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The striped bass (''Morone saxatilis''), also called the Atlantic striped bass, striper, linesider, rock, or rockfish, is an anadromous perciform fish of the family Moronidae found primarily along the Atlantic coast of North America. It has also been widely introduced into inland recreational fisheries across the United States. Striped bass found in the Gulf of Mexico are a separate strain referred to as Gulf Coast striped bass. The striped bass is the state fish of
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...
,
Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...
, and
South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...
, and the state saltwater (marine) fish of New York,
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...
,
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...
, and
New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
. The history of the striped bass fishery in North America dates back to the Colonial period. Many written accounts by some of the first European settlers describe the immense abundance of striped bass, along with alewives, traveling and spawning up most rivers in the coastal Northeast.


Morphology and lifespan

The striped bass is a typical member of the family Moronidae in shape, having a streamlined, silvery body marked with longitudinal dark stripes running from behind the gills to the base of the tail. Common mature size is . The largest specimen recorded was , netted in 1896. Striped bass are believed to live for up to 30 years. The average size in length is and approximately .


Distribution


Natural distribution

Striped bass are native to the
Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
coastline of North America from the St. Lawrence River into the Gulf of Mexico to
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bord ...
. They are anadromous fish that migrate between fresh and salt water. Spawning takes place in fresh water.


Introductions outside their natural range

Striped bass have been introduced to the Pacific Coast of North America and into many of the large reservoir impoundments across the United States by state game and fish commissions for the purposes of recreational fishing and as a predator to control populations of gizzard shad. These include: Elephant Butte Lake in New Mexico; Lake Ouachita, Lake Norman in North Carolina; Lake Norfork, Beaver Lake and
Lake Hamilton Lake Hamilton or Hamilton Lake may refer to: * Hamilton Lake (Alberta), Canada * Hamilton Lake (Nova Scotia), Canada * Lake Rotoroa (Hamilton, New Zealand) or Hamilton Lake, a lake in New Zealand **Hamilton Lake (suburb), a residential suburb around ...
in Arkansas; Lake Thunderbird in Illinois; Lake Pleasant, and Lake Havasu in Arizona;
Lake Powell Lake Powell is an artificial reservoir on the Colorado River in Utah and Arizona, United States. It is a major vacation destination visited by approximately two million people every year. It is the second largest artificial reservoir by maximu ...
along the Arizona/Utah border; Castaic Lake, Pyramid Lake, Silverwood Lake, Diamond Valley Lake, and
San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water f ...
-Delta in California; Lewis Smith Lake in Alabama; Lake Cumberland in Kentucky; Lake George in Florida; Lake Murray in South Carolina; Lake Lanier in Georgia;
Watts Bar Lake Watts Bar Lake is a reservoir on the Tennessee River created by Watts Bar Dam as part of the Tennessee Valley Authority system. Geography Located in the U.S. state of Tennessee about midway between the cities of Chattanooga and Knoxville, the ...
, in Tennessee; Lake Mead, Nevada; Lake Texoma on the border of Texas and Oklahoma,
Lake Tawakoni Lake Tawakoni ( ) is a reservoir located in Northeast Texas, about east of Dallas. It lies within three Texas counties, Hunt, Rains, and Van Zandt. It is used for water supply and recreation. It is under the Sabine River Authority of Texas and ...
, Lake Whitney, Possum Kingdom Lake, and Lake Buchanan in Texas;
Raystown Lake Raystown Lake is a reservoir in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. It is the largest lake that is entirely within Pennsylvania. The original lake was built by the Simpson family of Huntingdon as a hydroelectric project. The current Raystown Lake ...
in Pennsylvania;
Lake Wallenpaupack Lake Wallenpaupack is a reservoir in Northeastern Pennsylvania. After Raystown Lake, it is the second-largest lake contained entirely in Pennsylvania. It comprises of shoreline, with a length of and a maximum depth of , and has a surface area in ...
in Northeastern Pennsylvania; Umpqua River in Oregon and in Virginia's Smith Mountain Lake and
Leesville Reservoir Leesville Lake is a reservoir in Virginia used for hydroelectric power generation in conjunction with Smith Mountain Lake as a pump storage project. It is located southeast of Roanoke, and southwest of Lynchburg. Smaller and lower than Smi ...
. Striped bass have also been introduced into waters in
Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ' ...
,
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
,
Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
,
Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...
,
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
,
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...
, and
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...
, primarily for
sport fishing Recreational fishing, also called sport fishing or game fishing, is fishing for leisure, exercise or competition. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is professional fishing for profit; or subsistence fishing, which is fishin ...
and
aquaculture Aquaculture (less commonly spelled aquiculture), also known as aquafarming, is the controlled cultivation ("farming") of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, mollusks, algae and other organisms of value such as aquatic plants (e.g. lot ...
.


