Congaree Stripers Extinct?

[mirroman]

Tell us what you think should be done Stripa. You are obviously very well versed in the biologics of the fish. Much more so than I. But as a simple layman I have seen with my own eyes the decline.
From a biological perspective. What would you do to bring Stripers back to Santee Cooper???? If you have already answered this please copy and paste b/c I missed it.
And type slow, I don't undertand some big words...

[Stripa Swipa]

At this point, the only option as I see it is to reduce harvest. Don't mistake that for "overfishing caused the problem." Overfishing didn't cause the problem on the Savannah River but it was a necessary component of the solution. In just a few short years, the results have been incredible. If the conditions get right for successful reproduction, you've got to have enough spawning sized adults in the game. Striper reproduction takes an orgy not monogomous exclusivity. You can't start over with one male and one female. If the stocked fish don't survive and the creel size limits don't exceed brood size, then a few drought years kill the deal. Do you want to catch the last one? I don't. Now, you are gonna lose some street cred if you buy into this craziness.

[mirroman]

I for 1 am all for reducing harvest. Slot limit, 2 fish, whatever works.
What is the status on the release program???

[BOGSTER]

Originally posted by mirroman:
I for 1 am all for reducing harvest. Slot limit, 2 fish, whatever works.

I would be in total support of that.
The real trouble is the catfishermen catching them at night and taking them back in.
8 years ago you could catch all night around any dock with a light, now you are lucky to catch 4 in a night.

[Stripa Swipa]

Catch and release in the summer time is essentially harvest if they are correct on their release mortality claims. It wouldn't surprise me as I've seen a lot of redfish that were hard to revive on summertime flats. Shutting it down would be wise IMO. Winter time and upper river get one large fish. This would allow the maximum amount of adults to contribute to a spawning cycle. Status of stocking? Not sure what you are asking. I don't know when they stock but it sounds like they are spreading the stocking to more locations, including tidal river areas to try and increase survival of the juvies. Send somebody over there an email and I'll bet you can get all the details you want. Names, addresses etc are all on their website or I can send some to you.

[Mergie Master]

Ask them guys in NJ about ocean run stripers. This is a guy I know up there who decided to go fishing instead of cutting his grass on the April 21. He's never caught a landlocked rock in his life. But he wears them out in the ocean and on the rivers.



We used to kill them at Buzzard Roost but the people got so thick on the banks of the river you couldn't fish. You needed body armor if you were in a boat. It was like being downrange at a rifle range with all them bucktails flying around.

In September we used to kill them over Mud Island in Lake Greenwood. Just at daylight they'd run the shad up out of the 60' water into the 4' water of over the island. The water would be churning and the shad flying through the air in a 50 yard circle. We'd chunk homemade topwater plugs we made out of broom handle pieces painted white. We used broom handle cause it was heavy and would make the long casts so as not to spook the schools. When they went down we'd bump the bottom with bucktails and get'em deep. We used to and kill big striper.

Then the idiots found out and there would be 50 boats laying out there waiting at daybreak. That was fine except for the stupid rubberheads that would run their boats right into the school. That ended all our fun!

[mirroman]

Oh how I long for the day when I can cuss a rubberhead for sounding a 3 acre school of stripers in front of Goat Island!!!! Hven't done that in a while...