MD DNR 2014 YOY Figures

MD has just released the 2014 young of the year figures for striped bass. The graph below shows the arithmetic mean numbers:

The 2014 number is 11.02. This is sure to be a great number for the spin doctors. Looking at it positively this may be the best of the last three years, but in reality this is another very mediocre number and certainly not one that will allow continuing harvesting striped bass at current levels. One of our SF board members once said that a classic sign of a species in trouble is when both the lows and the highs of spawning success are in decline. The average of the last 3 years is now about 5.9 which is only slightly better than the levels experienced during the crash of the late 70s and 80s and just half of the long term average of 11.8 taken from 1957 through 2014.

In the graph above you will note that the large years happened quite regularly throughout the 1990s; these big years were needed to produce the great fishing that encouraged angler participation, tackle sales, and sustained the guiding industry. In fact there were five years within the 15 year period of 1989 to 2003 that had a young of the year counts above 20. In the 11 years from 2004 through 2014, there has been only 1.

Of extra concern is that while that one year class – 2011- was very large those fish should be about 17 or 18 inches this fall and they should be everywhere, but no one seems to be finding that to be the case. In fact the entire summer of 2014 was very spotty for school bass fishing. Some locations along the coast reported quite a few while many normally good spots had almost none or only a few good days. However many there will be as three year olds there will surely be many fewer in the future as they are harvested first in the Chesapeake Bay and later the coastal fisheries. So in summary we feel that while the 2014 year class is not bad news, it provides no reason to abandon the major reductions in harvest the ASMFC will be contemplating on Wed. 10/29.

Click here to view the MD DNR young of the year page. Click on either geometric or arithmetic mean to download the excel document. (If the pages opens up and asks for a password, but just X that window out and the document will open up anyway.)