Description
The striped bass, or "striper," one of the most avidly pursued
of all coastal sport fish, is native to most of the East Coast, ranging
from the lower St. Lawrence River in Canada to Northern Florida, and
along portions of the Gulf of Mexico. The striped bass has been prized
in Massachusetts since colonial times. In 1670, Plymouth Colony established
a free school with income from coastal striped bass fisheries. Thus,
one of the first public schools in America was supported by this highly
valued resource. The unique angling qualities of this trophy species
and its adaptability to fresh water environments have led to a major
North American range expansion within the last 100 years. A valuable
fishery has been created on the West Coast and inland fisheries have
been developed in 31 states by stocking the striped bass into lakes
and reservoirs.
Several characteristics distinguished the striper from other fish found
in coastal Massachusetts waters. The striped bass has a large mouth,
with jaws extending backward to below the eye. It has two prominent
spines on the gill covers. The first (most anterior) of its two well-developed
and separated dorsal fins possesses a series of sharp, stiffened spines.
The anal fin, with its three sharp spines, is about as long as the posterior
dorsal fin. The striper's upper body is blueish to dark olive, and its
sides and belly are silvery. Seven or eight narrow stripes extending
lengthwise from the back of the head to the base of the tail form the
most easily recognized characteristic of this species.
Striped bass can live up to 40 years and can reach weights greater
than 100 pounds, although individuals larger than 50 pounds are rare.
The all-tackle angling record fish, taken in New Jersey in 1972, weighed
78 ½ pounds and measured 72 inches long. The Massachusetts record
of 73 pounds has been equaled on three occasions, the most recent of
which was at Nauset Beach in 1981. The following table lists average
lengths and weights of striped bass at selected ages; the fish were
collected in the Chesapeake Bay and Albermarle Sound (North Carolina)
regions.
Female striped bass age at
maturity
|
|
|
Females reach significantly greater sizes than do males; most stripers
over 30 pounds are female. Thus, the term "bulls," originally
coined to describe extremely large individuals, has been more accurately
changed to "cows" in recent times.
The number of eggs produced by a female striped bass is directly related
to the size of its body; a 12-pound female may produce about 850,000
eggs, and a 55-pound female about 4,200,000 eggs. Although males reach
sexual maturity at two or three years of age, no females mature before
the age of four, and some not until the age of six. The size of the
females at sexual maturity has been used as a criterion for establishing
minimum legal size limit regulations in recent years.
Habits
Striped bass are rarely found more than several miles from the shoreline.
Anglers usually catch stripers in river mouths, in small, shallow bays
and estuaries, and along rocky shorelines and sandy beaches. The striped
bass is a schooling species, moving about in small groups during the
first two years of life, and thereafter feeding and migrating in large
schools. Only females exceeding 30 pounds show any tendency to be solitary.
Schools of striped bass less than three years of age (sometimes called
"schoolies" by anglers) occasionally travel from upstream
into rivers such as the Hudson, Connecticut and Merrimac. Although adult
striped bass move into rivers to reproduce, fish less than three years
old probably make such journeys to take advantage of a river's abundant
food resources.
Striped Bass migration routes
from the principal spawning grounds of the Chesapeake Bay, Delaware
River, and Hudson River
|
|
|
Striped bass normally do not migrate during the first two years of
life. However, adult stripers generally migrate northward in the spring
and summer months and return south in the fall. Individuals that hatch
in the Hudson River generally do not migrate beyond Cape Cod to the
North and Cape May to the south. Fish hatched in the Chesapeake Bay
exhibit more extensive Migrations, some being captured as far north
as the Bay of Fundy in coastal Canada.
Stripers are strictly spring to fall transients in Massachusetts. Only
a few fish inhabiting coastal Massachusetts waters in the summer have
been known to overwinter in the mouths of southern New England streams.
Some stripers frequenting coastal Massachusetts in the summer will overwinter
in the mouth of the Hudson River, while many spend winter along the
New Jersey coast in the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays.
Stripers reproduced in rivers and the brackish areas of estuaries.
Spawning occurs from the spring to early summer, with the greatest activity
occurring when the water warms to about 65 degrees F. The eggs drift
in currents until they hatch 1 ½ to 3 days after being fertilized.
