In 1982 a striped bass moratorium was imposed on the Eastern Coastal States in which you could not target and kill striped bass....

Various measures were implemented after this moratorium, one of them being that in NJ a 36" size limit was imposed, one fish per day....

I want folks reading this to understand how bad it was.....
Back then, 30 years ago, a size limit of 36" was great because before that it was 18"......score one for the guys who were trying to bring them back.....

but the one thing I don't think many people understand, is that you could go weeks without catching a striped bass....it was so bad, that bluefish, fluke, and weakfish were the fish you targeted in the inshore waters...striped bass were an "incidental catch" because catching one, for most folks, was so rare....