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Here’s the facts, reported to us by Connecticut-based OTW writer Kierran Broatch: This morning, Striper Cup angler Greg Myerson weighed in a striped bass that registered 81.88 pounds on the scale at Jack’s Shoreline in Westbrook, Connecticut – almost 12 hours after it had been landed Thursday evening aboard a boat in Long Island Sound. If the fish had been properly documented, it could have been eligible for the world record. However, at the moment Myerson has decided to take the fish home at not pursue record certification. Here’s a photo of the fish, taken earlier this morning.
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I've fished for stripers around MA quite a bit - they're great fish to catch: aggressive and strong. My normal weapon was a 9ft Ugly Stick spinning rod, with 15lb mono, and a circle hook loaded with a chunk of mackerel or herring - just about as simple as it gets. My heaviest was pushing 25lb, so this monster is way, way bigger, but I bet the line wasn't any heavier than 20lb.
The bigger story about this is that the US bass fisheries are a real success story. In the 70's and 80's the populations had almost collapsed, and they introduced draconian limits - minimum size 36", maximum 1 fish and the fish hat to be kept whole, and only fish taking within 3 miles of shore could be taken. Over time, the rules have been relaxed to the minimum size of 28" today. However, from the very occasional catch to being plentiful has taken 30-40 years, and commercial fishing is still outlawed. There's nothing magic in this either, merely that the population supported the efforts - nobody would dream of taking more than one or taking an undersized fish (compare that to the Irish attitude!), and the government understood that there was a lot of money to be made from angling, a lot more than from commercial exploitation.
OK, I stand corrected: the gear used was a 6'6" St. Croix tuna rod, a Quantum Cabo loaded with 50lb braid, connected to 60lb flourocarbon leader - a lot heavier than most people use for stripers. He used a 16" sandeel, so he was targetting a big striper.
Stripers are great fish to catch. I've had them with bait, plugs and fly in a few places on the US east coast. Biggest only in the teens of pounds but a great fight. Heaven knows what a fish that size must have been like, even on heavy braid!!! There are a lot of big fish come from the upper Chesapeake Bay when they've gatherd to spawn.
The yanks generally use much smaller rods than we do over here and its amazing how well they handle strong fish. The management of their Striper fishery is an example of what can be done if Governments apply themselves. They're very strict on retention of illegal fish and, in Delaware at least, regularly inspect anglers on the beaches and piers.