Because newly hatched larvae are nearly helpless; striped bass suffer
their highest rate of natural mortality during the several weeks after
hatching.
The major spawning activity for the entire East Coast fishery occurs
in the Hudson River, the Chesapeake Bay, and the Roanoke River-Albermarle
Sound watershed. Striped bass are most abundant in the New England and
Mid-Atlantic states following year when reproduction in the Chesapeake
Bay has been particularly successful, suggesting that much of the East
Coast is strongly dependent upon the success of spawning in that one
watershed.
Striped bass eat a variety of foods, including fish such as alewives,
flounder, sea herring, menhaden, mummichogs, sand lance, silver hake,
tomcod, smelt, silversides, and eels, as well as lobsters, crabs, soft
clams, small mussels, annelids (sea worms), and squid. They feed most
actively at dusk to dawn, although some feeding occurs throughout the
day. During midsummer they tend to become more nocturnal. Stripers are
particularly active with tidal and current flows and in the wash of
breaking waves along the shore, where, fish, crabs, and clams become
easy prey as they are tossed about in turbulent water.
Management
Striped bass populations have a history of periods of abundance
interspersed with periods of scarcity. A major coast-wide reduction
in abundance occurred at the end of the 19th century. No catches of
stripers were reported north of Boston for 30 years after 1897. Populations
had recovered somewhat by 1921, and an unusually successful year of
reproduction in 1934 was followed by 6 years of markedly increased abundance.
Great numbers of juvenile fish were recorded in Massachusetts waters
in the mid-1940s, and high numbers of increasingly larger individuals
followed for a period of years. Such information suggests that striped
bass populations are dominated for extended periods by fish hatched
during occasional years of unusually successful reproduction. Also,
a year of successful reproduction is often followed by a series of years
when spawning fails or is so limited in success that relatively few
new fish enter the population. During the 1970s, the last peak year
of reproductive success in the Chesapeake Bay was 1970 (note figure).
Levels of reproduction were consistently low in the 1980s except in
1982 when modest numbers of juveniles were produced . Thus, most of
the bass harvested in the during the 1970s and 1980s had come from the
spawning effort of 1970. The recent extremely prolonged period of reproductive
failure had caused a steady decline in striped bass abundance. The decline
was reflected in decreasing success by anglers. For example, the estimated
catch by anglers from the Gulf of Maine to the mid-Atlantic region fell
from 6,600,000 pounds in 1979 to 1,700,000 pounds in 1985.
The decline in abundance of stripers coming from the Chesapeake Bay was
felt to be caused by a combination of factors, including the presence
of a variety of pollutants in spawning grounds, fishing pressure, and
feeding and nutritional problems of larvae.
Maryland Juvenile Index, 1957-2006
|
|
|
A rapidly changing management plan was developed in response to the severely
depleted status of the striped bass. Prior to the mid-1970s, management
of striped bass was carried out more or less independently by each coastal
state. In 1979, Congress amended the Anadromous Fish Act to create the
Emergency Striped Bass Study Program. In 1981, the Atlantic States Marine
Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) adopted a coastwide management plan, to be
acted upon by each coastal state. This plan recommended minimum size limits
for fish caught in nursery rivers and in coastal areas, and restricted
fishing on spawning grounds during the spawning season. In response to
constantly dwindling numbers of stripers on the East Coast, this plan
was amended (Amendment 3) in 1985 to protect females hatched in 1982 until
they have spawned at least once. In 1985, several states imposed mortaria
or began a progressive increase in minimum size limits scheduled to reach
38 inches in total length by 1990. Amendment 3 of the ASMFC's plan also
stipulated that regulations protecting the 1982 year class would remain
in place until the 3-year average of the Maryland's juvenile index (a
measure of year class strength) exceeded the long-term average of 8.0.
The Maryland juvenile index value exceeded 8.0 in 1989 and initiated
a new management regime. In late 1989, Amendment 4 to the ASMFC's plan
was adopted. The basic premise of this amendment was that striped bass
must be managed first to restore the spawning stock biomass and secondarily
to support fishery yield. Under Amendement 4, the states were allowed
to relax regulations and prosecute tightly controlled fisheries starting
in 1990. Daily bag limits of one or two fish were imposed on the recreational
fishery of all states and the commerical fishery was greatly reduced
compared to historical levels. In addition, each state was required
to monitor recreational catches and participate in fishery-independent
monitoring or tagging studies used to estimate mortality.
