STRIPED BASS

Other common names for the striped bass are striper, rockfish, rock, and linesides. It is the largest

member of the temperate bass family. The body coloration of the striped bass is olive-green to blue-gray on the back with silvery to brassy sides and white on the belly. It can be easily recognized by the seven or eight prominent black uninterrupted horizontal stripes along its sides. The stripes are often interrupted or broken and are usually missing on young fish of less than six inches. The striper is longer, sleeker and has a larger head than its similar looking relative the white bass.

The world record for a landlocked caught Striped Bass is 66 pounds. This record fish was caught in O'Neill Forebay, California, in 1988. The world record for open water is 78 pounds, 8 ounces which was caught off the coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA, in 1982.

Striped bass are considered the undisputed champ of freshwater fishes by anglers. Live shad and eels are excellent baits for catching big stripers. Other popular baits include white or yellow bucktail jigs, spoons, deep running crankbaits and a spinner with plastic worm rig. Popping plugs are best artificals or try anchovies when stripers are schooling at the surface.

Striped bass have been described as voracious feeders and consume any kind of small fish and a variety of invertebrates. The preferred foods of adult stripers mainly consist of gizzard and threadfin shad, golden shiners and minnows. Younger striped bass prefer to feed on amphipods and mayflies. Very small stripers feed on zooplankton. Like other temperate bass they move in schools and all members of the school tend to feed at the same time. Heaviest feeding occurs in early morning and in the evening. Stripers will feed sporadically throughout the day especially when skies are overcast. Feeding slows as water temperatures drop below 50 degrees but never stops completely.

The striped bass has been widely introduced into numerous lakes, rivers and impoundments throughout the world. Stripers prefer relatively clear water with a good supply of open-water baitfish. Their preferred water temperature range is 65 to 70 degrees. The range of stripers runs in the east along the Atlantic Coast from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, N.Y. to the St. Johns River in northern Florida and in the Gulf of Mexico from western Florida to Louisiana.

Stripe bass spawn in March, April and May as water temperatures reach 60 to 68 degrees. Stripers are river spawners. During the spawn seven or eight smaller males will surround a single, larger female and bump her to swifter currents near the waters surface. As the female ovulates she discharges millions of ripe eggs which are then scattered in the water as males release sperm. Fertilized eggs must be carried by river currents, to avoid suffocation, until hatching which occurs about 48 hours later. Striped bass do not provide any parental care to the eggs, hatchlings or fry. Fry and fingerlings spend most of their time in lower rivers and estuaries. Because striped bass eggs must remain suspended in a current until hatching, impoundments are unsuitable for natural reproduction. Freshwater populations have generally been maintained in most impoundments by stocking fingerlings.

Stripers are fast-growing and generally live long lives. Sexual maturity occurs in the striped bass at about two years of age for males and at four years of age for females. They can reach a size of 10 to 12 inches the first year.