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I talked a little bit about this issue with Tony from ASGA, as he is a Chesapeake striper angler, and they definitely have a problem up there. Overfishing is one, but their menhaden stock took a dump, too. I would say they have a multi-faceted problem.
1. More available forage than Texas or Florida and they have “more” big trout. I don’t think it’s a forage issue. After that, we had more redfish during the time before the Freshening when most of Louisiana’s top ten trout were caught.
2. Bass did not out compete specks and reds. What hurt specks and reds was the massive, totally unprecedented amount of river water that came down the pipe from 2011 to 2020. IIRC, it was worse than 1927, we just didn’t see the same infrastructure damage because we had levees and spillways in place. If prime spawning grounds for those inshore species is nuked with record amount of river water, then there will be no good spawns. If those fish are concentrated into places like The Wall and brought home in an ice chest, then they are dead.
3. Probably. It makes sense they get big by avoiding predation.
