Can't believe you guys are suprised.......look, I just came back from Jersey.....the land of the fish grab.....
One day while I was there, I went to a B&T and saw three guys weigh in six fish....one guy had one at 28" (just barely). Another guy had one at 25" and another about 34" (they have a "slot" down there....yeah right, nice slot one at 24-28 and another at 28+). The third guy had three fish, his "slot" fish, his "keeper" and his one on the "bonus tag". (The "Bonus Tag" supposedly is NJ Rec's "right" to the fish the the Com's can't keep down there)
These are guys that go out everyday or every other day, and weigh in stuff like that 4-5 times a week......
Okay, I'm guilty.....I travelled 300 miles one way, spent over $400 on motel, gas, bait, food, beer (okay maybe a good chunk on beer....
).......I kept two fish over 6 days....one was 28 1/2", the other, 27.9999999".
Probably two out of the maybe four stripers I'll keep all year.
In the meantime, there are guys like the above that will keep 2-3 fish every week for 30 weeks out of the year.
Not to mention the netters I saw a 1/4 mile or so off the coast.....yep, they are out there for mackeral and weakfish....NJ has no commercial striper fishery.....um, yeah, right......I dunno....the one net I saw had to be at least a half mile long......ya think it had a sign on it that said "mackeral and weakfish only, please"?.....and no matter whether they kept the stripers that couldn't read, or threw them back, they are dead fish either way.
So I can't get all riled over 2 fish a day at 28.....as much as I would prefer something different......the one at 28 and the one over 40 sounded good to me.......
But looking at the regs up and down the coast, can you really blame the Mass guys for deciding to "get their share"?