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Striper Migration
Striped bass are rarely found more than several miles from the shoreline. Anglers usually catch stripers in river mouths, in small, shallow bays and estuaries, and along rocky shorelines and sandy beaches. The striped bass is a schooling species, moving about in small groups during the first two years of life, and thereafter feeding and migrating in large schools. Only females exceeding 30 pounds show any tendency to be solitary.
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Striped bass normally do not migrate during the first two years of life. However, adult stripers generally migrate northward in the spring and summer months and return south in the fall. Individuals that hatch in the Hudson River generally do not migrate beyond Cape Cod to the North and Cape May to the south. Fish hatched in the Chesapeake Bay exhibit more extensive Migrations, some being captured as far north as the Bay of Fundy in coastal Canada.
Stripers are strictly spring to fall transients in Massachusetts. Only a few fish inhabiting coastal Massachusetts waters in the summer have been known to overwinter in the mouths of southern New England streams. Some stripers frequenting coastal Massachusetts in the summer will overwinter in the mouth of the Hudson River, while many spend winter along the New Jersey coast in the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays.
Stripers reproduced in rivers and the brackish areas of estuaries. Spawning occurs from the spring to early summer, with the greatest activity occurring when the water warms to about 65 degrees F. The eggs drift in currents until they hatch 1 ½ to 3 days after being fertilized. Because newly hatched larvae are nearly helpless; striped bass suffer their highest rate of natural mortality during the several weeks after hatching.
The major spawning activity for the entire East Coast fishery occurs in the Hudson River, the Chesapeake Bay, and the Roanoke River-Albermarle Sound watershed. Striped bass are most abundant in the New England and Mid-Atlantic states following year when reproduction in the Chesapeake Bay has been particularly successful, suggesting that much of the East Coast is strongly dependent upon the success of spawning in that one watershed.