This came from another site. Capemayray, he's been around a long time. Captain from the Cape May area.




I was one of the few that attended the meeting last week and commented that I was in favor of a slot fish to allow more larger breeder size fish excape being harvested. I believe only 10 anglers commented out of those that were there. It will all depend on what national marine fisheries hands down as options that will meet the federal requirements.

It is always amazing how many people have ideas but never attend any of the meetings or send in comments in, if they can not attend. Then they go on and on about how it should be this or that not even knowing what went on at the meeting or understand how the regulations are determined. If and when options for a slot fish come about they will be handed down from nation marine fisheries and will have a number of different options that meet the conservation equivelent. They just don't pick numbers out of the air.

Seems like no one wants to face the facts that maybe stripers might be overfished. All you have to do is look around at all the huge stripers that have been caught in the last few years. Does anyone know where all the in-between class size bass are? You just can't keep harvesting large cows and expect bass populations to thrive. Most of the anglers that I know are all catching much larger bass than they ever did, but they are catching less overall and seeing much few of the inbetween sizes that use to be so plentiful.

I find it amazing that National Marine fisheries can say stripers are not overfished and at the same time they report that the year of the young reports show a decline year after year for the last 7 years. Where do they expect future bass to come from?

There are way too many anglers targeting stripers in New Jersey and every other coastal state as they are one of the few fish that you can still fish for. If we do not maintain healthy stocks we will be back having major problems down the road. As another charter captain stated earlier, anglers should be happy with one nice fish a day. Taking some slot fish will elimated killing some of the larger breeders.

If we continue to kill at the rate we are doing now, when there is a decline we will have no one to blame but ourselves.