Net Gain (Front‪)‬

It was a sight that appalled Outer Banks anglers. // Bobbing in the waves were hundreds, maybe thousands, of dead striped bass, a catch prized for its fight and sold on restaurant menus as "rockfish." They'd been cut loose from a commercial vessel's nets. Video of the scene, shot off Bodie Island last weekend, made a splash on YouTube. Internet boards soon lit up with angry anglers denouncing their commercial counterparts. Many suspected the dead fish were the byproduct of high-grading, a legal practice in which watermen - limited by state rules to 50 fish a day - discard smaller fish to keep larger ones.