Striped Bass

Maryland Sea Grant supports research that informs the conservation of striped bass as well as the continued economic success of this and other Bay fisheries.

Key facts about striped bass:

• More striped bass (Morone saxatilis) are caught, both by commercial and recreational fishers, than any other fish species in Maryland.
• Striped bass or "stripers" are also called rockfish because they like to nestle in the nooks and crannies of reefs and ledges.
• They can grow up to five feet long.
• The yearly journeys of striped bass are likely as old as the Bay itself. They migrate from fresh water tributaries to saltier water every summer, returning in the spring to spawn in the rivers where they were born. Others take longer trips, migrating between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, as far north as Canada.
• Read more about striped bass migrations and population dynamics in The Ups and Downs of Bay Stripers, an issue of Chesapeake Quarterly, Maryland Sea Grant’s magazine.

Learn about how ecosystem-based fisheries management — management that considers the whole ecosystem, not just single species — can help striped bass and other species.

Illustration by Duane Raver.