Striped Bass Anglers Need To Do The Right Thing

After sharp declines of striped bass populations in the ’70s and 80’s strong conservation measures led to a robust recovery. Unfortunately, stocks are again on the decline and it’s time for anglers to help do something.

Easier said than done.

Although the final version of the 2018 striped bass benchmark stock assessment has not yet been released, we all know what it’s going to say:

“Female [spawning stock biomass] for Atlantic striped bass in 2017 was 68,476 [metric tons], below the SSB threshold, indicating the stock is overfished.  [Fishing mortality] in 2017 was 0.307, above the F threshold, indicating the stock is experiencing overfishing.  [internal references deleted]”

So we know that we’re facing a problem, and hopefully, we’re going to fix it.

Of course, saying that you want to fix a problem is easy. Actually doing something that will make a material difference always proves to be quite a bit harder.

LINK (via: One Angler’s Voyage)