proves fatal. Among their findings, the scientists noted that older females are more likely than males to die from the disease. No surprise, then, that spawning success is way down.

Fishermen in many different locations along the Eastern seaboard are reporting their worst seasons since the dire days of the early 1980s. There is a lack of forage for stripers in New England waters too, where “factory-sized” midwater trawlers are encircling huge schools of herring with nets as big as a football field. Never has the need for an ecosystem-based approach to management been more apparent. Yet the big commercial interests continue to have inordinate influence over the supposed regulators.

In the Chesapeake region, a group of scientists came out in early December to flatly state that the 25-year, $6-billion effort to clean up the bay has been a dismal failure and needs to be completely revamped. A few days later, the federal EPA asked for an exemption to exclude poultry farms from the environmental reporting required of other industries – even though they release pollutants into the air from millions of tons of manure left by their flocks (as much as one-third of the nitrogen fouling the bay waters comes from the air). This is yet another example of the Bush administration’s blatant gutting of environmental laws in its final days.

So what is to be done? In the 1980s, faced with a pollution problem that everyone knew could not be solved overnight, there was only one thing to do: stop the fishing pressure. Moratoriums and no-sale laws went into effect all across the coast. As the striped bass population heads for what may be a second great crash, it’s time to move in that direction again. Already there is no commercial fishing for stripers allowed in Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia and South Carolina, nor in federal waters beyond the three-mile state limit. A bill will soon be pending in the Massachusetts Legislature to follow suit and make striped bass a no-sale gamefish.

I am not someone who enjoys advocating that commercial fishermen be put out of the striped bass business, or denying supermarkets and restauranteurs the right to sell the fish. I’ve resisted calling for this extreme a measure for a long time. But I’m afraid its time has come, coupled with stronger limitations on the millions of recreational anglers who are taking far too many of the big spawning females – and with curtailing the slaughter of tons of baitfish, menhaden and herring. The striped bass has been called the aquatic equivalent of the American bald eagle. We can’t let this most majestic of our fish species once again find itself on the brink of disappearing.

This is just ones fisherman's opinion, and certainly in no way scientific, but the state of the striped bass is in trouble, I think. I have been chasing striped bass almost 36 years now but for the past 5 or 6 years I have noticed a dramatic decline of the numbers of stripers I have encountered . During that period I have fished,in the surf, about the same number of times( 85 to 110 trips) and in the same places with exception of last season. In '08, I could not fish every location I generally do because of a physiscal problem, however, I did manage about 86 trips in alot of good striper holes.. Anyway, during the last few seasons I have landed approx. 150 to 250 bass. Previous to that, I would routinely catch that many by the end of May, and by the end of each season, catch and release anywhere from 600 to 800 bass. What is very disturbing is the lack of small fish, the schoolies. Save for the early to mid spring, I have not seen any numbers of this size fish for the rest of the season. The" Fabulous Falls " have been almost non existent over the last 5 to 6 years. School sized fish could even be counted on even in the so-called bad years before the moratorium. I don't know where they are now! Yes, ther are alot of big fish around for some, just like the late 70's and early 80's but look what happened back then! Moreover, talk to bass fisherman from Maine. Their season was an all out bust in '08. Charter Captains gave up the ghost and went smallmouth bass fishing I'm told. Something is wrong and as others have said, we need to get all the data we can and make some intelligent decisions, soon.

What really gets my nuts in a vice (and I'm not singling anyone out) is guys that in one thread (not necessarily this one) say the bass are in trouble... Yet post pictures of BIG dead bass they kill for a contest or sale...

I keep fish to eat, don't get me wrong. But if YOU think there is a problem how about changing YOUR actions as a first step.

-putting on my asbestos suit.

Jay, you are correct. I do release everything, almost everything. It is sometimes very tough to release a big, big fish for alot of reasons, mostly self serving. I guess we all have to learn to put back, no matter what the cost. I released several large fish this year and it felt good.

I too have read "Striper Wars". This was a very informative book.

It seams as though we are in agreement that the Striped Bass population is in danger. It also seams like most of us can also acknowledge that the bait fish being scarce is a huge problem as well. Striped Bass, in addition to menhaden, mackerel, squid, herring etc. need to have some stricter laws guarding them to keep the fishery on the East Coast safe IMO.

