Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire A smart move for the MA striped bass fishery, for a change

Not just that, but the prey base needs some attention. You don't get good stripers without good food stocks, and the menhaden have been taking it on the chin (to be kind) for many years now. Get the menhaden stocks back up, and the stripers can and will follow.

Hell, the menhaden fishery, the largest per ton fishery in the Atlantic, had exactly zero regulations until two years ago and even those regs are specious.

In the Chesapeake Bay the numbers of 40 inch + fish has been reduced greatly the last 5 years. There needs to be a maximum size to protect the future breeding stocks.

Doc

Kenneth, here's a 120-qt cooler, with our first eight hours worth of fishing on that trip...



And the fishing was slow that weekend.

Haven't had the salty kind - yet!

You're jumping to erroneous conclusions, not to mention acting like an idiot. Do you know STX or anything about him? The man's a sportsman and as conservation minded as anyone I know. You're way the fugg off base and out of line.

Stripers need another moratorium or gamefish status. I fished through the first moratorium and went years without seeing bass. We are headed in that direction. Big fish are few and far between lately, but it's the lack of schoolies that is truly concerning. Black market sales are rampant. Classic fisheries mismanagement based upon greed alone. Don't get me started!

Absolutely correct on the prey base. The river herring (alewife and blue-backed) have had a moratorium on them for 4 years now, due to the near collapse of every run in the state, and they have come roaring back the past two years. I'd like to see that moratorium stay in place for another five years. Ocean herring are OK as a species.

Our squid run seems to be holding up, but the
bunker/pogie/menhaden numbers have been horrible for years now. The commonly blamed evil doers are large out of state netters, many out of NJ, who'd come up, set nets, take fifty tons of them and steam back down to unload, then do it again and repeat.

Used to be we'd head down to a harbor, strap on a snagging hook and almost every cast you'd get a nice pogie on for bass bait. Not anymore. I've not seen any decent pogie runs on the north shore for years.

Moratoriums work, period. So do sensible regs. A good example were some places where scallop draggers had all but wiped out areas that once were loaded with them. The areas were closed altogether, much to the deep dismay of commercial guys in the fishery, but after I think 6 or 8 years or so, they did studies to find out how the cuts/shutdowns of the fishery had progressed. Guess what? The scallops had come back, and not only covered the bottom, but in many places were 6-10 layers deep.

Conservation--that is to say, SMART conservation--works. Ma Nature is a resilient old gal, but she needs a little room to work with.

Good fishing out there this year, all.

Stripers need another moratorium or gamefish status. I fished through the first moratorium and went years without seeing bass. We are headed in that direction. Big fish are few and far between lately, but it's the lack of schoolies that is truly concerning. Black market sales are rampant. Classic fisheries mismanagement based upon greed alone. Don't get me started!

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Wanna know where metric schit tons of your menhaden go?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Protein

Rustolium "fish oil primer" and lip stick.

All I know is that a guy from TX replies to a post about Atlantic Stripper regulations with, "we just need to catch tuna" and then states that he's going to send the OP a four pack of 50 class reels to tuna fish with. I charitably read that as a guy playfully poking fun at the fallout from the Wicked Tuna Chowda Head [bleep] debacle that's reduced a rich commercial and recreational maritime tradition to a desperate caricature with a mouth full of marbles. Really, I had no idea that he was serious about tuna fishing with his 50s... If that's what he uses for the tuna in Texas, then maybe this is the exception to the "Everything's bigger in Texas" rule... For the record, I make it a point to never argue about religion, politics or fishing regulations on an internet forums. I prefer face to face interactions where there's an increased likelihood I'll make an ass out of myself, be made and ass out of, piss somebody off or vice-a-versa. I've just always felt that my apologies are much more sincere in person.