Island fishermen expressed disappointment with federal fishing regulators after they declined to enact stronger protections last week for the struggling striped bass stock.
Federal fishing regulators are considering new ways to help revive the striped bass population after new estimates show the species remains overfished.
Striped bass have become a focus of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) Natural Resource department as it continues to study the decline of the herring population.
Federal regulators took steps to bring the striped bass population back from the brink last month when the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission voted to approve restrictions on the size of fish recreational fishermen are allowed to keep.
The commercial striped bass fishing season has ended early in Massachusetts, after the state Division of Marine Fisheries projected the annual quota for the fish was reached last week.
An emergency regulation restricting recreational striped bass fishermen to only keep fish between 28 and 31 inches has been extended through October 2024.
In an effort to protect one of the last large classes of fish now reaching breeding age, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission dropped the recreational maximum keeper size limit for a striped bass from 35 inches to 31.
There is no purer pleasure for anglers on Martha’s Vineyard than the tug on the line of the first striped bass of the season. That first hit in early May or June renews a seasonal relationship that is as old as the Island itself.
