game fish

[JohnR]

Making Striped Bass a gamefish will not benefit the bass as well as fixing the diseases that plague them and improving the forage that feeds them. If we reduced the fish "take" by 25% (comm) we may have more disease and more hungry fish. If we transfer quota we're just being a little greedy. Not saying that managing bass isn't a big issues, it is, and lots could be done to improve. But the main issues we seem to always skip by, forage & disease

(Except if their radioactive from the Hudson...)

[Flaptail]

John, your my hero. If only everyone else got it. Too many fish without the proper nutritional resources to sustain it leads to too many deseased fish and a failing population no matter how well protected. Save the bait and you save the bass. We need massive schools of menhaden to return to past historical levels and the river herring to make a complete comeback.

and we need to kill a few seals too. hehehehehe

[piemma]

John and Flap are right on point. Get rid of the Pogy boats and you will not believe how many 40 pound bass there will be. It's all a function of forage. Give them more high protein food and they get bigger and there will be more of them.

Someone called me yesterday and said they think that Stripers are on the decline again. It's simply untrue. They location of the fish (at least in RI) has changed. We had more 30 pound fish in Upper Narr Bay last year than in the last 20 years. The reason? The Pogy boats didn't get all of the Bunker so the Bass stayed in the Upper Bay where the FOOD was!!
Real simple when you think about it. The Bass go where the best and most abundant food is....just like any other wild animal.

[Pt.JudeJoe]

There are too many bass right now for the amount of baitfish available. The equation is out of balance.You want more bass to catch? There needs to be enough food to support the existing population first. ......but powerful people are making MONEY off of the menhaden. Maybe I am just getting old and cynical but I don't see them giving it up.