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How’s it going! I just wanted to make sure the community was aware of an amendment to the striped bass management plan being proposed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. Amendment 7 would change the goalposts used to measure striped bass population and would redefine targets and thresholds for the striped bass population. for more info: https://www.trcp.org/2021/03/03/pivotal-decision-point-impacting-striped-bass/ https://www.asmfc.org/files/PublicInput/StripedBassAm7PID_PublicComment_Feb2021.pdf Public comment period is open until April 9th. There is a button to take action in the TRCP link so you can send a message to the commission (a prewritten message is provided)

I was fishing a spread last night and I had an interaction with the guy next to me that had me wondering. I'm not sure if he was sour grapes that I was in a spot I put in 50-60 days/year, but I've never seen the guy nor has any of the neighbors which are near where I fish. Anyways, the long and short is that on his way out he says, "You look like you know what you're doing. I'm pretty sure MA law says that you can only have two rods in the water. You should check it out." Well, I immediately got on the phone with the guy who owns the local BST. He says this came up in 2012 and that it may be more of a freshwater thing. I've asked other anglers and no one knows. I checked the MA DF&G site and saw: "More than two hooks for fishing open water or more than five hooks when ice fishing. A hook is defined as an angling device attached to a fishing line that is designed to take one fish at a time but is not limited to devices commonly called spinners, spoons, bait harnesses, jigs, or plugs. To me, that means anything over a tandem rig is banned. It doesn't say anything on rods in the water. I'm using single hook fishfinder rigs and almost exclusively doing catch and release, so I think I'm on the right side. Can someone opine and/or post the actual reg in case I missed it please? Thank you.