Atlantic Coast Striped Bass
Abundance
|
|
|
During 1992-1994, improvement in the spawning stock and successive
high Maryland indices and other favorable indicators of stock status
prompted the ASMFC to declared in 1995 that the Atlantic coast striped
bass population had recovered as estimated stock abundance had increased
from 5 million in 1982 to around 41 million. Amendment 5 was then adopted
to address management of recovered stocks. The amendment has allowed
slight increases in fishing mortality and has broadened states' options
for meeting management goals while retaining the objectives of preventing
overfishing and maintaining self-sustaining spawning stocks. Due to the lack of a definition for a quality fishery in Amendment 5, the ASMFC striped bass management board passed Amendment 6 in 2003 to produce regulations that maximize the overall benefits of the available striped bass resource.
-- top ^
Angling and Handling Tips
The striped bass is so highly prized for its size, battle on the
line, and culinary merit, than many anglers consider it the premier
game fish in Massachusetts. This species can be found from May to
November along the entire Massachusetts coastline. Angling at dusk
or dawn provides the greatest success during most of the season, but
night fishing is often best during the midsummer "doldrums."
Anglers are most successful when fishing the shoreline in areas where
tidal rips, strong currents, or wave action create turbulent, "live" water.
Some anglers, who ply the beaches with swimming plugs and live eels,
prefer the 10 to 12-foot surf rod and conventional reel spooled with
30 to 40-pound line. However, a medium to heavy spinning rod with
12 to 20-pound test line is considered ideal by many anglers for plugging,
jigging, or offering bottom-fished baits to bass. Lures are attached
directly to the line with a snap swivel. When bait fishing, the preferred
rig consists of a pyramid sinker attached as a fish finder, and a
long leader with a brightly colored float attached close to the hook.
The float keeps the bait away from the bottom-dwelling crabs and skates.
Live lining of "herring," menhaden (pogies), or mackerel
can be a very productive means of taking large bass. A fairly stiff
boat rod with a conventional reel is the preferred rig. Baitfish is
hooked through the back or snout using either a single or treble hook.
When trolling for bass adjacent to shoreline areas,
the rod should be equipped with a high-ratio conventional reel and
carboloy guides to prevent line wear. By choosing among monofilament,
lead-core or wire lines, depths from the surface to the bottom can
be trolled. Many lures, including swimming plugs, jigs, tubes, and
umbrella rigs- as well as live herring and menhaden - lend themselves
well to trolling for stripers.
Large bass can be steaked, the baked, broiled or grilled.
If steaks are cut particularly thick, they can be stuffed with slices
of bacon, onions, tomatoes, green peppers, parsley, apples, and even
cranberries, and spiced to taste. Place the lightly floured fish in
a foiled baking dish, add one cup or mild red wine and bake at 400
degrees until the flesh flakes.
-- top ^
Commercial Fishery Reporting Requirements
Commercial bass fishermen are required to submit a catch
report detailing their fishing activities during the commercial
season. The report asks for sublegal and legal sized catch, as well
as whether the catch was sold, released or consumed. In addition, for
those fish sold, fishermen must list their transactions detailing the
date, the dealer the fish was sold to (including dealer name and permit
number) and the pounds per transaction. Note that the fishermen may
only sell striped bass to dealers
authorized by the Division of Marine Fisheries to buy directly from
fishermen. Fish sold to unauthorized dealers is strictly prohibited.
Furthermore, unreported transactions may be grounds for loss of the
striped bass endorsement on your license.
Dealer Reporting Requirements
Seafood dealers who wish to purchase striped bass directly from fishermen must hold a valid Massachusetts seafood dealer permit as well as submit a primary buyer and quota managed species application to the Division of Marine Fisheries. Buying striped bass directly from fishermen without prior authorization is strictly prohibited. Once a dealer becomes a primary buyer, there are reporting requirements that must be met.
