Piemma, you are wrong, and you are too smart a man and too good a fisherman to pass on such error.
Fish are not mammals.
Their fecundity increases with size/age. Here is an article on sea bass (there are similar studies on striped bass)
Maturity, ovarian cycle, fecundity, and age-specific parturition of black rockfish | Fishery Bulletin | Find Articles at BNET . It only takes a moment to read the abstract and learn something.
Large bass breed at a different time of the spring than smaller bass, which increases the odds of a successful breeding year (since spawning success is in part weather dependent).
Genetic studies suggest that many good year classes are actually the result of a small number (a few hundred) fish that happened to hit it right. Wipe out a single pre-spawning school of fish and we may wipe out an entire year class.
If, like cowhunter, you want to legally kill large striped bass for whatever reason, go right ahead...it is your own business and, under current law, your right.
It is, however, long past time to drop the rationalization about large fish not being important breeders. It is a delusion people use to fool themselves that they are not hurting the fishery AND OTHER FISHERMEN when they kill these fish.
Fishing legally is not the same as fishing responsibly.
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