180 
Fishery Bulletin 1 10(2) 
Summary of data 
Table 1 
sources for juvenile striped bass ( Morone saxatilis) examined 
in the current study. See Fig. 1 for sampling locations. 
General 
habitat 
Geographic location 
Sampling 
gear 
Sampling frequency/duration 
Ocean 
Atlantic coast 
Otter trawl 
Fall, winter, spring/1982-2003 
Atlantic coast 
Tag-recapture 
Fall, winter, spring, summer/1962, 1967, 
1973, 1977-2009 
New Jersey coast 
Otter trawl 
Fall, winter, spring, summer/1988-2003 
Central New Jersey coast 
Seine 
Biweekly/June - November 1998, 
May-October 1999-2000, July 2004, 
May-October 2005, August-October 2006 
Estuary 
Mullica River-Great Bay 
Otter trawl 
Monthly/July and September 1988-1990, 
1996-2009 
Mullica River-Great Bay 
Multi-mesh gill net 
Monthly/August-October 2001; 
Semi-monthly/May-October 2002 
Mullica River- Great Bay 
Seine 
Biweekly/June - November 1998, 
May-October 1999-2000, July 2004, 
May-October 2005, August-October 2006 
Mullica River-Great Bay 
Acoustic telemetry 
Mobile (Weekly/2006-2008) 
Passive (Continuous/2006-2008) 
Delaware Bay 
Otter trawl/weirs 
Monthly/Aprii - November 1996-2000; 
May-November 2001-2005 
Hudson River 
Seine 
July-November 1990-2009 
distances were calculated as the straight-line distance 
(m) to the nearest edge. 
Results 
Occurrence and distribution based on surveys 
Small ( < 4 6 cm TL) striped bass were represented 
in multiple sampling gears from multiple locations 
throughout the study area (Table 1, Fig. 2). However, 
individuals <20 cm (presumed age 0-1 years) were 
seldom collected in the coastal ocean, including the 
NMFS trawl survey between Cape Hatteras and Cape 
Cod (n = 2 individuals), the NJDEP trawl survey (n = 61 
individuals), and the Rutgers University Marine Field 
Station (RUMFS) beach seine survey along the inner 
continental shelf off New Jersey (n = 21 individuals) 
despite the large number of samples. These smaller 
individuals were also not abundant in estuarine seine, 
gill net, or otter trawl collections within the Mullica 
River-Great Bay estuary based on over 3100 samples 
(Table 1, Fig. 2). Of these, individuals <20 cm were 
collected only within the estuary during otter trawl 
(n = 21, 3.4-19.5 cm) and gillnet (n = 1, 16.4 cm) sam- 
pling. Alternatively, large numbers of small individuals 
<20 cm have been collected from the Delaware River 
and Hudson River estuaries, both known spawning 
areas (Fig. 2, G and H). Larger juveniles (21-46 cm, 
presumed age 2-5 years) were better represented in 
surveys in most locations including the Mullica River- 
Great Bay estuary (n = 55; Fig. 2). 
The seasonal patterns of distribution were similar 
regardless of the spatial scale examined. Individuals 
20 to 46 cm, according to the NMFS surveys on the 
continental shelf, were seldom collected in the fall 
and winter (a period of restricted sampling in shallow 
waters) surveys. During the spring (February-March) 
they were more abundant and largely restricted to 
the inner portion of the shelf according to compos- 
ite collections during 1982-2003 (Fig. 3). Most were 
restricted to an area from north of the Chesapeake 
Bay mouth to Long Island including the coast of New 
Jersey. 
A similar shallow-water distribution, in space and 
time, of individuals <46 cm is evident from depth strati- 
fied sampling off the coast of New Jersey during all 
seasons from 1988 through 2003 (Figs. 4 and 5). Both 
smaller (<20 cm), although less common, and larger 
(21-46 cm) individuals were most abundant in the 
spring but also occurred during the winter months and 
were either rare or absent in the summer and relatively 
rare during the fall. Over all these seasons, both of 
these size groups were most abundant in the nearshore 
depth strata (5.5-9. 1 m) with a trend to decreasing 
abundance with depth with the least number of collec- 
tions in the offshore strata (18.3-27.4 m). During the 
winter and spring the larger individuals (21-46 cm) 
were found all along the coast from the mouth of Dela- 
ware Bay to the tip of Sandy Hook (Fig. 5). 
