Quote:
Originally Posted by zimmy
It used to concern me as well, but if big fish are left alone, recruitment is so good that what is taken is quickly replaced and there is enough abundance for plenty of fish to get beyond the slot. I cringe much more knowing the impact of the tons of big fish on the bank of the canal in may or on boats in jersey in november, and va and nc over the winter.
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Large numbers of big fish don't guarantee high recruitment numbers. Environmental factors seem to play at least as big a role as the biomass. We have had very good numbers of big fish for the last 5 or so years and very poor YOY indices, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012 were all well below average, we have one good year class coming up (2011). People are complaining about the lack of small fish but we have plenty of big fish around. Start harvesting the small fish we do have and what do we have left in 10 years? Big fish die of natural causes. How hard do you think the 2011 year class of fish would get hit in a few years with a slot limit? The management plan that people credit with bringing back the population of striped bass protected the one good year class we had at the time and gave them an opportunity to reproduce before they were harvested.
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