I'm about to hook a really nice striped bass.

I caught a bunch of really big fish that day, but you know what I didn't catch?

Small fish. Believe it or not, that's a problem that many striped bass anglers, fisheries managers,

and scientists are beginning to get increasingly concerned about, the lack of younger age

classes of striped bass in the Atlantic fishery. It's a story I've heard before.

I had a summer job at a tackle shop.

And just about that time, we started seeing concerning things with the freight bass stock.

Charles Whittick is an attorney, outdoor writer, hunter, angler, and New York BHA policy team member.

He's also been a longtime fisheries advocate.

This was in the mid-1970s toward late 1970s. There were a lot of bass around, there were a lot of big fish around,

but we weren't seeing any small fish. The school stripers, the stuff under 10 pounds or so,

was disappearing. And I was at the shop one day, and somebody walked into the shop and he had a

box under his arm full of jars.

And it turned out it was Bob Pont, who was the creator of the Adam Plog that's so popular on the striper coast.

And he started talking to me about his concerns about spawning failures down in Maryland that produces at least three quarters to the coastal striped bass.

And we talked and what he was telling me with the poor spawns

corresponded to what we were seeing with the lack of small fish.

It turned out that pond was right.

The striped bass stock collapsed.

I got involved in advocacy out of self-defense.

I'm a fisherman. I like to fish, and

fishing is a lot more enjoyable when it's fishing water.

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