[B-Faithful]

Ron, many times it is difficult to determine a prespawn fish before you clean it. Skip, keeps far less than his creel much of the year.

With that said, and with all due respect to Skip, I do not think making it catch and release over 28" until May 15th would foster good participation, especially given the restrictions on efficiency that were passed for catch and release this past spring. Lets face it, participation levels go way up when there is the opportunity to keep a fish....



Ok, I looked at the presentation that I have and here are some other key stats to consider.

2006 Maryland had a 33" min and harvested 63k fish
2007 Maryland had a no-take slot of 35"-40" and harvested 35k fish

The participation (angler trips) levels in 2007 where higher than the 2006 and we still had much lower harvest numbers.

Why? No take slot limit. Also, I think the no-take slot did not deter anglers from fishing. There still was the opportunity to keep a fish, our harvest was greatly reduced over the previous year despite more angler trips and our socio-economic benefit was still realized. I am assuming that the majority of migratory fish fell within that size range given that we reduced the harvest by nearly half despite the increase in angler trips.

I think the no-take slots of 2007 were an effective tool in reducing the impact on the striped bass harvest during our trophy season while also not creating a negative impact on the participation levels. I believe a no-take slot also fosters better catch and release practices by anglers realizing that recreational fish is not soley about the opportunity to keep a fish but the opportunity to catch it with less opporutunity to keep. It also recognizes that the opportunity to catch a fish is a large part of drawing participation and provides for it adequately.