Young-of-year rockfish have another poor year in Md., better in Va.

Young-of-year rockfish have another poor year in Md., better in Va.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission decided May 2 to impose a 31-inch maximum on the size striped bass that anglers may keep if they hook one. Tim Wheeler reports in the Bay Journal. https://www.bayjournal.com/news/ Photo by the Chesapeake Bay Program

By Karl Blankenship

Bay Journal
Striped bass, whose population has been in decline for a decade and a half, suffered from another poor year of reproduction in Maryland, though the news was better in Virginia.

Maryland’s annual young-of-year index was just 3.4, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, well below the long-term average of 11.6.

It was the ninth time in the last 14 years that the state’s index reflected below-average reproduction in the state. In the previous 14 years, by contrast, the index was below average only four times.

The news was better in the Lower Bay, where the Virginia Institute of Marine Science reported a preliminary index of 9.54 in its survey, a bit better than the historic average of 7.77 fish per seine net haul.

Striped bass reproductive success — particularly in Maryland — has been closely related to future coastal striped bass abundance over time.

Striped bass play an important role as a top predator in the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and are a valuable recreational and commercial species. The population in the Bay hit historic lows in the late 1970s, prompting a fishing moratorium in the mid-to-late 1980s. It eventually recovered but has been in decline for more than a decade, prompting East Coast fishery managers to pursue an 18 percent harvest reduction starting next year.

The Maryland index represents the average number of fish less than one year old captured in 132 samples collected at 22 survey sites in four major spawning areas — the Choptank, Potomac and Nanticoke rivers, and the Upper Bay. DNR biologists have been conducting the survey since 1954.

The Virginia survey samples 18 sites in the Rappahannock, York and James river watersheds and has been conducted since 1967.

Juvenile fish “recruited” into the population this year will be large enough for anglers to catch in three to five years.

Karl Blankenship is editor of the Bay Journal and executive director of Bay Journal Media. He has served as editor of the Bay Journal since its inception in 1991. kar

About The Author

Len Lazarick

len@marylandreporter.com

Len Lazarick was the founding editor and publisher of MarylandReporter.com and is currently the president of its nonprofit corporation and chairman of its board He was formerly the State House bureau chief of the daily Baltimore Examiner from its start in April 2006 to its demise in February 2009. He was a copy editor on the national desk of the Washington Post for eight years before that, and has spent decades covering Maryland politics and government.