Your thoughts on releasing large stripers

[Mike P]

Originally Posted by redlite

Oh brother, here we go again......
To each their own....
Oustide the tournament, I let 80% of the fish I catch go (most because they're too small).....I only keep em if people(family and freinds) have asked me specifically for fish, and it is not too bad of a job to get them back to the truck.
Here is a break down on my numbers so far for this year---
So far this year I have weighed in 7 fish for the Striper cup, all but 3 were in the commercial season, so they would have been taken anyway. I have kept 8 fish for the table so far. I sold I believe it was only like 20 fish this year, so I have removed about 28 fish from the biomass since the begining of April. That isn't even a bad DAY for a boat during the comm season.I keep the big ones cause they are more yield per fish. I got a 50, and I sold it. If I ever get another, you can bet yo arse its comin home and onto my wall. Do I keep the bigs ones to feed my "ego" or some other hidden human nature? I don't think so. I don't know, but I get a greater stisfaction riding along the canal after slammin fish with empty baskets and people thinking I didn't catch anything than havin 2 fish jammed into my baskets witha flat tire.

As far as tournaments and promoting killing of fish and all that crap, a quick count of the Striper Cup thus far which is the largest and longest running tournament, with approx 5000 people fishing over 5 months, from NJ to Maine, this is the count so far:
60#-6
50#-27
40#-35
30#- 233
Total 301 fish

A vast majority of those fish were commercial fish that would have been kept anyway. So please stop crying that tournaments are so wrong, and bad, and killing ALL the fish......Horse pucky.

Like I say, to each their own, but don't frown upon others that are operating within the guidelines.

Like you, I've never figured out the logic of why the OTW is a "bad" tournament, but the MV Derby is a "good" one.

And IMO the dumbest thing that the MV Derby does is award daily "mystery prizes" by the luck of the draw among all the fish weighed in that day. Guys keep 34" bass (assuming that's still the minimum weighable length) that they know won't make the daily prize board just to have a shot at the mystery prize

Daily prizes, too. How many guys keep a 25 pound fish that they know won't land them on the Grand leader board for a shot at a lousy $20 check and a pin?

But it has tradition on its side, so guys support it while railing against the Striper Cup.