As we prepare to head south to Hilton Head, South Carolina tomorrow today's post takes us down to North Carolina. I have discussed striped bass and places south of the Chesapeake in the past usually during the winter months when I'm searching for topics to talk about. The latest was in December 2024 when I brought the idea of striped bass stocking programs to help build the stock along the East Coast. North Carolina has a stocking program and you can read my post about that, HERE.
As we know the big three natal locations for striped bass are the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, the Hudson River, and the Delaware River. Coming in a distant fourth is the Roanoke River strain, which is a small part of the migratory striped bass spawning striped bass (SSB). They say the Roanoke River makes up about 1-2 % of the overall SSB. But those numbers, from Chesapeake down to the Roanoke, vary depending on who you speak to.
There's two big locations, in rivers, for striped bass in North Carolina, the Roanoke and Cape Fear Rivers. The Cape Fear fish don't contribute to the overall East Coast SSB population.
The Cape Fear striped bass are almost exclusively stocked fish under the management of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. Cape Fear's environmental indicators just don't support wild striped bass spawning, while the Roanoke is better, and was better years ago.
In North Carolina, similar to the Delaware River and Bay, striped bass spawn in the Roanoke in and around Weldon, NC, which is around river mile (RM) 110. To note, on the Delaware, Trenton is around RM 130. Albany, on the Hudson River, sits at RM 140. Remember, striped bass spawn in freshwater and the eggs travel down and develop and grow. They hatch and spend a few years in their natal waters before making the move to the salt and then joining the migratory stock. That's across the three, well four natal waters, including the Albermarle/Roanoke strain.
As far as stocking striped bass that occurs in landlocked lakes and rivers, mostly down south, and the hybrid striped bass, a mix of striped and white bass, in waters near us in New Jersey. Stocking striped bass in natal waters is controversial. It's akin to the put and take stocking programs for trout. While some waters that are stocked aren't environmentally stable enough to maintain holdover fish, stocking trout where there are wild fish can be detrimental. Imagine if the Upper Delaware system, not including the Beaverkill and Willowemoc, was pounded with stocked fish, it would change the population, and the world class fishery. One famous river that gets healthy stocking is the West Branch of the Ausable in New York's Adirondack Park near Lake Placid.
This post came to light due to a post I saw on Facebook from Ross Squire over at The Striped Bass Pledge page. In a linked article from Axios it is mentioned, hopefully, that stocking programs there have had good returns. In 2023 Roanoke River fish were sampled and it found that 97% of the fish caught were stocked fish. A year later returns showed only 3% were genetically hatchery fish. They state, "there must have been millions of wild fish that spawned in order to catch so few hatchery fish".
So why do states stock fish? Well, one of the big reasons is the economic machine that fishing brings. License sales and fishing related revenue from tackle shops to lodging and restaurants all fall under what a solid fishery can bring to a locale. Without a stocking program you would need a solid world class fishery. The Upper Delaware system is one that comes to mind. While the spring and early summer is when that fishery fishes best, there's also opportunities in the summer and fall below the Cannonsville Reservoir in the cool waters of the West Branch. But still, in the end, it's all about the spring. And in the salt, where migratory and pelagic species make up those fisheries, they are seasonal as well. You can only draw anglers and catch what's in front of you. So if the bait, and say striped bass, aren't there, then the economic benefits that a fishery brings won't be there. Hence businesses along the East Coast do best during the spring and fall runs, and historically but not recently, those locations in New England where the bass summer over see their best seasons while others wait for the run.
I followed a link over to a podcast titled Better Fishing with Two Bald Biologists. You can listen wherever you check out podcasts or over on their YouTube Channel, HERE. There were several podcasts that I listened to before, and while, I penned this post. It's an easy listen and these guys do a great job breaking down all things North Carolina striped bass along with other fishes.
One of the takeaways from listening to them was the idea of genetic conservation when it comes to stocking programs, especially for migratory and spawning striped bass. I mentioned the caution of stocking wild fisheries above. So basically stocking goes like this, at least from my perspective. Females and males are sampled and their eggs and milt stripped and mixed. They grow in the hatchery and are then released in different sizes. If you've fished trout in New Jersey then you know the difference from cookie-cutter finless 10-inch rainbows and those horrific looking, like you want to take it out of it's misery, broodstock fish they release after their spawning work has been done. Caution is always considered if stocked fish make their way into wild trout rivers, like those tiny brook and brown trout streams we have in northern New Jersey.
North Carolina, like other states with natal striped bass rivers, does an annual YOY survey. Above is the latest from 2023. You can see, like we're all seeing, poor recruitment numbers, and that's where their stocking program comes in. To note, North Carolina not only stocks the Roanoke and Cape Fear Rivers, but inland waters as well.
But as far as the Roanoke River the following are the stocking numbers for 2024. They state 2024 was a "monumental stocking effort" with 2.5 million fry, 430,000 1-2 inch juveniles, and 7-tons of 6-8 inch striped bass released. The question a lot of people ask is do stocked fish spawn and would these NC striped bass join the SSB, or migratory striped bass pollution. Without digging deeply on that, I would say no. Stocked fish do mimic spawning activities, but usually they get caught up in the spawning runs that correlate to other forage fish predation while they are on the move, like shad and herring.
We've seen stocking of striped bass, some successful, from 1879 when the Navesink fish took the ride out to California, and places like the Kennebec with fish from the Hudson, and the Cape Fear fish that came from from Santee-Cooper system in South Carolina.
In my opinion the ASMFC has failed with striped bass management. It's not all about the fish, but the economic machine that the fish, in meat and catch and release, brings along the East Coast. Stocking programs can increase the sheer numbers of available striped bass, but there are major risks. Watering down the various genetic strains of bass with non-migratory and spawning fish could keep commercial and recreational sectors happy, but in the end only add and aid to the destruction of wild fish.