Environmental factors

The spawning success of striped bass has been studied in the
San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water f ...
-Delta water system, with a finding that high total dissolved solids (TDS) reduce spawning. At levels as low as 200 mg/L TDS, an observable diminution of spawning productivity occurs. They can be found in lakes, ponds, streams, and wetlands. Though the population of striped bass was growing and repopulating in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, a study executed by the Wildlife and Fisheries Program at West Virginia University found that the rapid growth of the striped bass population was exerting a tremendous pressure on its prey (river herring, shad, and blueback herring). This pressure on their food source was putting their own population at risk due to the population of prey naturally not coming back to the same spawning areas. In the United States, the striped bass was designated as a protected game fish in 2007, and executive agencies were directed to use existing legal authorities to prohibit the sale of striped bass caught in federal waters in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. In addition, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina have designated striped bass as a game fish in state waters. In Canada, the province of Quebec designated the striped bass population of the Saint Lawrence as extirpated in 1996. Analysis of available data implicated
overfishing Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in t ...
and dredging in the disappearance. In 2002, a reintroduction program was successful.


Lifecycle

Striped bass spawn in fresh water, and although they have been successfully adapted to freshwater habitat, they naturally spend their adult lives in saltwater (i.e., they are anadromous). Four important bodies of water with breeding stocks of striped bass are:
Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the Eastern Shore of Maryland / ...
, Massachusetts Bay/
Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...
,
Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...
, and Delaware River. Many of the rivers and tributaries that emptied into the Atlantic, had at one time, bred stock of striped bass. This occurred until the 1860s. One of the largest breeding areas is the Chesapeake Bay, where populations from Chesapeake and Delaware bays have intermingled. The very few successful spawning populations of freshwater striped bass include Lake Texoma, Lake Weiss (Coosa River), the
Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...
and its reservoirs downstream from and including
Lake Powell Lake Powell is an artificial reservoir on the Colorado River in Utah and Arizona, United States. It is a major vacation destination visited by approximately two million people every year. It is the second largest artificial reservoir by maximu ...
, and the
Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United ...
, as well as Lake Marion (South Carolina) that retained a landlocked breeding population when the dam was built; other freshwater fisheries must be restocked with hatchery-produced fish annually. Stocking of striped bass was discontinued at Lake Mead in 1973 once natural reproduction was verified.


Hybrids with other bass

Striped bass have also been hybridized with
white bass The white bass, silver bass, or sand bass (''Morone chrysops'') is a freshwater fish of the temperate bass family Moronidae. commonly around 12-15 inches long. The species' main color is silver-white to pale green. Its back is dark, with white s ...
to produce hybrid striped bass also known as wiper, whiterock bass, sunshine bass, palmetto bass, and Cherokee bass. These hybrids have been stocked in many freshwater areas across the US.


Fishing for striped bass

Striped bass are of significant value for
sport fishing Recreational fishing, also called sport fishing or game fishing, is fishing for leisure, exercise or competition. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is professional fishing for profit; or subsistence fishing, which is fishin ...
, and have been introduced to many waterways outside their natural range. A variety of angling methods are used, including trolling and
surf casting Surf or SURF may refer to: Commercial products * Surf (detergent), a brand of laundry detergent made by Unilever Computers and software * "Surfing the Web", slang for exploring the World Wide Web * surf (web browser), a lightweight web brows ...
with topwater lures a good pick for surf casting, as well as bait casting with live and dead bait. Striped bass take a number of live and fresh baits, including bunker,
clams Clam is a common name for several kinds of bivalve molluscs. The word is often applied only to those that are edible and live as infauna, spending most of their lives halfway buried in the sand of the seafloor or riverbeds. Clams have two she ...
, eels, sandworms, herring, bloodworms, mackerel, shad, bluegill, and crayfish. The largest striped bass ever taken by angling was an 81.88 lb (37.14 kg) specimen taken from a boat in Long Island Sound, near the Outer Southwest Reef, off the coast of
Westbrook, Connecticut Westbrook is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 6,769 at the 2020 census. The town center is classified by the U.S. Census Bureau as a census-designated place (CDP). Geography Westbrook lies in the shore ...
. The all-tackle world record fish was taken by Gregory Myerson on the night of August 4, 2011. The fish took a drifted live eel bait, and fought for 20 minutes before being boated by Myerson. A second hook and leader was discovered in the fish's mouth when it was boated, indicating it had been previously hooked by another angler. The fish measured 54 in long and had a girth of 36 in. The International Game Fish Association (IFGA) declared Myerson's catch the new all-tackle world record striped bass on October 19, 2011. In addition to now holding the all-tackle record, Meyerson's catch also landed him the new IGFA men's 37 kg (80 -lb) line class record for striped bass, which previously stood at 70 lb. The previous all-tackle world record fish was a 78.5 lb (35.6 kg) specimen taken in Atlantic City,
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...
, on September 21, 1982, by Albert McReynolds, who fought the fish from the beach for 1:20 after it took his Rebel artificial lure. Recreational bag limits vary by state and province.


