40 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



tion to the north in the spring and to the south in the late fall, and that the summer 

 populations in New England waters are essentially stable. The impression created 

 by the information derived from tagging in these waters is that the migrations of the 

 striped bass have their maximum size and intensity along the southern New Eng- 

 land and Long Island shores, and that the farther south the fall movement goes the 

 smaller it becomes, as individuals and groups split off from the main lot to winter 

 in different localities. Conversely, starting from the south in the spring, the numbers 

 making up the mass migration northward become greater and greater as the move- 

 ment proceeds up the coast, being augmented as it progresses by the fish that have 

 wintered farther north (see fig. 29). Having once reached northern waters aD 

 increasing number of striped bass stop along the coast to summer, and the migration 

 dwindles in size and intensity as it progresses up the New England shore line. In 

 the fall the migration south probably starts with many of the individuals that went 

 farthest north in the spring, and increases in size and intensity at least until it reaches 

 southern New England and Long Island. In years directly preceding 1936, when the 

 level of abundance was consistently low, it is probable that the northern limit of 



Figure 29.— The general migration routes of striped bass during the spring movement to the north, and the return to the south 



in the fall. 



the striped bass migration from the south in the spring was Cape Cod, for north 

 of this point this species was comparatively rare save in a few isolated localities 

 that probably contained self-supporting permanently resident populations. More- 

 over, there is no commercial fishery for striped bass on the outer coast of Cape Cod 

 comparable in size to those in Rhode Island and Long Island — a fact which indicates 

 that there is no annual migration around Cape Cod of sufficient intensity to support 

 such a fishery. In 1936 and 1937, however, when the members of the dominant 

 1934 year-class first reached northern waters, striped bass not only appeared in 

 great numbers in Massachusetts north of Cape Cod, but were also commonly taken 

 in New Hampshire and Maine. Three mackerel seiners caught 29,000 pounds of 

 striped bass on August 2 and 4, 1937, in Cape Cod Bay. These fish were landed 

 at the Boston Fish Pier, where it was the first time that this species had been handled 

 in over 30 years. The study of scale samples of fish from these areas in 1937 showed 

 them to be predominantly 3-year-olds of apparently the same origin as those taken 

 off southern New England shores at the same time — evidence is presented later in 

 this paper to show that the bulk of the dominant 1934 year-class was produced in 

 the Middle Atlantic States (see p. 46). The dominant year-class of 1934 was of such 



