OK, so tonight I went out on a local party boat and several stripers came aboard, mine one of them, which had both sides of their tails which appeared to have been CLIPPED or CUT by scissors. These "Shorts" would have been keepers had the missing pieces of their tails actually been there. The mate mentioned that tonight was not the first time that he has seen stripers which appear to have had both sides of their tail clipped off by about 1/2 an inch or so.
Well, it got me to wondering if there might be any hard core striper advocates out there who would go to such measures as to clip the end of the tails of any stripers they caught before they released them that were just keeper size, or slightly below. This would cause legal size fish to become shorts and buy them another year should they be caught again by anglers who would keep legal size fish.
I was just wondering this as I have heard "stories" of some guys having already caught and released up to 60 fish in any one outting . . .
Anyone catch any fish with tails that have appeared to have been clipped? Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Well, it got me to wondering if there might be any hard core striper advocates out there who would go to such measures as to clip the end of the tails of any stripers they caught before they released them that were just keeper size, or slightly below. This would cause legal size fish to become shorts and buy them another year should they be caught again by anglers who would keep legal size fish.
I was just wondering this as I have heard "stories" of some guys having already caught and released up to 60 fish in any one outting . . .
Anyone catch any fish with tails that have appeared to have been clipped? Anyone have any thoughts on this?