ABSOLUTELY!They will eat anything they can fit into their big mouths and then some.Stripers invading from the sea,smallmouth from the headwaters,and a gauntlet of gillnets in between....just another nail in the salmon's coffin imho.Two words....open season!
One difference is that stripers are not an invasive species. However they do seem to be recovering better than salmon.
I'm with you 100%, Stripers deserve the same respect that salmon, trout and all other species of NATIVE fish receive. Just because there are a number of elite anglers out there that want nothing but salmon in the rivers, all native species deserve the same right to live and multiply to create a diverse fishing experience for all anglers to enjoy. God knows we all pay enough for the right to fish! As far as the Smallie and Musky is concerned, they too deserve a place in the scheme of things. I see a huge potential for a Musky fishery, they are already charging up to $600.00 a day for a chance at boating one, I wonder home much the salmon guides are getting paid?
I strongly feel that if we let nature take it's course,things will eventually work themselves out. Back in the days when we had a commercial fishery for the striped bass, we didn't have a problem with salmon numbers. The rivers were full of them with very little impact from the striper.We may lose some traditional waters that have carried salmon stocks in a few areas ,but were these areas a stronghold for salmon before the big striper crash or did the salmon fill a void after the stripers were gone?
I think the rules for the cormorants are a litle to much. They should open it so people can shoot shore. I got a few out on my boat but its not everybody that has boat to hunt them out off. Still their fun to hunt.
It is a tricky problem dealing with two levels of government, but it was done successfully in the Great Lakes Region . But just to give you an example of how quickly these things can multiply,in the early 50's, there were approx. 900 pairs of nesting cormorants in the Great Lakes, due to so much chemical pollution in the lakes the numbers dropped to 125 breeding pairs in 1973.Once the water cleared up, those 125 pairs of birds exploded to 138,000 breeding pairs from 1973-1993. Culling the nests did little to bring down the numbers because these birds are like coyotes, the more they are pressured, the bigger the birth rate. They usually lay 3-4 eggs with a 28 day incubation period, so when the nests were culled, they would just lay more eggs!What DID WORK was the spraying of eggs with a mixture of formaldyhyde and soap! This mixture covered the eggs and cut off any oxygen from getting to the forming embroyo, causing it to suffocate. The eggs were still intact so the birds didn't know the difference and kept trying to incubate the affected eggs till the breeding period ended. By then it was to late to lay more! That simple act wiped out a whole breeding year for thousands of cormorants, thus taking out thousands more new birds! According to the latest opinions from scientists, these birds if left unchecked could double every 3 years, so something has to be done from both levels of government if we are to have a sustainable fishery weather it be Salmon, Trout, Bass or whatever species you target. They ARE fun to shoot,I used to get a special game licence and hunt them down around the Milledgeville shore line up to Ragged Point all summer long. Come duck season, I was ready! I think it would be a ball to hunt them out around the islands in the the bay and around Partridge Island .As far as I know,they are still on the Special Game Permit and I don't think there is any limit on them although I haven't hunted them since they put all the new housing and roadwork in down around Milledgville.
