Juvenile and Adult Striped Bass Mortality and Distribution in an Unrecovered Coastal Population

AbstractStriped Bass Morone saxatilis fisheries have been important in the eastern United States since the 1700s, but many populations have declined from historic levels. Enhancement programs, harvest reduction, water quality improvements and habitat restoration have led to successful recoveries for specific stocks; however, these efforts have not been successful for the Striped Bass population in the Neuse River of North Carolina. Possible mechanisms inhibiting recovery of this population may include overharvest, high discard mortality, poor water quality or altered flow regimes. These mechanisms and their impact on the Striped Bass population in the Neuse River are unclear; therefore to gain insight we estimated mortality and distribution of the population. Specifically, we tagged 100 hatchery-reared phase II juvenile (202–227 mm TL) and 111 resident adult Striped Bass (349–923 mm TL) with acoustic transmitters (a subset of 50 of the adult fish were also tagged with external high-reward tags). We used t...