Connecticut River Stripers

July 5, 2008 By: Marshall Cutchin

There’s no question that the striped bass have come back to the Connecticut River. While local guides and fly fishers are seeing the best fishing they can remember, some scientists are beginning to ask if there are too many. Steve Grant writes about the remarkable recovery and the controversy it has spawned. “Stripers eat shad, stripers eat herring. But whether stripers are the main reason for declines in those species has not been established. Stripers also will eat young salmon migrating to sea, but, again, it is not clear that stripers can be blamed for the minimal progress in restoring Atlantic salmon to the Connecticut River.” In the Hartford Courant.