ACCLIMATIZATION OF FISH IN THE PACIFIC STATES. 
449 
THE STRIPED BASS. 
HISTORY AND RESULTS OF INTRODUCTION. 
The striped bass ( Boccus lineatus ) was first introduced into the waters of the 
Pacific Slope in 1879, at the same time that a consignment of eastern lobsters was 
taken across the continent. The acclimatization of this species was undertaken at the 
suggestion of Mr. S. R. Throckmorton, then chairman of the California fish commission. 
In a letter* to Professor Baird, recounting the history of the experiment, he says: 
I have long had the impression that the great bay of San Francisco, together with the bays of 
San Pablo and Suisun connecting with it and the number of creeks running into them, affording a 
variety of qualities and conditions regarding temperature and saline properties, together with feeding 
material, would be well adapted to the propagation and growth of striped bass. 
In July, 1879, Mr. Livingston Stone, of the United States Fish Commission, 
made a collection of living striped bass in the Navesink River, New Jersey, for 
transportation to California. He obtained 132 fish from 1J to 3 inches long and 30 
medium sized specimens. Twenty-five of these died during transportation and several 
were thrown away, but the remainder, about 135, reached California in good condition 
and were deposited in Karquines Strait, at Martinez. 
The second and only other plant of striped bass in California waters was made 
in 1882, when Mr. J. Gr. Woodbury, of the California fish commission, carried about 
300 fish, 5 to 9 inches long, from the Shrewsbury River, New Jersey, to Suisun Bay, 
where they were deposited at Army Point, about 3 miles from the preceding plant. 
The results attending the attempted introduction of striped bass in California 
have been most remarkable, considering the very meager plants. While the second 
deposit of young fish undoubtedly added to the supply, the fish, in the three years 
intervening between the two experiments, had already gained a foothold, as the fol- 
lowing data will show. The California authorities, however, were not certain that 
the fish had become sufficiently acclimatized or that enough of them had survived to 
insure the perpetuation of the supply. 
Mr. Throckmorton, in the letter to Professor Baird before referred to, records the 
capture of striped bass in 1880, as follows: 
Some six or seven months after the time of placing them in the water, I heard that one of 8 
inches in length had been taken in the Bay of Monterey, which is about 100 miles south of this, and 
is an open roadstead on the Pacific Ocean. All of the circumstances were of so doubtful a character 
that I gave the rumor but little attention, until about the 1st of July, eleven months after the 
planting of the young fry, at the time about 11 inches in length, in the Straits of Karquines, there 
was brought to me a very handsome striped bass taken in this harbor, measuring 121 inches in length 
and weighing 1 pound. The fish was in the highest condition, the milt full and ripe, and the flavor 
fully up to the best specimens of the fish at the East. The exceedingly rapid growth indicates the 
adaptability of the waters of this bay to its development. 
In their report for 1880, the California commissioners give some additional notes 
on the occurrence of the fish : 
The 150 striped bass brought in 1879 and placed in the waters of the Straits of Karquines are 
probably increasing. One of these fish was caught in the bay near Sausalito and brought to market 
and identified. We have heard of a few others having been captured at Monterey and near Alameda. 
* Bull. U. S. Fish Commission, 1881, pp. 61-62. 
F. C. B. 1895—29 
