512 
Fishery Bulletin 11 5(4) 
Table 2 
Results from the generalized linear model with the lowest Akaike information criterion 
(model 10 in Table 1), indicating that catch of age-0 black sea bass (Centropristis striata) in 
the Maryland coastal bays during 1989-2013 was affected positively by salinity (P=0.00153) 
and negatively by the annual North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index (P=0.04885). Standard 
errors (SEs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) are given for estimates. z-oa/ue=estimated 
regression coefficient divided by the standard error of the regression coefficient; the test 
statistic for the Wald test. 
Estimate 
SE 
z-value 
P-value 
95% Cl 
Intercept -5.53401 
2.09018 
-2.648 
0.00811 
-9.79-(-1.57) 
Salinity 0.23363 
0.07374 
3.168 
0.00153 
0.09-0.38 
NAO -0.54019 
0.27177 
-1.988 
0.04685 
-1.05-0.01 
0.06 
0.05 > 
•8 
0 04 O 
“O 
c 
0.02 » 
- 0.01 
0.00 
B 
30- 
28- 
W 26- 
g 24 ~ 
2 22 - 
8 . 20 ' 
I 18- 
X 16- 
cD 
12 - 
Month 
Figure 7 
Monthly average (A) catch per unit of effort (CPUE) for age-1 and 
age-0 black sea bass (Centropristis striata ) and (B) temperature from 
trawl surveys conducted during 1989-2013 in Maryland coastal bays. 
Data are averages across years. Error bars indicate standard error 
and standard deviation, respectively. 
There was an increasing trend in YOY 
black sea bass caught in the MCBs from 
1989 to 2013, suggesting increasing re¬ 
cruitment of black sea bass to estuarine 
habitats over time. Juvenile black sea 
bass were first captured in the bays in 
April and May and peaked in abundance 
in July; YOY were caught in the trawls 
in June and their abundance peaked in 
September. Adult black sea bass in the 
Mid-Atlantic Bight spawn from April until 
November and spawning occurs earlier in 
southern areas by Virginia (Shepherd and 
Nieland 3 ). Depending on the year, YOY in¬ 
dividuals can begin to enter the MCBs as 
early as June, but their abundance does 
not peak until September in the MCBs, 
which is consistent with Musick and Mer¬ 
cer’s (1977) results showing that YOY 
enter estuaries after settling in coastal 
waters from July to September. In previ¬ 
ous studies conducted in New Jersey, YOY 
were found in estuaries from July through 
October (Able et ah, 1995). 
Numbers of black sea bass began to in¬ 
crease in May, suggesting this is the time 
when they begin to enter the bays in larg¬ 
er numbers. In May they were most abun¬ 
dant in the southernmost part (site 20) of 
the Chincoteague Bay close to the Chin- 
coteague Inlet. This finding suggests that 
black sea bass may enter initially through 
that inlet in May. When waters cool in the 
fall, black sea bass migrate offshore in a 
southerly direction to areas across the con¬ 
tinental shelf (Musick and Mercer, 1977; 
Steimle et ah, 1999). Once waters begin 
to warm in April they move inshore, gen¬ 
erally along the same route (Kolek, 1990; 
Moser and Shepherd, 2009), which may be 
