Table 1— Stomach contents of adult prespawning striped bass collected by commercial gill net during 



spring 1973, 1974, and 1975. 



'Two yearling striped bass in female collected 15 April 1974. 



The next most abundant fish prey species in the 

 composite 1973-75 sample was the American 

 sand lance, Ammodytes americanus. Sand lance 

 were present in striped bass stomachs only during 

 1975, when the frequency of occurrence was about 

 ll9c (Fig. 2). Atlantic tomcod, Microgadus tom- 

 cod, were found in striped bass stomachs only 

 during 1973 when the frequency of occurrence 

 was about 20%, somewhat higher than the fre- 

 quency of clupeid species for that year (Fig. 2). 

 These fish were yearling, postspawning Atlantic 

 tomcod averaging about 125 mm TL. The Morone 

 species, white perch, M. americana, and striped 

 bass, had a frequency of occurrence of 4.5% for the 

 composite sample and were present in striped 

 bass stomachs every year (Fig. 2). 



Discussion 



Similar to findings in this study, Trent and 

 Hassler (1966) found that blueback herring were 

 predominant in the diet of adult, prespawning 

 striped bass from the Roanoke River, NC, and 

 Manooch (1973) found that herring ranked second 

 after Atlantic menhaden, Brevoortia tyrannus , in 



the spring diet of adult striped bass from Albe- 

 marle Sound, NC. Data from Gardinier and HofF 

 (1982) do not indicate that blueback herring or 

 clupeids were important in the diet of prespawn- 

 ing Hudson River striped bass collected during 

 1976 and 1977, but fish remains in bass stomachs 

 were generally not identified to the family or spe- 

 cies level in their study. 



American sand lance are rarely found over 

 muddy bottoms (Bigelow and Schroeder 1953; 

 Leim and Scott 1966) or within estuaries (Mass- 

 man 1960; Norcross et al. 1961), but they ranked 

 second only to blueback herring in the diet of 

 Hudson River striped bass. Sand lance were not 

 reported from the Hudson River prior to 1975 

 when adults and larvae were relatively abundant 

 in February-April ichthyoplankton collections 

 south of the Tappan Zee Bridge (Dew and Hecht 

 1976). Data from the present study (Fig. 2) and 

 from early spring ichthyoplankton sampling dur- 

 ing 1976 (Dew, unpub. data), indicate that sand 

 lance are not abundant every year in the Hudson, 

 but it is probable that during some years adult 

 sand lance serve as important alternate prey for 

 prespawning striped bass. 



399 



