Quote:
Originally Posted by JLH
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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Environmental factors matter, particularly for a given year. The size of the breeding population matters tremendously over an extended period of time. Clearly, there are years with plenty of fish where there are breeders, but terrible yoy, but the good years are better when there are more breeders, so it somewhat balances out. Although, I am curious about what you base your statement about plenty of big fish?
I agree there is potential for some year classes to get hammered, but
more restrictive regulations can be used to protect certain year classes. The slot can also change to target certain size fish. Since harvesting small fish only gets half females, and young fish are easier to replace. A size class can get somewhat more hammered when young with less impact.
One thing about the 80's is that there were few big fish or small fish and even less fisherman. People weren't killing fish over 36" like they are now, so it is a tough to compare today to then. I also don't think the problem is people taking 2 fish every time they go, but rather one fish over and over up and down the coast.
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