Striped bass season in the marine waters of New York officially opens on Friday, April 15th although anglers have been playing catch and release with stripers for several weeks already. Striped bass are the lone exception to the rule of not being allowed to target an out of season species. When the regulations were drafted, this exclusion was specifically built into the striped bass fishery in the Marine District. The marine district includes all those waters lying south of the George Washington Bridge.
A couple of good year classes in recent years provides a glimmer of hope that the decline of the fishery will eventually be reversed. The 2015 regulations remain the same with a one fish daily bag limit; 28-inch minimum size limit, and a season running from April 15 to December 15. In the Hudson River, north of the George Washington Bridge, the season runs from April 1 through November 30 with one fish per day between 18 to 28 inches or one fish over 40 inches.
The one fish bag limit results in many fish having to be returned, and there are things you can do to ensure that those fish go back healthy and are able to recover. If you fish plugs or any lure with treble hooks, there is no reason not to crush the barbs of all your hooks. This makes hook removal one hundred percent easier and lowers the risk of damaging the fish considerably. A bonus to the crushed barbs is if you end up with a hook in your hand, you will truly appreciate going barbless. If you fish baits like clams of bunker chunks, the only hooks you use should be non-offset circles. They will ensure lip-hooking your fish and make releasing them unharmed much easier. Above all else, get the fish back in the water as quickly as possible. Whenever possible, don’t remove the fish from the water. Single hook lures like bucktails or leadheads tipped with soft plastics make release quick and simple. We all need to do our part to restore and maintain a healthy striped bass fishery.
