I've fished stripers and blogged in the middle Chesapeake and Rappahannock for 5 years before moving up here this year. The mighty Omega menhaden vacuum-sucking overfishing commercial machine is the problem in the Chesapeake, not the trophy season. There are no party boats on the bay.
Cutting the trophy season (1 fish per season, registration required) while continuing to allow Omega to crush the ecosystem is a bit like Congress cutting defense spending by 5% while voting more entitlement tsunamis into law (sorry for the libertarian jab). Cutting the trophy season is a facade, much like cutting the family ice cream outing on Saturdays while purchasing a new 68' Hatteras.
Here is Omega protesting limits on their efficient overkill.
https://www.wavy.com/news/omega-prot...209/1078343872
And here they are poaching again.
https://www.fredericksburg.com/news/...e3c15cde3.html
From this board, it sounds like the problem up here is recreational fishing. But Virginia is so deeply dependent on politics that they have no idea how to go up against a company the size of Omega. Ugh.
