The Striped Bass Micro-Slot Is Here

Well, the new world is here for striped bass fishermen — and, almost needless to say, a lot of folks are not happy.

New York State last week adopted the new 3-inch slot limit that federal fisheries managers had told them they had to impose by July 2. The fallout is already being seen on the docks and on the rocks.

Charter captains have reported a rash of cancellations, which a lot of them are attributing to customers who were counting on bringing home big bags of striped bass fillets. Honest captains have to tell them it may be difficult, since only fish between 28 and 31 inches can be kept, and there are not a heck of a lot of fish in that size range in our waters.

There are keepers to be caught, of course, and the sharpies are already figuring out how to filter through the hordes of huge striped bass to get at the smaller ones that give you a chance at finding some keepers. Smaller lures, trolled higher in the water column, seem to have been the main tactic shift.

For anglers just out fishing for dinner, the shrinking of the slot is frustrating. Yes, those excited to catch fish just over 28 inches can still take it home. But those of us who catch striped bass regularly and would like to get a more substantial meal out of it miss that upper-end-of-the-slot fish, which weighs a solid 15 pounds and is two or three meals.

There are plenty of fishermen who think the slot limit is just fine. It’s still keeping that 28-inch minimum that was the primary ask from the tackle shop world when the feds were coming up with the original slot limits in 2020, and it’s doing what the scientists say we need to do to protect the 2015 year-class of fish that are going to be the majority of spawning fish in the stock in the not-too-distant future.

The main criticism has come from the charter industry, who say that they, in particular, are going to have to greatly increase the number of the fish that they catch and release — which means they will be increasing “dead discards,” as fish that are released but die anyway are known, already the most insidious pitfall of the striped bass fishery management.

Their argument is that if they alone were allowed to keep larger fish, they’d catch their customers’ limits and move on to other fishing sooner, meaning less fish risking post-release mortality.

It’s a fair point to make and one that will probably be taken up by the scientists and technical committee experts next fall, when they start working out how to manage the slot going forward.

The one upside of the whole calculation is that those 2015 fish are growing quickly, and the upper end of the slot likely will be able to be raised within a year or two without posing a new threat of depleting the stock.

But for now we have to live with it and, hopefully, follow the rules and act responsibly. That means taking care to release those fish that you catch that do not fit the slot.

Fishermen who are annoyed at not being able to keep a fish are notoriously disdainful and take out their anger on the fish. But that’s just cutting off your nose to spite your face. The only thing that will help us is the stock recovering to the point that managers say it will rebuild as needed — then we can go back to catching and keeping fish from a wide size range.

Catch ’em up — and release them carefully. See you out there.