Outdoors: Big picture isn't bright for shad, herring fisheries

After checking out rockfish photos and notes from readers, then updates from Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission on baitfish stocks, this writer is beginning to wonder how the stripers can grow to such length and girth. The baitfish they most depend on face big problems of their own from commercial fishing.

We all know the woes of the oily menhaden in Virginia's portion of the Chesapeake, but few are aware of the troubles of the Atlantic herring, the river herring and possibly/probably the shad, which are at times (late winter-spring and fall) are a nice meal for big stripers.

When one figures the fundamentals...