Finally, let's not bad mouth a well intentioned group like Stripers Forever. They work so hard and put tons of time in to protecting the fish we so dearly love. Is it possible that they are missing a couple pieces in their argument? Sure. But, I also consider them to be smart individuals that probably know some information that we don't. For example, if it would be smart to lump the striped bass in with all of the bait fish to be protected. It probably needs to happen one step at a time. First the bass, then the bait. Definitely an argument can be made for doing it the other way around, but either way at least they are out there fighting the good fight. And for that I say :cheers: to Stripers Forever.

J, I agree that change will have to start at home. Problem being that as long as every angler is within their legal right to take an amount of fish, the amount of fish taken is not going to change. I do not think anglers are going to take less fish.
As of last year, I started to commercial bass fish in earnest. I will continue to do so this year. Please do not interpret the fact that as a commercial fisherman (albeit very part time) that I am not conservation minded. I think many comms are like myself. If the comm catch is quota based, that quota will be filled by someone.
I think, as many others do, that the fishery is in trouble, but we do not get that impression from the Managers of the resource. Therefore, what isn't broken doesn't need to be fixed.
The ASMFC has a meeting scheduled for early Feb. It is important to me to see what comes from the striped bass board and menhaden board in particular. Art

Either 1 fish @36"
OR a slot limit like Maine coast wide.
1 @ either 20-26" or over 40" NO more 2 fish...
Fix the forage (which does not mean ban ALL menhaden fishing)
Tighter regulations on pirates/poachers.

Sea Flat - I don't want to seem like I'm bad mouthing them, i'm sure they are smart people. I do ZERO commercial fishing and I am not an advocate of Commercial fishing - I'm neutral to it. I think the problem with the fish is a combination of pressure and more importantly, habitat/forage. What is going to fix the fish? Stopping Commercial fishing specifically for Striped Bass? Or fixing the Habitat and Forage?

I'm willing to bet the latter. For all of Striper Forever's ability to unite a tremendous amount of anglers, I would truly applaud them if they were able to do it more in the interest of the fish ~ Forage & Habitat ~ than who gets to fish for them. Deciding who gets to fish for them is kind of like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, it does little to save the fish. Now if Stripers Forever was calling for a 35% reduction (arbitrary number) of fishing pressure by both Commercial AND Recreational fishers, AND making significant inroads to protecting FORAGE, I would be impressed. Otherwise it smells like is a grab that does not address the core issues, total fishing pressure AND habitat/forage protection.

BTW - good thread Art...

Until that happens - in my opinion :musc: and until others can change my thinking :rtfm: - Stripers Forever is missing squandering their tremendous potential...

This is one that I strongly agree with. Everyone still remember the news article from a few weeks ago - $500 fine for a few tons of bass, and the third offense that week alone.

When I'm at the canal, I appreciate that the Rangers drive up and down checking people's catch, pulling the measuring tape out. Even still, you find people keeping shorts all the time at the canal. It's certainly impossible to catch everyone, but how about we make it really bad for the ones that are caught. At the very least, "You have 3 shorts in your cooler, and this is not your first offense... Thanks for the pickup truck and nice fishing gear."

Some people might say that fines would be ineffective because some people keeping shorts may be poor. Fine, take all of their gear and every piece of fishing equipment in their truck.

Lots of good points. Often times, we equate the quality of fishing with what we experience personally. This may or may not be representative of the big picture.

On one hand, you have to buy into and trust the managers judgement to a degree. Many of them are responsible for the great fishery we have right now. Yes, it seems there may be a few less fish, but I also believe its a distribution thing. Fish show in different places in different quantities each year. This is one of the things that supports the landings as a % of total biomass method of managing the population.
My last point/question is this.....how many(stripers) fish should there be in the ocean? Do we need to walk on the backs of 50# fish? Keep in mind populations of fish and wildlife will fluctuate even without harvest. What is the true definition of a healthy population?

Flap and Crafty, I am ignorant to this whole subject and really rely on what educated people say on the topic, however I don't understand the fix the bait logic. I guess I see tons of bait. Menhaden have made a major comeback, we've had some massive squid runs over the last 5 yrs or so. What issues do you see with the bait? I think nature has a way of fisinxg that. If the amounts of the striped bass were to suddenly increase, wouldnt they just seek new species to forage on? Theres plenty od snapper blues, crabs, etc?
Not arguing, just done understand the logic.
If I was king for a day, I'd make a 1 fish limit and no commercial. Selfishly just so there are more fish to catch for me. I dont understand the science

You can trust the govt and thier scientists. Before you do go to fisheries meetings for a few years. Look the people sitting at the tables in front in the eye and make a judgement.

