May 9, 2018 — Commercial fishermen asked state regulators Tuesday night to make recreational fishermen tag their striped bass the way commercial operators do, to make sure they’re not taking too many fish.
But the idea died when Doug Jenkins, president of the Twin Rivers Watermen’s group, in Warsaw, outlined his proposal to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission’s finfish management advisory committee.
“We’re losing our rockfish (striped bass) quota and losing our crab industry,” Jenkins told the committee.
He said the 20 percent cut in striped bass quotas imposed three years ago have hit commercial fishermen hard.
Jenkins said there are enough striped bass to allow commercial fishermen to catch more, and that striped bass preying on crabs is one reason why crab populations are down.
But the request comes at a bad time, when nobody seems to know for certain what the real state of the striped bass stock is, said Jeff Deem, chairman of the advisory committee.
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