Overview
Striped bass are often called stripers, linesider or rockfish. They are silvery, shading to olive-green on the back and white on the belly, with seven or eight uninterrupted horizontal stripes on each side of the body. They can live in both freshwater and saltwater environments. Spawning begins in the spring and running water is necessary to keep eggs in motion until hatching. female striped bass can lay up to 3,000,000 eggs and the female will grow larger than the males.
Scientific Name
Identification Numbers
Characteristics
Behavior
Striped bass are the largest of the temperate basses. They are also anadromous, spending their adult lives in the ocean and then returning to freshwater tributaries to spawn. Young striped bass remain in streams and estuaries as they grow, and usually enter salt water before the first winter after they hatched.
Physical Characteristics
Adult striped bass can range from 16 to 30 inches. The maximum reported length is 6 feet 6 inches with the common length being 3 feet 11 inches.
The largest striped bass ever captured weighed 125 pounds.
Life Cycle
Female striped bass spawn more than once in a season, but do not necessarily spawn every year. Unlike salmon, that spawn only once and die, striped bass are able to spawn several times and are known as multiple spawners.
Striped bass are often called stripers, linesider or rockfish. They are silvery, shading to olive-green on the back and white on the belly, with seven or eight uninterrupted horizontal stripes on each side of the body. They can live in both freshwater and saltwater environments. Spawning begins in the spring and running water is necessary to keep eggs in motion until hatching. female striped bass can lay up to 3,000,000 eggs and the female will grow larger than the males.
There are two genetically distinct populations of striped bass: Atlantic and Gulf Coast.
Habitat
Striped bass are often called stripers, linesider or rockfish. They are silvery, shading to olive-green on the back and white on the belly, with seven or eight uninterrupted horizontal stripes on each side of the body. They can live in both freshwater and saltwater environments. Spawning begins in the spring and running water is necessary to keep eggs in motion until hatching. female striped bass can lay up to 3,000,000 eggs and the female will grow larger than the males. There are two genetically distinct populations of striped bass: Atlantic and Gulf Coast.
Food
Striped bass are indigenous both to the Atlantic coast and to the Gulf of Mexico.
Geography
Striped bass range in the Western Atlantic from the St. Lawrence River in Canada to the St. John River in northern Florida and the northern Gulf of Mexico. Striped bass habitat extends from the fresh and brackish tributaries of western Florida and into Louisiana. The population of striped bass which is indigenous to the Gulf of Mexico is a genetically distinct population from Atlantic coast striped bass populations.