[Bass Babe]

Stripers Forever isn't quite up there with PETA on my scumbag list, but they do seem a little misguided. Eliminating the commercial sector from striper fishing will just make it that much harder and time-consuming for managers to get accurate population estimates and catch/release/death rates. It's a relatively simple formula one can use to determine relative population abundance and year class strength from year to year with commercial catch and effort figures. Does anyone from Stripers Forever want to volunteer hours and hours getting guesstimates and tall tales of catches in person and by phone from recreational fishermen? What will anglers do if there is another huge population decline like in the 80s, and there are no commercial fishermen to blame it on? Maybe then they'll smarten up and realize that pollution, habitat loss, and even things beyond their control, like weather, could be partially to blame. Fish and fish alike, people, and let the managers do their jobs. Impassioned lobbyists are usually not the most well-informed.