For anglers around the country, east coast striped bass fishing is something special. And for East Coast anglers, the Chesapeake Bay has always held a mix of big trophy fish in the spring season, good catches when chumming and trolling throughout the summer and breaking fish for light tackle and fly anglers in the fall.
The question is whether or not this will continue in the future. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources has released its juvenile striped bass index by which it measures the spawning success as a gauge for future fishing.
This year, the numbers are down to 7.9, about double that of last year (3.2), but still below the long term average of 11.7.
This is a somewhat arbitrary number based on the long term studies since 1954. Since then, Maryland has taken net sampling surveys at 22 locations around the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake during the months of July, August and September. The result is a figure for each year as to the good or poor results of spring striper spawning.
What is keeping catches high right now are very high young-of-year numbers during 1996 (the highest on record at 59.4), 2001(50.8), 2003 (25.8) and some from 1993 (39.8).
Most good years of spawning success seem to alternate with relatively poor years, with the results since 2003 generally poorer each year.
Of course any figures and numbers on spawning success will only affect future anglers, since the fish measured are only fingerlings. We also have to leave little stripers alone for a few years, since age four is when females begin spawning.
In addition, summer stripers have been getting mycobacteriosis, a fish disease that causes not only external sores and lesions, but also organ damage and general weakness. This is the far more serious potential problem. It seems to strike most frequently around the Chesapeake Bay Bridge that is a popular fishing spot for tourists and Maryland anglers. And it seems to be a summer disease, with fish healing in the cooler winter months.
This disease is currently baffling fisheries biologists. Juvenile striper populations can go up and down with seasonal and environmental factors. Getting a handle on the mysterious mycobacteriosis disease would go a long way to dampening future fears about decreased striper successes.
Even so, between lowered numbers of baby stripers and a continued devastating disease, future of stripers in the Chesapeake becomes more of a question than we would like.
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