By Emmett Gartner, Chesapeake Bay Journal
Juvenile striped bass populations have bounced back in the Chesapeake Bay this year to their highest level since 2018, according to the 2026 Maryland Department of Natural Resources “young-of-the-year” survey. Yet the spawning success remains well below the long-term average, alarming fisheries experts.
The survey found that the measure for juvenile spawning success is still roughly half of its 72-year average — with a young-of-year index, or score, of 5.5, compared with the long-term average of 10.8.
The index represents how common juvenile striped bass are faring across 22 sample sites in Maryland’s portion of the Bay. It has been stuck below that long-term average since 2018.
Surveys date back to 1954. Although the index has hit other low spots during that span, the current eight-year downward trajectory has convinced some officials that it isn’t an anomaly.
“Maybe [the 2026 findings] could be the beginning of a trend, a slow and steady improvement,” said Carrie Kennedy, who oversees tidal fisheries data collection for DNR. “However, eight years is pretty concerning for having a below average [index].”
The chief concern is that the low numbers of juveniles could soon drag down the comparatively strong female spawning populations that have increased lately. The fewer juveniles there are, the fewer spawning adults there will be, and the decline accelerates.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has responded to those poor numbers of female fish by ordering recent catch reductions and setting a 2029 deadline to restore the stock.
A 2024 stock assessment of stripers showed that those measures might be working, Kennedy said, because the spawning stock biomass is increasing. Singling out a root cause of the low juvenile numbers is complicated by the mystery of what happens to juvenile striped bass between their larval phase and when they end up in a DNR seine net during sampling.
Researchers are seeing plenty of eggs and even larvae out on the water, according to Kennedy, but their presence isn’t translating into greater numbers of young fish.
For that reason, she and other officials are hesitant to blame any one factor on the drop, instead citing a variety of ecosystem-wide changes brought about by climate change, human development and invasive species.
“There’s a lot more work to be done,” Kennedy said, “to figure out what mechanisms impact egg survivability.”
The cold, wet conditions that striped bass eggs and larvae thrive in, for example, are imperiled by poor water quality, high temperatures and low river flows that have been accentuated by recent drought.
Other determinants could be the amount of available forage fish, like menhaden, for striped bass to eat or the decrease in the fish’s preferred habitat along rocky river bottoms with shallow water reefs and underwater grasses.
Striped bass restoration hinges on addressing all of those factors, according to David Sikorski, executive director of the Maryland nonprofit Coastal Conservation Association, who compared their habitat and food needs to those of a well-balanced neighborhood.
“I think of it as housing availability and how many restaurants [there are],” said Sikorski. “Those conditions can provide for the striped bass.”
