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NJ Bonus Fish Application

NJ law states the possession limit for striped bassis one fish over 24" yet under 28" and one fish over 28". The "Bonus Fish Card" will allow you to take a third fish so long as it is over 28". However, if you'd like to not kill the 24" immature fish that hasn't had a chance to spawn even once but still see the need to keep 2 "adult" fish, get the application in the mail now!

Regardless of where you live, if you fish in NJ you will need this card in order to keep the second fish over 28". At the moment, in NJ you can keep 2 stripers over 28" in length. Those two fish over 28" combined with the immature 24" fish, should you decide to kill it, this card will allow you to keep a total of three striped bass. This additional fish come from NJ's unused historical commercial quota. Since NJ has made the striped bass a gamefish, no commercial harvest has legally been allowed. In turn, the state has allowed us to utilize this commercially unused portion of our total allowable harvest in the bonus fish program, previously known as the trophy tag program.

Please get this tag, it won't hurt to have it, by using it, you will be able to keep your 2 stripers at 28" and not have to kill the immature 24" stripers that haven't had a chance to give back to the environment that supported them. They have not had the chance to spawn even once but only to drain valuable resources that nature intended to carry a striped bass through adulthood and through spawning. Killing an immature fish, in my eyes, is a two edged sword - those fish will never spawn and thus will never "contribute". Killing many immature fish is bound to have serious long term effects on the striper stocks as well as their prey. This is just my opinion but it is shared by many. So long as NJ state law allows the killing of 24" fish, no one has the right to look down on you or tease you, I just thought you should be aware that they have never had a chance to spawn yet.

Click here for a printable application--->>Bonus Program Application for NJ Waters



Please note, you will have to use your back button to return to this page and thus the menu at the bottom of this page! This was done so that the form you are going to print will be exactly as the state intended!

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This page was last updated on April 7, 2004