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Striped bass growth rate???

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Hardcore

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This is quite interesting to me on the West Coast.

 

Here, all or most of the spawning is thought to be in the Delta and the Sacramento and San JoaquinRivers that mostly make that great waterway and wetlands. However.....

 

A very interesting thing happened about 20 years ago in my local area. One summer the Anchovy Schools were so thick they swarmed the beaches and bays and exhausted the available oxygen in these shallower, warmer waters. As has happened elsewhere, there was a mass anchovy die off.

 

But in a little freshwater tributary to a bay there were about 1000 5-6 inch long stripers who could and had sheltered from the conditions in the small stream. We rescued them and put them in another little estuary where they could then naturally reestablish themselves.

 

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According to Fish and Game biologists (whom we had to get the OK for the rescue effort) these fish were from the Delta, hundreds of miles away and through perilous waters, including the lower SF Bay and the boiling rips and currents where the great estuary meets the Pacific; the Golden Gate.

 

I didn't entirely buy the biologist's explanations and I still don't. We have sometimes lots of small stripers in small freshwater streams and I think it remotely possible that some are born there, or at least somewhere closer to us than the only known spawning grounds.

 

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I kept a couple of those little fish in an aquarium for a couple weeks (highly illegal) and enjoyed feeding them and watching before releasing them. Believe me, these little tiddlers were every bit as voracious as the larger ones we know and love.

 

If those worms I was feeding them were eels to a proportionately larger fish, 3-4 foot long eels, 2 inches in diameter, would be a preferred bait for you guys!

 

Cheers, Roof

 

 

PS....Nickolas Karas' Striped Bass has a lot of good striper biology in it.

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Yeah, Hardcore. I read you loud and clear.

 

Why leave the rivers and estuaries to feed everything from fluke, blues, sea-trout and bass in your case....

 

Halibut, Salmon, Steelhead, Bass and everything else in both our cases and coasts? confused.gif

 

There's a part of this that doesn't make sense to either of us. Though with you, there are known other places for spawning other than the one location cited for California.

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View PostStriped bass do not migrate for the first few years of their existence. This is actually proven.

 

Exactly. Whether they could make the migration is a moot point cause they won't try the first year, they'll stay in the general area where they were born. They'll roam around the area a good bit, but they don't actually start the north/south migration that first year. I believe I read that some start the second year but the majority don't start until the third year.

 

 

TimS

Show someone how to catch striped bass and they'll be ready to fish anywhere.
Show someone where to go striped bass fishing and you'll have a desperate report chaser with loose lips.

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View PostCan you name the source? Im not doubting you I'm just looking for info. Thanks

 

This is from the ASMFC Striped Bass Habitat Factsheet:

 

 

 

 

Movement/Migration: In Atlantic coast rivers from Albemarle Sound (North Carolina) north, many adult striped bass are migratory, traveling annually from the ocean to riverine spawning grounds and back again to the ocean. Upon returning to the ocean, they undertake a northern summer migration and southward winter migration. However, some adults in the Mid-Atlantic region remain in or near their areas of origin.

 

 

Populations south of Albemarle Sound are considered essentially non-migratory. Most juveniles remain in the river and estuarine areas where they were spawned, moving downstream in summer and fall as they get older Older juveniles may begin to move offshore in the fall, but those less than two years old rarely complete coastal migrations.

 

(emphasis added by me smile.gif)

 

 

I've uploaded it here - 525

 

 

TimS

Show someone how to catch striped bass and they'll be ready to fish anywhere.
Show someone where to go striped bass fishing and you'll have a desperate report chaser with loose lips.

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Hardcore - I don't know where you are. A lot depends on when & where you saw the 6" striper.

 

NIGHT STRIKES - Those lengths seem a bit generous. Here in the Chesapeake, 12 month old stripers are only 5"-6". I'll see if I can find a good growth chart for stripers.

The first casualty of War, Politics, and now Covid is the truth.

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OK. Now where are your's from Hardcore?

 

But I gotta bigger problem with mine: the only accepted breeding location for California Striped Bass (which are of stock taken from the Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers in New Jersey in the late 1800's) is the Saramento/San Joaquin Rivers and Delta, some 250 miles inland from my location north of the mouth of the river's estuary; San Francisco Bay. To get to my oceanic location, they have to travel a long and perilous journey.

 

Knowing enough biological theory to get myself in trouble, I could suppose that this downstream early migration is to allow the small fish to rear in less competitive habitat....

 

Or, perhaps the little snippers get washed down river and down bay, ALL the way down the bay and out through the plume of the Golden Gate (which is often more southward). And then continue swimming north a pretty long way -- opposite the direction of their home and prevailing wind and current -- to take up residence in a little creek....To be seen by a crazed surf-fisher.

 

It never made sense to me. The crazed surfcasting did and does wink.gif but the little stripes in my neck of the woods don't.

 

Cheers

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