From Todays Star Ledger
In N.J., no change in striper rules
Thursday, February 07, 2008
The Atlantic States Fisheries Management Commission winter meeting in Alexandria, Va., is producing good and bad news for anglers.
The official outlook for striped bass is fine, even though fishermen from some areas have noted a drop in abundance of large stripers.
The peer-reviewed stock assessment concluded that striped bass are not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. The resource remains at a high level, and the crucial spawning stock biomass is estimated at 55 million pounds. That's well above the target of 38.6 million pounds and the threshold (the point at which action to restore would be required) of 30.9 million pounds. The fishing mortality rate on the large, age 8-11 bass in 2006 (the last year for which statistics were available) was F=0.31, well below the Amendment 6 fishing mortality threshold of 0.41.
Thus there will be no change in state regulations, including the coastal limit of two stripers of 28 inches or more per day. Estimates of juvenile abundance showed several years of strong recruitment, with the 2003 cohort being the strongest in the time series. The one negative note was a recruitment drop in the Hudson River for several years. Yet, there was very good news from New York indicating that preliminary estimates of the 2007 year-class are that it may be of record size.
It's possible to get a big year/class out of a relatively small spawning stock, and that seems to have been the case last year in the Hudson. Outdoor writer Fred Lebrun wrote in the Albany Times-Union that the spring run in the upper Hudson was "ugly" despite decent weather conditions.
Former State Sen. Louis Bassano (R-Union) and I were on hand Monday as New Jersey advisers during the Striped Bass Advisory Panel meeting, and brought up the possibility of reducing pressure on the larger fish by allowing a slot bass to be taken as part of the two-fish limit. That possible change in future regulations will have to be studied by the staff because the trade-off would be higher mortality on school bass.