Landlocked striped bass

Striped bass are anadromous, so their upriver spawning migrations led some individuals to become "landlocked" during lake dam constructions. The first area where this was documented was at the Santee-Cooper River during the construction of the two dams that impounded Lakes Moultrie and Marion, and because of this, the state game fish of South Carolina is the striped bass. Recently, biologists came to believe that striped bass stayed in rivers for long periods of time, with some not returning to sea unless temperature changes forced migration. Once fishermen and biologists caught on to rising striped bass populations, many state natural resources departments started stocking striped bass in local lakes. Striped bass still continue to exhibit upstream migrations from freshwater lakes during the spawning period. Landlocked stripers have a hard time reproducing naturally, and one of the few and most successful rivers in which they have been documented reproducing successfully is the Coosa River in Alabama and Georgia. A 70.6 lb (32.0 kg) landlocked bass was caught in February 2013 by James Bramlett on the Warrior River in Alabama, a current world record. This fish had a length of and a girth of . A self-sustaining population of striped bass also exist in Lake Texoma, a brackish lake. In Canada there are no landlocked striped bass, but a large number of bass overwinter in Grand Lake, Nova Scotia. They migrate out in early April into the Shubenacadie River to spawn. These bass also spawn in the Stewiacke River (a tributary of the Shubenacadie). The Shubenacadie River system is one of five known spawning areas in Canada for striped bass, with the others being the St. Lawerence River, Miramichi River, Saint John River, Annapolis River, and Shubenacadie/Stewiacke Rivers.


Management

The striped bass population declined to less than 5 million by 1982, but efforts by fishermen with throw back lengths for smaller striped bass and management programs to rebuild the stock proved successful, and in 2007, the nearly 56 million fish included all ages. Recreational anglers and commercial fisherman caught an unprecedented 3.8 million fish in 2006. In New Jersey, alone among states, there is no legal commercial fishery for Striped Bass, it is against the law to sell Striped Bass in wholesale markets, retail, or in restaurants. The management of the species includes size limits, commercial quotas, and biological reference points for the health of the species. The Atlantic coast-wide harvest of striped bass is managed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (AMSFC). In October 2019, the AMSFC announced that the 2018 Benchmark Stock Assessment indicated that "the resource is overfished and experiencing overfishing." Following a series of hearings during March and April 2021 to gather public input, the ASMFC Striped Bass Technical Committee will make recommendations for a new 10-year management strategy, ''Amendment 7 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass'', to replenish striped bass to sustainable levels throughout its traditional migratory range from North Carolina to Maine. Amendment 7 will be finalized and adopted in late 2021 and implemented in 2022.


As food

Striped bass has white meat with a mild flavor and a medium texture. It is extremely versatile in that it can be pan-seared, grilled, steamed, poached, roasted, broiled, sautéed, and deep fried (including batter-frying). The flesh can also be eaten raw or pickled. The primary market forms for fresh bass include headed and gutted (with the head and organs removed) and filets; the primary market forms for frozen bass include headed and gutted and loins. It can also be found in steaks, chunks, or whole. Fresh striped bass is available year-round, and is typically sold in sizes from two to fifteen pounds, and can be sold up to fifty pounds. Striped bass has firm and flavorful flesh with a large flake. The hybrid striped bass yields more meat, has a more fragile texture, and a blander flavor than wild striped bass. The fish has a mild and distinctive flavor. In recipes, it can be substituted for milder fish like cod, as well as for stronger fish like bluefish. Other fish can substitute it, including weakfish, tilefish, blackfish, small bluefish, catfish, salmon, swordfish, and shark. Striped bass is easily grilled in fillets, and is therefore popular in beach communities.


References


External links


Atlantic striped bass
''NOAA FishWatch''. Retrieved June 11, 2022. * {{Taxonbar, from=Q842647 striped bass Sport fish Symbols of Rhode Island Fishkeeping Fauna of Atlantic Canada Fish of the Eastern United States Fish of the Gulf of Mexico Fish of the Western Atlantic Taxa named by Johann Julius Walbaum Symbols of New York (state) Symbols of Virginia striped bass