Consider how the country has done the past 8 years with the experts in charge.

Just food for thought.

I believe the forage / baitfish issue is not just for the northeast, but the entire eastern seaboard. If the fish spawning down south are starving due to overfishing for menhaden, it will directly affect the future stock of fish that will eventually migrate here each spring.
Underfed, weak and diseased fish will drop out of the spawning cycle, decreasing the YOY each season.

I agree that just (over)regulating the striper catches isn't going to fix the stocks overall health. Something needs to be done to keep the menhaden, herring, squid and other baitfish IN THE BASS'S LIFECYCLE and not on our grocery/baitshop shelves.

:uhuh:

May I also add that with those increased numbers, their predators(seals) will flourish even more by chowing on more bass than they already do now, and why is that? because seals have been given free reign gamefish status, no I mean protection. We will be eating seals soon, because that's all that's left :gorez:

:deadhorse:

Having fished for stripers for over 45-years and doing about 100 trips a season I have experienced about the same results as Steve put in his post. Being at the northern end of the stripers range I think we may see issue before others. Over the last six years I've seen a real decrease in the number of fish. Last season there were more bigger fish then I've seen in any season but the drop in the number of small fish was scary. This is about the same as I saw in New Jersey when I lived there just before the stock collapse.

Unlike others I am a strong supporter of making stripers a game fish. The reason mainly is how do you convince fisherman to let stripers go when others are catching them for money. It is a standard reason I here from people who keep every legal fish they catch. Also from an economic stand point and human standpoint the most important group in the quest for stripers is the recreational fisherman. The money coming from the sale of stripers is nothing compared to the money spent by recreational fisherman. Plus, if you made stripers a game fish then I think more people would be open to stricter limits.

It is often said that the striper recovery shows what good management can do. To me the recovery should be looked at a miracle. If that large young of the year class had not come out of no where the recovery either never would have happened or it would have been much slower. Just look at what is happening up on the grand banks with cod.

I've been saying the same damn thing since I joined the site seven years ago-and I've been jumped on for it. But I don't care. Monitor and regulate the forage base throughout the gamefishes range. Limit the comm. fishing to people who fish for a living, not weekend warriors who want to make a quick buck yo-yoing. And, like it or not, we probably need to have a recreational licensing program to help pay for monitoring the increasing number of anglers.(and poachers)

It's us
 

Gotta admit human involvement is all over this problem. Pollution,big buisness, commercials and recs. We all have our hands in the pie. Personally I blame it all on the seals, including the economy,Iraq,liberals,etc.

Anecdotally speaking here, but starvation is about the last culprit I would suspect right now. In fact I saw more well fed fish in 2008 than I've seen in 20 plus years of fishing. Probably the abundance of bunker I would guess.

Not where we used to fish Mike. Most were pretty lean. However when trolling squid bars with mark out on stellwagon, very fat fish would come up into the spread, good eats out there I suppose. Some of my best bass were caught on the 130's, shame.

Good point, Mike. Often times, we equate the quality of fish with what we experience personally. This may or may not be representative of the big picture. paraphrasing you a little :shocked:

I don't know if gamefish status is the answer but I wouldn't mind it to be honest. Managing the menhaden will definitely help but killing fewer bass is the surest way to increase the population. Whether this is done by cutting back the rec or comm amount taken is academic it just needs to be done. I imagine the easiest way would be to cut back both, this way neither side feels shortchanged. Other steps to manage the chesapeake as well as forage also need to be taken but I think as far as Striped Bass are concerned killing fewer of them is the first and surest way to help them.

Bob, it seems like they were always skinny out there now that you mention it. I can't count the number of 50" fish I caught that didn't break the 40# mark. Lots of times they had skates/lobsters in them too.
I don't fish out there anymore, but the canal/buzzards bay vicinity fish were well fed this year.

seal tastes good.... boilem , mashem, put them in a stew.

Time for some change
 

Hi Everyone,

This is a subject that I know a little bit about. I worked with National Geographic on two projects related to mycobacteriosis: “Strange Days on Planet Earth/Dirty Secrets” and “Wild Chronicles”.

