Preliminary results from an ongoing long-term survey conducted by researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) suggest an average year class of young-of-year striped bass (rockfish) was produced in Virginia tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay in 2019. The 2019 year-class represents the group of fish hatched this spring that will grow to fishable sizes in three to four years.
Striped bass play an important role as a top predator in the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and are a valuable resource for commercial and recreational anglers. Professor Mary Fabrizio, who directs the Juvenile Striped Bass Seine Survey at VIMS, notes that the economic and ecological value of striped bass lends significant interest to the year-to-year status of their population. “By estimating the relative number of young-of-year striped bass,” she says, “our survey provides an important measure of annual and long-term trends in the Bay’s striped bass population.”
