Mike P. has raised an interesting and informed question (as usual...). He is correct that the 93 year class will be *harvestable* under the 28 inch size limit in year 2K and he is also probably correct in assuming that most states will probably not raise their size limits to protect these fish. While at first thought, this may sound alarming to the future of the recreational fishery (ie *massive fish slaughter*) there are some mitigating factors that should lessen the impact of this event on the overall fishery. First of all, the striped bass fishery is managed currently by alotting a weight of fish that can be taken by recreational and commercial fishermen in each state. Size and posession limits are just tools of the managers to control the poundage of fish taken by recreational anglers in a year. I have no doubt that if in Y2K it becomes apparent that recreational anglers have exceeded the harvest limits for that year then the catch/kill fishery will be shut down. The effects
of the commercial fisherman on the fishery overall may be better in Y2K than at present due to the fact that they will take their quota regardless of age class structure, but the presence of lots of legal smaller fish (class of 93) will mean that a smaller percentage of their take will be big cows. The same effect may be found in the recreational take at that time in that once someone kills a 28 inch fish they can't kill a big cow later the same day. This is to say that having a lot of smaller keepers around should take some pressure off of the really big fish which are the best breeders. Furthermore, there are several good year classes behind the 93 fish and as these reach legal size they, in turn, should take pressure off of the 93 year class. Everyone knows that the East coast striper fishery was mismanaged in the 60s and 70s and is only today recoverying to historic levels. As a biologist in Maryland (but not a fisheries manager) I can assure you that there are a lot of dedi
cated folks down here who are determined to do what it takes to see the striped bass population continue to grow. Unlike the fishery disasters at the Georges Banks and the west coast salmon collapse, the striper fishery is almost entirely in US waters and therfore, not subject to the *Tradgedy of the Commons* fish mining competion that plagues most fisheries that overlap into international waters. If we can't make it work, we have only ourselves to blame.
Regards,
Eric Lund