As for Capt. Jim White’s assessment of the situation as being grim…well it is! Jim DOESN’T make assumptions, he bases his conclusions on FACTS. I’ve followed this situation for years, read most of the studies and concur with Jim White and #^&#^&#^&#^& Russell.

Yes, there is a need for ecosystem wide management of both game fish and forage fish. This was recommended to Congress in 1999; it’s been 10 years and we don’t even have workable models for dealing with this complex issue. Add to this the relatively new threat of midwater and pair trawling off OUR coast and it’s a surefire recipe for disaster. You think we have problems with forage fish now, you can’t even begin to imagine the rape of the resource that is going on RIGHT THIS MINUTE off our coast. The mackerel stocks off RI that could have sustained the local day boats for a couple of weeks were decimated in ONE TOW late last week by one of these huge boats. Check out http://www.comminternet.com/websites...tail.php?id=28
and get an idea of the scope of the problem. Want to know where your river herring are? They got scooped up with the targeted Atlantic herring and with little observe coverage to document the bycatch we have little hope to get the proper time and territory closures we need to protect the bluebacks and alewives. Think the bass are skinny now (and they are malnourished in many of the areas I film in -- which translates to areas you fish in) wait till they arrive this spring and find fewer herring, fewer mackerel, and possibly fewer menhaden.

Yes the fish in the Chesapeake are under extreme duress…in fact, a noted expert on the subject of gut content has established that one of the peak periods for feeding takes place right around now, IN THE WINTER (something biologists believed didn’t happen), in order to help fortify their reproductive systems for upcoming spawning. The problem is that there are far too few menhaden age 0 to provide adequate nourishment for the pre-spawn fish that are too small to eat mature menhaden…see http://www.chesbay.org/articles/latest.asp for more details.
Let's not forget a growing dead zone in the Chesapeake, over nitrification of the bay with run off from the poultry industry (which may be getting a stay of execution from having to deal with their immense contribution to this problem -- got to love big business and their influence).

In the past I couldn’t support game fish status for stripers simply because a well managed stock should provide enough fish for both recreational and commercial interests. However, over the past several years I’ve seen more and more pressure put on the stocks by both user groups. Yes, the recreational take is massive, however the commercial quotas never seem to be high enough for the commercial interests and the black market fishery is completely out of control. How many pirates do you know? How many pseudo-commercial fishermen are out there looking to offset boating and fishing expenses? How many “anglers” sell fish at the back door of a restaurant? How many tons of undersized fish make it to market? How many fishermen exceed their quota and look at a fine as a reasonable cost of doing business? How much meaningful enforcement is there out there?

Consider all of the above and all the anecdotal evidence that the fishery is in decline and it’s time to do something NOW.

I’m not sure that game fish status is a winnable battle, but when I hear commercial striped bass fisherman, who also run charter boats say that they would like to see a halt to the commercial fishing because they would rather have a successful charter business rather than an ever shrinking commercial catch that eventually leads to a collapse and then no business at all.

So what do we do? Talking about it on the site is fine for spreading the word and getting more public awareness, but talk is not going to make one bit of difference. You need to go to the meetings and voice your outrage with the current situation. You need to support organizations that our working to correct these problems. Game fish status for striped bass…I’m still on the fence, but it won’t take much for me to say, enough is enough -- the resource needs to be saved.

Remember, history has a way of repeating itself.

Mike

I don't think there's any doubt that things are not what they were 8 or 10 years ago. I've basically stopped fishing for stripers except maybe Mid June in the canal or Joppa, and even there they're not what they were. The fall migration has become almost a shadow of what it was. If we have to have another moratorium, so be it, but definitely something needs to be done about the herring situation, and closing the runs isn't the whole answer.

he's right about the cheasapeake. The health of the largest estuary in the United States is comparable to a morbidly obese woman.

Not sure if somebody already said this because I got sick of reading all the posts, but the bill proposes the closure of the commercial fishery and imposing a slot limit on the recreational angler (exactly the same as Maine's).

To say that closing the commerical fishery won't help is ludicrous! If you take the privillege of taking 30 fish per day away from the best striper anglers in the world you're going to save a lot of fish.

Anyone who thinks that Stripers Forever is going to then run with this and take away striper fishing or something silly like that is lost in space. Just like people who are afraid the president is going to take away guns or something like that, their ideas have to be voted upon and therefore no one person or oragnizations beliefs can be forced into law. I hear the voices of some people who are going to miss taking a few weeks off from work in the summer to go fishing everyday if this bill passes in this thread.

