Hudson River Stripers Have a Bad Year Too

 Cape Gazette, Bad news for striped bass

It seems that in spite of record numbers of spawning-size striped bass in the Hudson River last spring, the young of the year numbers were just as dismal as they were in Chesapeake Bay. In an article by Jim Hutchinson in New Jersey Fisherman Magazine, he reported the young of the year count for the

Hudson River was the lowest since the 1980s. In reading the graph, I would say it was between a one and a two.

New York samples 13 sites biweekly along the lower Hudson River from May until November. These dismal numbers track right along with the numbers reported from Maryland and Virginia.

It seems, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, that recent winters have been warm and dry with little snowfall. This has resulted in less snowmelt to cool the rivers and streams where striped bass spawn. The warmer water does not produce the number of zooplankton the striped bass fry need to survive. Even if the fish produce plenty of young stripers, there would not be enough food for them to eat. Also, in Chesapeake Bay, blue catfish have become so numerous that they have become a danger to the fry and can eat great numbers of them in the spring when other food sources are not available.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has already placed emergency regulations on striped bass with a 28- to 31-inch slot limit for stripers caught from the ocean. They will meet again later in January, when I expect that regulation to become permanent.

From what we saw this fall and early winter, there are plenty of big striped bass stretched from northern New Jersey all the way down to Virginia Beach. I was getting reports with photos from all of these locations at the same time. That ended about two weeks ago when this series of storms and cold temperatures arrived. It will be interesting to see if any remain once the weather settles down.

There is so much we have learned about striped bass in recent years. We believed they stayed close to the coast during their migration north in the spring and south in the fall. Recent tagging results prove some of them go as far east as the Hudson Canyon once they leave the Hudson River, and then they hang out on the Nantucket Shoals during the summer. Others do stay closer to shore. There is so much more we have to learn.

It may be time for the moratorium again.  

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