VA closes TROPHY striped bass season

Originally Posted by mjz157

last i checked blackfish population wasn't in serious trouble. apples to machine guns.

I guess you haven't checked in a while. Review the latest from the Tautog 2016 Stock Assessment, in particular SSB and recruitment numbers from 1982 thru 2015. First chart represents coast wide numbers, second chart is NJ / NYB. SSB in '82 of almost 26,000 metric tons of blackfish, in '15 it's down to 6,000 metric tons. That's a 75% - 80% drop in biomass. Recruitment approximately 6 million down to slightly over 2 million, an almost 66% decrease. Those are significant changes in stock attributes. And if you look at the harvest of size fish, it's the same as summer flounder. More larger fish are being harvested and less smaller fish. Most of that is regulation driven but again we continue harvesting a higher percentage of the big breeders. Add to that the illicit harvest of smaller fish for the live fish markets and it's no wonder the stock is trending the way it is. In my definition, that would qualify as serious trouble.