The History of the Striped Bass
The Striped Bass is equivalent of the American bald eagle.
Striped Bass helped build this nation.
They enabling the the Pilgrims in the Massachusetts Bay Colony to survive their first winters and
to grow their first crops by giving
themselves up for food and fertilizer.
They
astounded Captain John Smith,
who wrote in his journal of that coast in 1614.
"I myself at the turning of the tyde have seen such multitudes pass out of a
pounce (a fish trap),
that it seemed to me that one might go over their backs drishod".
Smith also called the Striped Bass:
"a most sweet and wholesome fish as ever I did eat . . . altogether as good as our
fresh Sammon....
Our Fishers take many hundreds together ... yea, their Netts ordinarily
take more than they are able to hall to Land".
Quoted from D. S. Jordan and B. W. Evermann,
American Food and Game Fishes, Doubleday,
Page, New York, 1903.
1634 William Wood, in his New England's Prospect, called the Striped Bass.
"one of the best fishes in the Country . . . a delicate, fine, fat, faste fish.... The English at the top of an high water do crosse the creek with long seanes or bass nets which stop the fish; and the water ebbing from them, they are left on the dry grounds, sometimes two or three thousand at a set, which are salted up against winter, or distributed to such as have present occasion either to spend them in their homes or use them for their grounds.
The Pilgrims also caught them with hook and line...
" the fisherman taking a great cod line to which he fasteneth a peece of lobster and
threwes it into the sea.
The rockfish biting at it, he pulls her to him and knockes her on
the head with a sticke."...
(Bigelow and Schroeder, Fishes of the Gulf of Maine)
Striped Bass were the subject of our first conservation and fishery management laws.
Massachusetts in 1639, forbade the use of this delicate, fine, fish for fertilizer, and in the sixties became the fulcrum behind the first environmental impact statement and passage of the National Environmental Policy Act.
Striped Bass were the subject of pioneering fish
stocking efforts following
settlers to the west coast In 1879 and again in 1881.
Striped bass were seined from the Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers near Red Bank, New Jersey and transported by train in wooden barrels and milk cans across the continent to the San Francisco Bay. Still today this effort ranks as maybe the most successful Fish Stocking effort in the world.
Meet Dr. Livingston Stone
Pioneer in Striped Bass Stocking.
Read More:
Early Striped Bass Stocking
Jumping ahead to 1941 when the dam on the 170,000 acre Santee-Cooper Reservoir was closed.
Striped Bass from the Atlantic were trapped on a Spawning run up the Cooper river. Biologists were aware that striped bass were on a spawning run up into the Cooper River they just assumed that the stripers would die. However, it was discovered by line breaking tail spacking action after the war that the striped bass were flourishing and reproducing in the huge lake.
In 1954
forward thinking
Arkansas fisheries Biologist
brought Striped Bass to the Natural
state. Stocking Striped Bass into
Lake Ouachita
and
Lake Greeson.
In the 1960s and early 1970s,
Biologist in several states jumped on the bandwagon promoting the stocking
of striped bass in large impoundments around the country and starting a new
chapter in the amazing history of the striped bass that is still being
written today.
Privacy Notice I Striper Links I Glossary of Fish Terms
Copyright © 2000-2007 All Rights Reserved
Fellowship of Christian Anglers Society
Striper Recipes
Take
a Kid Fishing
AGFC
Fishing Reports
Arkansas
Hunting License
Arkansas Fishing License
Lake
Ouachita Striper Guides
Striper
Pictures
Arkansas Striped Bass
Striped Bass Articles and Reports
Striped Bass Life Cycle
Striper Facts
Striped Bass References
Striped Bass Stocked in Pacific Ocean
Striped Bass
Spawning
Facts
Striper Boats
Fish Finders
Live Shad
for Stripers
Keeping Live Bait Alive
Striper Reproduction
Mounts
Catch and
Release Can Kill Stripers
Fishing Line
Striper Age
Weight Chart
Record Striped
Bass
Bait Tanks
Cast nets
Best Times To Catch
Stripers
Striper Seasons
Search the Outdoors
Fishing-Hunting
Local Fishing "Slang"
Morone saxatilis
Fishing Tackle
Live Wells for Stripers
Site Map