Recreational fishing for striped bass on the east coast has a huge impact on the local economies, bringing in several billions of dollars each year from sales of fishing tackle, bait and boats and also from spending by tourists on charters, party boats, restaurants and lodging. The impact from the recent decline of the striped bass population has also been severe. Commercial fishing for striped bass in federal waters was closed in 2007. Recreational limits in state waters vary from state to state, but they have all become more restrictive. In RI, they went from 2 fish over 28”, to 1 fish over 28” to 1 fish between 28” and 34” and now it is 1 fish between 28” and 32”. Still the population continues to decline, and the recruitment rate, the juveniles that are the fish of the future, has been at low levels for several years now. I believe that because of the low levels of forage fish, particularly menhaden, a larger number of juvenile striped bass are being consumed resulting in a low recruitment rate. Declining populations along with low recruitment is being seen in many species. In addition to juveniles being eaten, there have been increasing numbers of reports of sharks attacking striped bass.
If low populations of forage fish are indeed causing the low recruitment rate and declining striped bass population, then rebuilding the forage fish populations will increase the recruitment rate and the population should start to grow.
There is another way to help the striped bass, and that is to improve the survivability of the fish that you catch and release by using single hook lures. The survivability of a fish hooked on a lure with 2 treble hooks is about 10%, while with a single hook it is about 2%. Plugs can be modified by taking off the rear hook and replacing it with about 3 links of toilet chain and a split ring. There are a lot of great single hook lures. Bucktails have been popular for many years, and it is so easy to unhook a fish. Just slide your hand down the line, grab the bucktail head, then grab the fish’s lip and unhook the fish and release it. It takes a matter of seconds. There are also a lot of great soft plastics that have single hooks and are almost as easy to use. Besides being faster to unhook the fish, with a single-hook lure there is less chance of you getting hooked while trying to unhook the fish.