LIFE HISTORY OF THE STRIP! D BASS 
845 
It is obvious that a clear-cut movement of fish occurred to the north of the 
point of release which indicates that the bass preferred the fresh or slightly brackish 
water at the head of the bay to the more saline water down the bay. South of the 
point of release the four most distant recaptures were at considerable distances up 
rivers in brackish water. Although the absence of marked fish south of the Potomac 
River might indicate a local stock of striped bass in upper Chesapeake Bay, a recent 
increase in the stock of fish within the entire bay, together with a simultaneous 
increase in the number of fish annually visiting southern New England waters, suggests 
that the limited distributions of the marked fish during 1931-33 were perhaps caused 
by a low population density of striped bass in the upper bay and by an abundance of 
food for the fish with little incentive for widespread movements in or out of the bay. 
FISHERY 
The fishery methods employed to capture the striped bass afford ample evidence 
of the severity of the struggle that this food and game fish has undergone in order to 
survive. These methods are applicable in most instances to other anadromous 
fishes, such as the shad and salmon, which have suffered alarming decreases in abun- 
dance along our Atlantic coast. 
The early settlers in New England laid efficient traps for the striped bass during 
the summer months as they used to “tide it in and out to the Rivers and Creekes by 
stretching long seins and weirs across coastal streams at high tide.” As the water 
ebbed from the creeks the stranded fish were often obtained in far greater quantities 
than the fishermen could haul to land. The fish were consumed either fresh, salted, 
pickled, or smoked. Pickled bass furnished a medium of trade in the West Indies 
along with salted codfish. The earliest colonial records of the smoking of striped 
bass as a means of preservation contain the following statement of Wood (1634): 
They drie them to keepe for Winter, erecting scaffolds in the hot sunshine, making fires likewise 
underneath them, by whose smoake the dies are expelled till the substance remaine hard and drie. 
In this manner they dry Basse and other fishes without salt, cutting them very thin to dry suddenly, 
before the flies spoyle them, or the raine moist them having speciall care to hang them in their 
smoaky houses, in the night or dankish weather. 
In the St. Johns River, New Brunswick, according to Adams (1873), the Indians 
captured the bass at spawning time. A few canoes would drop down the river, each 
with an Indian in the bow, spear in hand, and another in the stern paddling gently. 
A sudden spash close by would indicate a bass and like an arrow the birchbark skiff 
was shot toward the spot while the man in front, resting on his knees, with much 
force and dexterity sent his three-pronged harpoon into the fish. 
The winter months proved the most destructive to the striped bass in northern 
waters. The fish normally sought the shelter of river channels during cold weather, 
lying more or less dormant along the bottom until spring. Fishermen soon learned 
to capture them under the ice by means of large dip nets (Pearson, 1935 b). The 
havoc of this type of fishery on the resident stock of striped bass was noted by various 
early writers. 10 
Various methods have been developed to capture the striped bass in southern 
rivers. It has been the practice for many years on the Roanoke River near Weldon, 
N. C., to secure the spawning fish in and below the rapids each spring. The adult 
fish move up the river in late April and May and, if there is sufficient water in the 
10 Tenney (1795), Mease (1815), and Perley (1850). 
