Plundering Stripers

While anecdotal evidence is notoriously unreliable, it can be frightening when it's independently provided by multiple sources. And people who know most about stripers are in near unanimous agreement that they're on the decline.

I know a great many striper guides, but not one who has a good feeling about the apparent population trend. Two of the most respected and successful of these are Terry Nugent, who works both sides of Cape Cod, and Doug Jowett, a flyrod-only guide based in Maine and the Cape.

"Nothing critical yet," declares Nugent. "But I have to say I'm seeing fewer and smaller fish. Four years ago at my big-fish spots every trip someone on the boat with light tackle would grab a 40-pounder. I haven't seen that in three years. I take a few, but not consistently. The spring run this year was particularly short."

Jowett's assessment: "I think stripers are in terrible shape. From where I sit the biomass has been going downhill for five or six years. We're missing year classes, and there's been an increase in harvest of very large striped bass, which is exactly what happened in the last crash. This is the scary part--our daily fare [in Maine] is 16- to 23-inch fish. Nothing smaller and nothing bigger in any numbers."

Supporting the observations of the guides is the National Marine Fisheries Service's Marine Recreational Fishing Survey, which shows a 40 percent decrease in striper-angler success since 1999.

Only recreational anglers can help arrest this trend. A smart first step would be limiting the kill. I'm not talking about going to catch-and-release or even stopping at one fish, though I applaud anyone who does either. I'm talking about cooling it with the tournaments and reducing post-release mortality. As things stand now, at least half of all stripers killed by recreational anglers die after they go back in the water. That's an appalling statistic.

If you fish with bait, you need to use circle hooks. In fact, when the definition of a circle hook is nailed down (and we're not quite there yet), anglers should push for a law that makes it illegal for bait dunkers to use anything else.

Wasteful, destructive practices such as "yo-yoing"--i.e., stuffing a lead sinker or sparkplug down a porgy or pogie, sealing its mouth with a treble hook, then bouncing it on the bottom--need to be resisted and banned.

Even fly rodders can clean up their act. They have to quit nagging stripers to death with flimsy trout rods. Unless you're into a nest of small schoolies, you shouldn't use anything under a nine-weight. And even with the smallest flies there is almost never a need to go to tippet lighter than 20-pound fluorocarbon.

At the top of its Web site the Recreational Fishing Alliance issues this shrill warning: "Commercial fishermen and environmentalists are pushing their agenda on marine fisheries issues affecting you." That's true, though the rhetoric that follows makes it clear that the RFA perceives the agenda of environmentalists as somehow opposed to what it calls "our interests."