[Capt Sal]

Originally Posted by bulletbob

I have no problem with keeping fish.. I would keep a smallish keeper striper myself without hesitation, and have in the past.. Not that big a fan anyway, to me they taste like a rag that you wiped your hands on after replacing a head gasket.

The Weakfish were more or less already gone by the time the Stripers came back strong.

Just saying the fish are not everywhere, they aren;t spread out evenly , and are getting hit hard.. Every for pay operation and every private boat are on those fish right now, as the only other inshore species is Tog, and many boats will stay on the Stripers until they leave or become too inactive to feed aggressively.. Then come April, that intense pressure comes to bear again as the fish head up the Hudson to spawn, and lasts into June when the Fluke start to show.

I don't have an answer- honestly, I am simply not that bright.. I do however personally feel that they just can't weather this type of extreme fishing pressure in a relatively small area, and that something has to give.. I really hope your opinion is valid, and mine is far off the mark.. I hope for everyone's sake[especially the bass!] that they are here to catch in big numbers every year . However at my age, I have simply seen the same thing happen to too many other species that I fished for all my life, and love to catch.. All still around to catch, not extinct or anything, but reduced to a tiny fraction of what they were historically, and what they should be in a sane world.

Problem is these fish make their home right in the middle of a population of over 30 million people that are within an hour or two drive away, and a lot of those people like to catch fish and eat them. So its the same old story really..

Simply too many people wanting to catch and eat a finite number of fish.. bob

The weakfish were gone when the stripers came back back strong?? You have no idea of what you are talking about. Capt.Rich Swisstack landed the world record off Great Kills in the early the 2,000 period. the next day on my charter we had four weakfish over 14lbs. This was the height of the Weakfish run and the striper fishing was strong in Raritan Bay. After the bass run was over we concentrated on weakfish. We would be booked everday and there were plenty of weakfish in the 23-28" class with a limit o 14 per angler.The large weakfish were landed on live bunker! This is fact and and in the log book.