For many years, up until just a few years back, it was common to read signature lines in posts that said, "the job's not finished until we bring back the big fish". Lack of big fish, and schoolies and just-short-of-legals up the ass were still signs of a troubled fishery to many.
Now the big fish are back and we're looking at the lack of schoolies in one local area as a sign of a troubled fishery.
I'm confused by all of this
I look at the Hudson data and see 17 or 18 straight years of strong spawns, and at the Chessie data and see down years but enough good years that are light years better than anything we had in the 70s, and I have to think that the sky can't be falling.
And yes--Hudson fish do wander south, but not that far south, and none of them are down off the Outer Banks during haul seine season, or staging off the mouth of the Chesapeake in the winter.