Conflicting regulations
 

From the OTW report I received last week;

A note from the NJDEP: Pennsylvania allows anglers to harvest a daily limit of two striped bass measuring 21 to 25 inches for a two month period from April 1 through May 31 from the Calhoun St. Bridge in Trenton downstream to the Pennsylvania state line. New Jersey still has a closed season. Anglers fishing the Delaware River from the New Jersey shoreline, or returning to New Jersey by boat and/or car in April and May must abide by New Jersey’s striped bass regulations. Possession of striped bass in New Jersey is illegal during this time period. Anglers should be aware that there are differing size limits and seasons for striped bass for each of the three states bordering the Delaware River. Anglers must obey the regulations for the particular state where they land (catch) striped bass.


I get that the seasons are different geographically, but these regs are just ripe for poaching, IMO. State laws need to be integrated so as to unify the effort to conserve the species.


Elsewhere in the email, OTW mentions pre-spawn fish and post-spawn fish. How is one to know? In a past season, I have caught a fish in late July or August that was still full of eggs, ie pre-spawn.

It wouldn't be my first impression that this is ripe for poaching........yet just a difference in state laws which gets confusing.

If you are a Jersey resident that holds a Penn permit and you are fishing in Penn you have to follow Penn rules. You get your 2 fish, go home to Jersey and now a criminal! They are going by Possession, but you followed the law.

The problem is even here in Mass. When and where does the fishing trip end......If you and I go fishing and keep one 30" fish each fishing with me on the south shore. And you have neighbors that really want a fillet so I say take my 2 . Now you get stopped when 4 fillets driving back to the North Shore, busted. But I gave you mine, again when does the fishing trip end. No one seems to be able to answer that. It should end at the dock or boat ramp.

This is an issue on ground fishing trips for haddock this time of year when people at the dock give some of their filets to the other guys in the parking lot. Now one guy may have 40 filets (20) fish vice 15. The law wants to lock you up, but you're not a criminal. It really gets frustrating.

Just like Mass. firearms laws, making law abiding citizens into felons because it's too difficult to apprehend, charge, prosecute,convict, sentence and imprison the actual criminals so they go after low hanging fruit. Lazy Authoritarian power hungry Statists, screw them. I just mind my own business.

We all want the fishery to be a success and maintain a good population of striped bass, the regulators only want maximum sustainable yield.

Just FYI the ASMFC does not manage stripers for MSY.

Ho would it facilitate poaching?
Any striper you catch this time of year in the ocean is post spawn. They don't all spawn every year so there are a percentage of fish out there in the May to Dec timeframe that are still carrying eggs. Often the eggs will be reabsorbed into the body.

You are right. They way the manage them is Unsustainable.

By the way, technically, Makomike is correct when he says asmfc doesn't manage for Maximum Sustainable Yield. After an old thread, I dug into the details deeper since I didn't really follow the specific details much after I finished grad work around 03.

The reality: up to 2013, the target mortality was F=0.3, which was based on a MSY of F=0.34. They also included target spawning stock levels, relative to the 1995 levels. They ended up with two conflicting targets. The mortality target was for all intents and purposes, basically just under MSY. In 2013, they adjusted (lowered) the target mortality after it became apparent to themthat the regulations conflicted and, one might assume (a decade later than many of us) , were not sustainable. As I noted in that other thread, as of a year ago, some members of the commission believe that we are currently under harvesting.
And here we are...

I'd be in for a catch card system like they have in the west coast, the card gets filled out upon retention and travels with the fish, if it's not filled out you get whacked...big time..
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NJ has something similar with their bonus program. You're allowed a third striper if you sign up for the program and get a special tag that allows you a third fish. The program is a miserable failure as no one uses the tag unless confronted by a warden. Effectively it's an unenforceable program.

Every program is unenforceable unless you hire an army of EPOs. So, close it down. Period. Like they did for the moratorium. Everything I see tells me the stocks are in trouble again. I don't care who is responsible. In the future there will be no sustainable striper population and who you gonna blame?

Some states are realizing that Stripers are worth more to the economy alive than dead so there is a small movement to protect the brood stock. What the hell is so *&^^%% hard to comprehend.
You keep killing all the big fish, there won't be any little fish so just close the fishery and make it a gamefish after the stocks recover.

I respect your opinion Mike, you've been involved in this a long time,the tag system
Works fine out west., it works fine for big game and turkeys, Maybe we need to try a little harder,this is not a tag for an extra fish, it's for anyfish, retained,it's pretty simple, to possess any fish you fill out a tag, if you are caught without it loss of fishing privilege for a year and 1000 dollar fine first offence..very enforceable, if you don't enforce something that simple why have limits and size restrictions at all, responses like this is why I stopped attending meetings long ago, I got sick and tired of hearing lies and excuses..meanwhile ALL our fish stocks dwindle all we do is point fingers and make excuses.
I'll add as part of the tag system every angler need to submit catch reports to retain their license, I hate reports and paper work but it would provide better numbers than any method we have now, if it's good for the comercial guys, it should be good for recreational anglers as well..
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Yup.

:kewl: right on Joe