This month's OTW
 

Good editorial by the publisher Chris Megan.

4 stinkin 30 lb pins an I'm still the last to get it.

It was an outstanding editorial!

He basically addresses the fact that special interest groups whose primary focus is the striped bass miss the big picture, and fail to acknowledge that the striper is only one piece of the marine ecosystem. They are the first to point the finger and deem whomever they please "not worthy" of the striped bass and that everything should be released or harvested in a certain manner. They resort to cheap shots/blind sided attacks without any data or facts to back up their claims.

Chris also provided some good data with regard to the so called “slaughter” that was going to take place due to the OTW striper cup. I believe the estimated harvest for the northeast was around 16 million pounds, and that the striper cup total harvest by years end would amount to 1/10 of 1 percent of the total harvest or roughly 16,000 pounds.

It was a great article, and I agree completely that some take things to extremes.

The only thing is, and I'm not trying to pick on the guy, he talks of the lack of damage the cup has caused the fishery. I think all of those people who read that are saying "Yeah, but there would have been a slaughter if the original rules had been used. We, the conservation minded, have saved your tournament."

Just to clarify, I give them all the credit in the world for listening and changing the rules, and with those numbers it seems the new rules are working.

He also gave a nice nod to S-B.com and other local clubs saying we have helped by being conservation minded in talking about what we as a club will weigh in.

Ya thats Nice.
Now lets go kill some more 40's an 50's so's we can win this thing.
:D

We're going to have to average 46 lbs to win. New MV club just appeared out of nowhere to take first place. All 10 leading fish entered after the start of commercial season. They're averaging 44.23 for their 10 fish.

Comm and boat teams .... I won`t enter next year :behead:

Probably all caught yo-yo ing.
Bastages
:D

They have separate boat and shore categories for Angler of the Year and the monthly leaders. And to be fair about it, most if not all of our 40s are boat fish.

However, if they had separate boat and shore clubs, we'd probably be only second to RISAA in the shore category--even excluding our 40 lb boat fish.

But, I also think you'll have some company if they don't exclude commercially caught fish. Being able to cull from your 30 biggest does give one a big leg up. Yet, I wonder how many of those guys entered a 43 lb fish and then caught a 50 later in the week? ;)

do you think OTW realized the tournament coinciding with the commercial season might bring some "problems"? people are bound to bend/break any rules when $$$ is on the line. however, is there anything in the regs regarding this situation?