Tim Arienti

Our first full season of striped bass tagging and tracking is over for us.  2003 didnt consitute a full season because of some late equipment arrivals but we were up and running for the majority of 2004.  I plan to get an even earlier start next year so we can start tagging as soon as the fish arrive.  We had trouble getting fish far up river this year because we waited too long, next season we will tag some of these fish as they follow the alewives upriver. 
All of our gear has been retrieved and we are now in the process of cleaning and organizing it all so we will be ready for next season.  We did leave one of our mooring weights and chain on bottom because it was stuck in the mud, but we marked it so that we can use it next spring. 
We now have a lot of data to go over to see if we can draw any conclusions about when, where or why stripers move around in our area.  Because this was our first full year, we dont have anything to compare it to so we cant say if this was a "normal" year or not.  Personally, I think this year was a bit odd, I think that the fish seemed to leave earlier than usual because we just didnt have any bait here to give the stripers reason to stay.  But hopefully, our data will give us more insight.  Look for more updates as we find out more.