Mike wrote:
Dave,
In my view, you are absolutely correct. To add one other positive, there are two big year classes out there that have yet to even enter the fishery, although one will do so this year during Pa's two month slot fishery, occurring this month and next, and Delaware's summer slot fishery.
Even in Pa's slot limit case, for example, the regs allow room for more conservative management by simply tightening the slot a little more, reducing the creel limit, shortening the season, requiring circle hook usage by bait anglers, and, although never discussed before, eliminating live-lining, a technique that in my view can easily lead to "gut-hooking" of big fish during the season that is technically closed for those fish.
As an aside, but definitely related, live lining of eels anywhere, coastal or otherwise, is something that I have felt should be eliminated years ago and I stated as much when I was on the ASMFC American Eel Technical Committee. There is no need to use eels to catch stripers when there are so many alternative techniques available and eels, in their own right, are and have been a distressed population.
As for angler desires when it comes to the size fish they would like to harvest vs catch, that is something that to my knowledge has never been assessed along the coast or in tribs. Perhaps anglers would like to keep some smaller, school-size fish to eat, but catch more larger fish, even if most or all would need to be released. Even if that were not what anglers preferred under normal circumstances, they might be more willing to do so with the knowledge of the overfishing/overfished situation. While serving on the ASMFC Striped Bass Technical Committee I also suggested this angler preference survey once, but it was never taken up. Such info would, in my view, have been helpful at this juncture particularly when formulating new regs, if that is the route that is taken.