NJFishing.com Your Best Online Source for Fishing Information in New Jersey

The other striper thread about the controversy certainly stirred up more controversy but not enough acceptable suggestions. So, what suggestions do you have that might mend some of the division that exists between many fishing groups. Charter guys and surf fishermen and private boaters and once a year party boat anglers all have their own interests. Fishermen are arguing with one another and pitting one group against the other.

Sacrifice should affect everyone if it is in the interest of everyone. We all want to catch big fish, but killing too many big fish affects the future stocks. Killing them before they spawn is our biggest threat. So what do we do?

The Raritan Bay pre spawn stripers should be our concern. They are in our backyard. If we kill them and then complain about a decline in striper populations in the future, we are deceitful and disingenuous.

The Maryland regulations mention several things we might consider:
Prohibit trolling during the pre spawn.
Extend the closed season for bass in the bay.
Prohibit catch and release. ( Because of mortality rates.)
Mandate the use of circle hooks only for bait fishing.
Set reasonable size limits.
Set a more reasonable size/slot limit for shore fishermen.

We can't keep grousing. It goes nowhere. What do we all want? Go from there. There is nothing wrong with keeping fish but abusing the resource is. The resource is meant to be shared by us all. We all are vested. Stop pointing fingers at one another when we don't agree. I think fish have to be culled in order to have more larger fish, but the culling has to be across several year classes and sizes. That's where a regulatory body has to become involved. The regulatory group that now governs our fishing needs to have more members who have skin in the game who can provide a voice for all of us who can only gripe about things on our message boards.

What do you think?