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Originally Posted by nancy corigan
Hey Tom this is going down just like it did in the 80's. All the commercial guys were saying look at all these big stripers the stock is fine and collapse went the stock.
The red flags are up, you can either heed it's warning and start throwing back big females 30lb + to keep breeding or see the stock collapse.
I remember only a few people even targeting bass when the limit was 36" or better and one a man and even a year of 38" and ov er one a man.
The minute they lowered the size limit to 28" and the charter boats and internet started catching steam that ultimately started the demise of the stripers all over again.
Where were all these charter and private boats when the stripers needed to be 36"+ to be kept?
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Just a point of correction on your post - when the minimum size was lowered to 28" (I believe in 90, 91, or 92) we still had a very limited stock of stripers.
It was when the SLOT limit was created in the late 90's that the charter boats/party boats started targeting the bass with regularity since most bass that were caught were under the minimum of 28". Even then, taking 1 bass home that was a "slot" fish plus the occasional over 28" er was what got the people on the boats since there was a better chance of going home with a couple of fillets.
And most of the people that were fishing in the mid-80's when the 36" size limit was in place were on the railed headboats targeting whiting/ling in November/December and in the spring. That fishery was a real conservational success eh??!?!
