Striped bass characteristically have good recruitment only on a sporadic basis. There is much research going on down here (I am a graduate student in the U. Maryland system) on what factors affect recruitment of striped bass to age 1 year. The major factor appears to be that the spawn is timed to coincide with the spring plankton bloom. If the fish spawn too early the newly hatched fry starve; too late a spawn and they are rapidly eaten by other predators. Last year we had a very wet spring that caused some flooding and may have adversly affected the fry. That said, a single poor year for reproduction is no reason for alarm. We cannot control the weather and as long as a sufficient spawning stock of adult fish remains the striped bass fishery will continue to rebound. Even if the fishery for striped bass were shut down indeffinitely the population would in all likelyhood be characterized by dominant year classes. Populations of fish that have dominant year classes change in de
mographics over time: that is the average size of the fish varies over several years depending on the ages of the dominant year classes at that time. This is why the east coast fishery has LOTS of small fish at the moment and not a lot of larger ones. There are only a couple of good year classes of oler fish and several very good year classes of fish under 8 years of age. Five years from now there should be a great fishery for 20 lb plus fish if we can refrain from killing all of them now. Enough for now. I just wanted to remind you folks that poor recruitment from time to time is to be expected of a species like striped bass and is NOT, in and of itself, an indicator of overfishing.
Regards,
Eric Lund