The striped bass (Morone saxatilis) is the largest member of the temperate bass family, cousin to white perch, white bass and yellow bass. Striped bass are anadromous fish – they migrate from salt water to fresh water to spawn, and move to salt water after hatching in fresh water.

Striped bass can live up to 40 years and can reach weights greater than 100 pounds, although individuals larger than 50 pounds are rare. Females reach significantly greater sizes than do males; most stripers over 30 pounds are female.

Striped bass are voracious and eat a variety of foods, including fish such as alewives, flounder, sea herring, menhaden, sand lance, silver hake, tomcod, smelt, silversides and eels, as well as lobsters, crabs, soft clams, small mussels, sea worms and squid. They feed most actively at dusk and dawn, although some feeding occurs throughout the day. During the midsummer they tend to become more nocturnal.

Although direct information is lacking, large bluefish probably feed on small striped bass, but man is undoubtedly the most important predator.

The striped bass is native to the Gulf of Maine and most of the East Coast, ranging from the lower St. Lawrence River in Canada to northern Florida, and along portions of the Gulf of Mexico.

Stripers inhabit the whole coast surf, inshore bars, reefs, tide rips, bays and estuaries usually occurring no more than 6-8 km from the nearest point of land, although migrating schools pass much farther out in crossing the mouths of large indentations of the coast, such as the Gulf of Maine, Delaware Bay and Long Island Sound.

During the first two years they live in small groups. Later at 4.5 kg or so they congregate in larger schools. The largest 13-18 kg and upward are found singly or few together; however they most likely school again when migrating.

Adults overwinter in schools in deep areas of tidal creeks and estuaries from the Canadian Maritimes to North Carolina. In the Gulf of Maine, migrating striped bass commonly occur from early May through late October in several streams that drain the central and southern portion of the Maine Coast, especially in the Kennebec, Saco, Mousam and York rivers, which are most productive. Stripers are particularly active in areas with tidal and current flows and in the wash of breaking waves.

Striped bass reproduce in rivers and brackish areas of estuaries.

Spawning occurs from the spring to early summer, with the greatest activity occurring when the water warms to about 65 degrees F. The eggs drift in currents until they hatch 1 to 3 days after being fertilized.

Striped bass are fecund with the number of eggs produced highly correlated with age, weight and length. A 12-pound female may produce about 850,000 eggs, while a 55-pound female may produce about 4,200,000 eggs. Different stocks apparently mature at different ages.

The major spawning area for striped bass on the East Coast is now the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Other important areas are the Hudson, Roanoke, and Delaware rivers.

However in the 17th and 18th centuries, striped bass spawned in almost every river on the coast of New England, supporting large fisheries until these populations were extirpated. Striped bass still spawn in Canada, in the St. John River, and probably in small streams tributary to Minas Basin and Cobequid Bay at the head of the Bay of Fundy.

Great numbers of young-of-the-year fish (4.9-7.6 cm) were caught in winter in the 1880's in the Kennebec River in Maine. The only Maine or Massachusetts streams where there was evidence of native spawning bass in the past 50 years are the Mousam River in York County, Maine, where fishermen reported taking females with ripe eggs on several occasions; and the Parker River in Massachusetts, where three young-of-the-year 7.1-8.5 cm long were taken on August 4, 1937.

Researchers in the 1960s found no evidence of spawning in Maine, and no evidence of discrete populations in the estuaries of Piscataqua, Saco, Cousins, Kennebec, Sheepscott, Penobscot and St. Croix rivers. The consensus among most biologists is that over-fishing was the primary cause of striped bass decline, probably amplified by poor spawning conditions resulting from habitat pollution from pesticides, heavy metals, and organics as well as effects of power plants.

In recent years there is some evidence of striped bass spawning in the Kennebec river estuary. A juvenile striped bass survey has been conducted by the Maine Department of Marine Resources in the Kennebec and Sheepscot rivers since 1994 to evaluate abundance. During the 2001 field season 17 juvenile striped bass were taken ranging from 25 to 130 mm.

Historically striped bass populations in Maine would appear to be more restricted in spawning habitat because of high salinity gradients in the tidal portions of most Maine rivers with the exception of Merrymeeting Bay, where the restricted access of tidal intrusion combined with large volumes of freshwater discharge from the Kennebec and Androscoggin rivers create an extensive freshwater estuary.