A poor year for juvenile striped bass in Virginia waters in 2024

Preliminary results from an ongoing long-term survey conducted by researchers at William & Mary’s Batten School & VIMS suggest that a poor year class of young-of-year striped bass was produced in the Virginia tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay in 2024. The 2024-year class, representing fish hatched this spring, will reach fishable sizes in three to four years.

The VIMS Juvenile Striped Bass Seine Survey recorded a mean value of 3.43 fish per seine haul in the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay. The 2024 value is significantly lower than the historic average of 7.77 fish per seine haul and marks the second consecutive year of below-average recruitment in Virginia tributaries.

Consecutive years of poor recruitment deviate from the pattern observed in recent decades by the long-term monitoring program. Since the striped bass fishing moratorium was lifted in 1990, years with low recruitment have occurred about once every decade in Virginia waters. Although striped bass recruitment can vary considerably from year to year, consecutive years of poor recruitment raise concerns.

Striped bass are an important top predator in the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and a valuable resource for commercial and recreational anglers. Mary Fabrizio, a professor at W&M’s Batten School & VIMS, directs the Juvenile Striped Bass Seine Survey at VIMS and notes that the economic and ecological values of striped bass lend significant interest to the year-to-year status of their population.

“By estimating the relative number of young-of-year striped bass, our survey provides an important measure of annual and long-term trends in the Bay’s striped bass population,” said Fabrizio.

The VIMS survey samples 18 index sites in the Rappahannock, York and James River systems. Scientists sample each site five times from mid-June to early September, deploying a 100-foot seine net from the shore. Captured fish are counted, measured and returned alive to the river. These young striped bass usually measure between one-and-a-half and four inches. In 2024, scientists in Virginia measured 585 juvenile striped bass at index sites.

VIMS has conducted the Juvenile Striped Bass Seine Survey annually since 1967 for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.

The striped bass population in the Chesapeake Bay has rebounded from historic lows in the late 1970s and early 1980s after fishing bans were enacted in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia in the mid- to late-1980s. Since then, the population has increased to the point that striped bass in the Bay and elsewhere along the Atlantic Coast have been considered recovered.

Following years of heavy fishing pressure, scientists determined that the striped bass population was overfished, and that fishing-related mortality exceeded sustainable levels. According to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) 2022 Atlantic Striped Bass Stock Assessment Update Report, the stock remains overfished but is no longer experiencing overfishing. Since 2022, multiple measures—including size limits on the recreational fishery, bag limits, gear restrictions and commercial quota reductions—have been implemented to reduce fishing mortality and to rebuild the striped bass stock by 2029.

The 2024 Striped Bass Stock Assessment Update was completed earlier this month and will be discussed by the ASMFC’s Striped Bass Management Board in late October at their annual meeting in Annapolis, Maryland.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) conducts a similar survey within Maryland’s portion of Chesapeake Bay. In 2024, the Maryland DNR also recorded a below-average year class.