There has been a lot of misinformation circulating on why striped bass in the Northeast have been common, but small the last few years. As a biologist with a working understanding of the current striped bass situation, let me offer a quick rundown of striped bass life cycle and history over the last 20 years to hopefully offer a better perspective on the current situation.
Striped bass first spawn at age 4 or 5 when they are roughly between 24 and 30 inches in length. Most of the eggs, however, come from older and much larger females. these older fish contribute disproportionately to the annual egg production. Fish at age 7 average about 20 lb, 30 lb fish are around 10 years old and females over 40 lb can be 14 years old or older. Striped bass start to die of old age at about 15 years old although a few hang on until they are over 20. Spawning success is uneven from year to year -- dependent on the spawning being timed correctly to coincide with the spring plankton bloom. This leads to dominant year classes (when things go well) interspersed with poor year classes. It is important from a mangagement perspective to mainatain adults from dominant year classes through several spawning seasons to ensure that another dominant yearclass will arise. Failure to do so in the past has apparently led to situations where spawning conditions were relatively f
avorable, but not enough females were present to produce a good spawn.
After vast overfishing on all fronts during the 1970’s the fishery in the early 1980’s was reduced to a few very old fish and a smattering of younger fish in the Chesapeake Bay spawning population. In 1982 favorable spawning conditions resulted in these old fish producing a very good spawn that had the potential to develop into a dominant year class. To protect this yearclass the Chesapeake fishery was closed completely for several years and the Atlantic fishery had size limits set to keep this yearclass from being harvested. This is why size limits kept going up during the late 1980’s and early 90’s. This protection payed off in very good spawning success from 1990-1997 with the best years being in the mid 1990’s.
So here’s the makeup of our current population: a few old fish left over from the class of 1982, a lot of fish that are 6 years old or less and very little in between. Given these facts it should not surprise anyone that 30lb fish are not common right now. Quite frankly, the forage base is probably not a limiting factor right now, but demographics of the population are. These fish are not stunted, they are just young. If too many of these young fish are harvested they won’t be around in 5 years when they would weigh 20-40 lb. This whole mess started in part from the taking of fish that had not yet had a chance to reproduce. Current regulations most places are set such that few prereproductive fish are taken. I can understand Chesapeake Bay portions of Maryland and Virginia having limited fisheries for smaller fish due to the fact that they are the nursery areas that provide everyone else with fish, but expanding the fishery for prereproductive fish to other areas could easily
knock the population back to next to nothing within a few short years.
Sorry to be so long winded, but I felt this needed to be put forth.