November 12, 2019 — George Bucci has been fishing the waters off New Jersey’s coast for about 30 years, and says the striped bass population has taken a sharp dive in recent years.
He remembers boom times after a moratorium on the fish ended in the late 1990s.
“I would go in the ocean in ’98 and just see miles and miles of striped bass,” Bucci said.
But overfishing has brought it back to critical levels.
“I almost strictly target striped bass,” said Bucci, 52, of Northfield. “In the last five years, I’ve seen the decline in the population. I wouldn’t call it a steady decline, I would call it a sharp decline. … The biomass has shrunk to the point where the juice isn’t worth the squeeze almost.”
The dwindling population led the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board in October to amend the rules for commercial and recreational fishers alike.
The commission, in amending the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic striped bass, is aiming for an 18% reduction in commercial removal of the popular fish from 2017 levels, according to a release from the organization.