It has already been proven that fisheries managers and fishermen have no idea how to fish with care and that we have no problem (or qualms about) pushing fish stocks to their breaking point. There are just about no inshore cod left anywhere south of Plymouth (to my knowledge) and the cod stocks in the Maritimes have not recovered after a 10 year moratorium. Our fishermen are very good at what they do and these voices in here sound eerily the same as those that echoed out in the years before the last collapse.

How can you say that closing the commercial fishery won't work? It worked last time! And it's at least a step right direction, if we get people used to the idea of conserving a commercially harvested fish, it might be easier to turn them on the menhaden and sea herring.

Preserving the species should be 100 times more important than making some extra cash this summer. Yes I had my commercial license last year, but it just gave me a sick feeling killing all those fish and I have chosen not to renew it this year.

I say close it up, and bring on the slot limit, we haven't tried that combo yet and we need to save these fish, and we shouldn't wait until it looks really bad.

If you don't like Stripers Forever, (I have no opinion about them btw), then someone needs to form a new organization, because they are the only people actively fighting for anything releated to the striped bass in the mainstream anyway. Maybe RFA should get involved? Or maybe all of us should stop crying online and make a step for own future instead of just sitting by and then sobbing over the results?

Was that too cut throat? :laughs:

"The new Massachusetts Striped Bass Conservation Bill prohibits the sale of wild striped bass in the Commonwealth and sets a recreational daily bag limit of one striper measuring between 20 and 26 inches, or alternatively, one fish of 40 inches or greater per angler."

This is a direct quote from their press release

One fact that all you guy screaming about the menhaden need to take into account. When stripers are first born and in their larval stages in the chessie and hudson, menhaden are their biggest predators.

As is the american eel.
Isn't funny that when they get larger they turn the tables?

The only sector who has increased their "pressure" is the recreational.

Recs are killing 2/3 as many fish as they are keeping and they are already taking 80% of all the fish. Their discard mortality is equal to all the commercial landings and discards....so who do the fish really need saving from?

Dave ;;

I agree & disagree ;;

that bill or whatever is only in Mass . so yes it will put the mass commercials OOB / & with a slot / have it more difficult to keep a bas s . But lets be realistic
I don,t know all the numbers especially by state .. RI,s commercial R & R season is a joke / 5 fish a day per week /with the days being Sunday Thru Thursday . & the spring season closing in two weeks or less / while the fall season can start as 3 or 5 fish a day / then they close it short again / even if the fish arn,t coming in / then they open it again & in the last few years its been open longer /because by then they can,t reach the yearly Quota so they have opened it to draggers .
The traps are part of the quota & the size they are allowed to sell is smaller than the R&R .
IMO .. do you really thing stopping just MA , R&R from commercial fishing & a slot is going to turn this around .
For the most part / Ma commercial season was a bust . not many boats did 30 per day / & for those that did there were plenty that couldn,t get 5 /
After all this is said & done / how is this going t change the status of the striper population .
Millions & millions of pounds will still be taken by rec,s up & down the coast & add the commercial dragging that is allowed down south ... It looks ike from here .. that its a sword thru the Ma R&R & a band aid to the mass REC,s
have have no interest in Mass commercial tooooo F #$%^&*( old to play that game anymore ;
bait or no bait . it does have some effect /but the actual reduction of the stripers [again] is a combination of all of the above / plus pollution issue .s & disease ;;;
the C/B had a 25 year plan to clean it up / but as I said before it was a recommendation //& not a law / so the fencing that was suppose to keep the actual [%$%$%$%$} from farm animals washing into the small creeks & streams & eventually into the C/b system . never happened & now 25 years lTER & AROUND 6 BILLION DOLLARS LIGHT / THEY are talking about doing approx the same thing . / by excluding the famers / mostly the chicken farmers ;

If anyone has worked on a dragger of anysize [even] for a week / then they have seen what they catch & what by catch / undersize / off season fish are sholved back over the side ;;;

this is a whole lot larger than Stripers forever going to try & make it a game fish in JUST Mass .

that would do as much good as pouring a 8oz . glass on beer in a 55gal. barrel that has a whole in it ;;;

Just my honest opinion & observation of being on the water 50 years .. not 3 months on weelends .,.,

Carry on MIKE

Short and sweet!......Protect the baitfish first.