Prospects for our striped bass season have become dimmer due to illegal and irresponsible commercial fishing in Maryland and North Carolina. Maryland at least took some action after the Department of Natural Resources discovered illegal anchored gill nets killed over 10 tons of stripers last week. As a result the gill net season (floating gill nets are legal) was closed because the state’s quota may already have been taken.
North Carolina trawlers celebrated the reopening of their season by littering the ocean with thousands of large dead floating stripers that even washed into Oregon Inlet and onto Pea Island. A concerned N.C. conservationist called the waste “phenominal”.
None of this is new, and it won’t be corrected until citizens of those states push striped bass game fish legislation through their Legislatures.
Anglers furious about commercial striper slaughters in MD and NC | NJ.com
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