Stripsettter

Guaranteed the mortality rate is much lower if you don’t fish bait, crush all barbs, don’t take fish out of the water, don’t hold vertically or take pics, swap trebles for single hooks, properly revive fish, don’t play the fish too long. Mortality rate is 100% if you keep the fish so a good starting point would be to let the fish go. We don’t have to stop targeting Striped Bass, making changes to how we fish will make a difference.

Moratorium would still allow you to target Striped Bass, you just can’t keep and eat them which apparently is a problem for many fisherman who must take anything legal and eat it and if they can’t catch Striped Bass to eat because the stock is so overfished, they target other species that are more abundant to catch and eat claiming they’re doing it for conservation. The issue isn’t targeting Striped Bass, it’s keeping and eating them. Yes, if we all stopped fishing it would certainly improve the fishery but proper C&R has a low mortality. Since I don’t fish to eat and fish almost exclusively from shore, there’s nothing I would want to catch other than Striped Bass or Blues so there’s no opportunity for me to target other fish. That would mean quitting fishing in the salt here. Target Striped Bass, just don’t eat them. Pretty simple.

This is the real solution. Not sure why we have to kill and eat Striped Bass anyway. Because we have a right to? Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. ”No Bait, No Barbs, No Buckets”

My St Crioix legend 2pc has been stuck together for years. Have tried separate it with ice, wd40, heat etc. but gave up lol. Even before it was stuck, I never had any twist issues. My go to rod. I’ve had custom 1 piece rods but more recently I’ve been getting factory 2pc. rods for warranty and storage transport ease. Never noticed a performance difference really.

I use the MAk Angler 2 tube most of the season for a few years now and it holds up well, dries quickly, fairly hook resistant, good Velcro closure. I still end up overfilling it and spending way too much time untangling treble hooks or digging out my fav buck tail but I would do that with any size bag

Always Crush or Dremel all barbs and single hooks on back of most lures.

It really should be. I bet barbless hooks would cut release mortality in half. Add in single hooks and artificial lures only and would be greatly reduced.

Did keto often about 20 years ago before it was a big deal. Bodybuilders have always done it when going through cutting phases because it’s believed to be great for maintaining lean muscle mass while losing fat whereas a regular low calorie diet will cause you to lose more muscle in addition to the fat. I remember losing 60 pounds without losing much strength. I’ve done it off and on over the years and it’s effective but very restrictive. The reason it works so well is ultimately calorie restriction. I believe it’s calories in vs calories out and you can probably get the same results cutting calories and keeping protein up and lifting heavy at gym. If you make a list of everything you eat during the day normally and then subtract out the bread and sugar calories, you are taking out a lot of calories. That’s why Keto works. You don’t need to do it. We all know people that are lean and in shape and eat bread. What has worked for me recently is Intermittent Fasting. Again, it’s just calorie restriction. I get enough protein in which is close to 200g a day for me and only eat 2pm-10pm. During that time I eat a couple of small things like protein bar, shake, fruit early on and then a normal dinner you can look forward to. Try to keep total calories to 10x goal weight which is a bit strict and simplistic or go online and do a BMR calculator and find out how many calories you should consume.

Don’t females have to grow through the slot limit size before they become big? So they can be taken then, and never have a chance to reproduce at all. Seems like we are back and forth on a slot limit vs 1@X but would be interested in what marine biologists say is the best method.

Don’t forget the personal safety of barbless hooks...once I was unhooking a decent blue that was hooked on rear treble of a super strike which still had barbs. I dropped the fish and front treble snagged my jeans right in the crotch with the fish flailing around still stuck on the other treble. I eventually worked it out with pliers and only a couple of scapes but it would have been instant without barbs. Many times guys have to stop fishing to go to hospital to get a barbed hook cut out of fingers, faces, heads. A barbless hook comes right out.

If people stop fishing and go home after they get their smaller “keeper” then yes there would be less potential mortality of more fish caught and released. I say potential mortality because with proper fish handling, crushed barbs, single hooks, and in water release, mortality rate is pretty low but actually keeping the fish is 100% mortality. I picture 100 guys on the beach all looking for a keeper. With 1 @ 35” maybe 3 fish get killed vs 1 @ 25-28” or whatever, could be 20-30 dead fish. Just an example. The easiest thing to do which requires no thought or knowledge of regulations or even a tape measure is to just C&R. Pretend they’re Tarpon and taste like isht anyway. Crush your barbs, keep em in the water. If we did this for 5 years things would be MUCH different.

And here I am grinding barbs off my hooks with a Dremel to try and help more released Bass survive. Nobody I fish with takes short fish

Maybe the future is C&R charters. Many people don’t even want to take fish home and some people won’t even take charters because they kill fish. Every trip I’ve taken in Florida or Caribbean was C&R and they have a lot of business and a lot of fish.

I always crush or Dremel off the barbs on every hook either surfcasting with big trebles or fly fishing. Been doing this for years and don’t drop many more fish than before. Nothing like a quick easy in water release with less damage to the fish or yourself, especially if you’re wading and get into some blues.

Bomber or sp minnow or any floating swimmer with a small baitfish fly as a teaser. Fish it slow. I also like 005 smallest diamond jigs too or Tiny deadly dicks. Sometimes the fish are just so zoned in on the small bait that it’s tough to hook up. I remember nights wading with striped bass surrounding me exploding all over on a worm hatch and could not get a single hit on anything.