Your thoughts on releasing large stripers

[Back Beach]

I used to keep a lot of big ones. Some to sell, some to brag about, and some to eat or gift out.

I release practically everything I catch now regardless of size, particularly because none of the aforementioned reasons to keep one appeal to me anymore...i.e.(sale, ego, eat, gifts) Plus, I like to see them swim away after a good battle.

I do keep a couple for the striper cup if they're big enough. Admittedly, its becoming less attractive for me to do so simply because the fish is being killed(primarily) for a tournament, then consumed by someone other than me so as not to "waste" the fish when I would have released the fish otherwise.

Its quite easy to find people willing to take a dead fish off your hands, particularly a nice fresh striper. I feel a lot of people take fish with this in mind and kill a fish that might have been released otherwise knowing they have a "convenient and respectable" way to dispose of the fish after it hits the scale. I'm certainly guilty of this type of behavior, but the tide is shifting.