Quote:
Originally Posted by duranautic al
Everything is MIA because the stripers are eating them all… winter flounder, ling numbers have all plummeted since the resurgence of the striped bass…time to start harvesting more of these behemoth killing machines
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Completely disagree with this post. For those fishing in the 70's and 80's, winter flounder, ling, whiting, cod, mackerel, blackfish, weakfish, stripers, bluefish etc. were all extremely healthy stocks and there were more bass back then than there are today. Domestic trawlers killed the winter flounder fishery period, domestic and foreign trawlers and our own federal government killed ling, whiting, cod and mackerel stocks trading our ocean's resources with Russia and other European countries. Bluefish were overfished and bass were absolutely pulverized during their migration south and by southern states during their spawn. Stocks were depleted with complete disregard of the economic, recreational and environmental impacts and impact on the overall food chain. Weakfish were destroyed by purse seiners in the fall during their southerly migration as well and by the recreational sector targeting tide runner breeders in the spring in Delaware Bay. Blackfish were destroyed by the increased demand in live market sales, commercial potting and too much pressure from the recreational sector along with no protection to all these species during their spawn.
The theory bass have been the cause of these declines is simply untrue and not supportable. Striper's primary forage is bunker and the bunker populations as we all know has exploded over the last decade as measures have been put in place to better manage the stock and restrict Cooke Inc. and Omega Protein from pillaging that resource.
Nature will always find a balance as long as humans don't interfere and @$%! it up which we have for years.
