Empty Waters: Reflections on a Diminishing Striped Bass Fishery
Image by Josh England
For me, 2023 was a tough fishing year. It was the first fall season in the past nine when I encountered only a couple of striped bass at a time of year when there have always been numerous fourteen- to twenty-four-inch stripers swimming in my local Chesapeake Bay rearing waters.
Many anglers have been decrying the steady decrease in the striper population in the Bay since 2017. Maybe the decline can be blamed on continued poor spring spawning conditions due to climate change, water quality issues caused by various pollutants, commercial overharvest, charter boats keeping forty-inch females during spawning season, the industrial netting of too many menhaden (a main forage fish for stripers). Maybe it can be blamed on too many stripers being kept by recreational anglers one fish at a time. Whatever it is, the fears are real, leaving many anglers longing for the “good ol’ days” after the stripers were saved from the brink of extinction and restored by the late 1990s thanks to a fishing moratorium spanning many years. Since 2018, reproduction in the Bay’s tributaries has been dismal. Fewer fish beget fewer fish, and so on. It is a spiral of death.
Tony Friedrich of the American Saltwater Guides Association has been sounding the alarm for years, and the organization he represents has been working tirelessly with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and state managers up and down the coast to address the many-pronged problems facing the fishery. However, convincing a science-denying public of the issues has been a difficult process. Tony has pointed out that fishery managers failed to use the strong 2015 spawning class as a foundation for stricter regulations. Instead, they were swayed by an ill-informed public and greedy fishing industry too willing to deny that the population was in serious trouble. One would think that once the striper population was restored after the crash of the 1970s and ’80s, everyone connected to the fishery would have been more vigilant this time around. But unfortunately, it seems, history has taught us very little.
With this cloud of gloom hovering over an uncommonly nice mid-November afternoon, it promised to be an ideal day to take my kayak out a final time despite the lack of stripers. Since nasty weather was forecasted for the next week, I figured this would be a good time to call it quits for the year before the water temperature dipped further and the cold seeped too deeply into my bones. And for the first time in months, the flow on the Susquehanna was cut back, so it would be a good fishing option for the day.
Upon arriving at the broad section of river I intended to fish, the upstream wind was riling the surface of the wide expanse with whitecaps. Too risky for my abilities, I decided to check out the rock-pocked stretch upriver before entirely scrapping my mission for the day. Surprisingly, the boulders, rocks, and little islands protected this shallower stretch from the full force of the wind. The water appeared safe for paddling. Additionally, the flow was at a perfect level to possibly find one final fish despite such a dismal season. But after spending another fishless afternoon casting behind boulders in the bright sunshine, all hope faded.
As the sun began to dip below the trees on the far side of the river, its descent accentuated the end of a depressing few months that seemed to overemphasize the depleted status of the striper population in the upper Chesapeake Bay. Fighting the urge to return to the landing early, I was determined to stay out until the last drop of daylight squeezed from the late fall sky. If only to defy fate, my steelheading past kicked in and I made a last stand casting a Clouser minnow pattern into a defined riffle between two protruding rocks close to shore. Completely engulfed by a state of hopelessness, I drifted into the Zen-like rhythm of one cast after another while recalling the several stripers I had hooked in this section of the river in the past. Lost in thought, I was jolted back to reality when a decent fish grabbed my fly. For a brief moment, reality magically snapped back to the way it should be.
Once this special striper was released at the side of my craft, I continued to cast. In the waning hour of daylight, I managed to hook more fish than I had all fall. The final one was big. And as that striper pulled my kayak into the unsafe flow of complete darkness, it gave fright to my precarious situation. Relieved when the fly finally popped loose, the fish swam back into the night like a phantom from the past reminding me of the way things were not that long ago.
Seeking safe passage back to the landing, my mind tried to grasp what had just happened while trying to put the experience into perspective. Whether this was a sign of hope for the future or a haunting reminder of what we have lost by not managing this resource properly for the past several years, only time will tell. Pondering the significance of this bittersweet finale, my season came to an end when the nose of my kayak touched the shoreline.
Sadly, we are in an era when many fisheries throughout the country are facing difficulties, and it should be those of us close to troubled waters tolling the bell of concern. There are causes for alarm on so many fronts. From steelhead on the West Coast to Chinook salmon in Alaska to redfish on the Gulf Coast to brown trout in the Big Hole River, there should be a gnawing in all our souls while we cast to ghosts of the past with hopes that things will miraculously go back to the way they once were.
The hollowness I feel while fishing for diminished stripers echoes past losses. I remember the disappearing bull trout out West in the late 1970s, Montana’s Jefferson River drying up in 1988, whirling disease hitting the Madison River in the 1990s, and the Niagara River dying during my youth in the 1950s. In a macro sense, it would seem we are fighting a losing battle from the impacts of climate change to the never-ending attempt to lessen regulations enacted to protect our water resources. Despite these realities though, we can’t get overwhelmed with discouragement.
In a micro sense, I have learned that our regional fisheries can be constantly nurtured and cared for, and in many cases around the country, environmental problems have been addressed and ailing fisheries restored thanks to the efforts of locally concerned sportsmen and women, agencies, and organizations. Regarding striped bass, thankfully, the American Saltwater Guide Association has been leading the way for regulation changes within the Chesapeake as well as along the entire East Coast. The goal is to replenish the stock by the end of this decade.
But regrettably, the pushback from commercial fishermen and charter boats is constant, and the willful ignorance that seems to be pervasive these days still remains. Although there is a sense that the unified effort it took to overcome issues of the past no longer exists, I can only hope I am wrong. Anglers will always need to come together on behalf of their regional fisheries. Vigilance is key, or the only stripers swimming in the future will be the memory of those we squandered. And that would be the most tragic of legacies to leave behind for the generations to come.
Although it seems the older I get the less fish I catch anyway, the quiet of just being out on the water when I know there are fish around is enough. It is a different kind of silence, however, when the water is empty and there are no fish except for wraiths from the past echoing through the liquid void. They serve as a reminder of all that we have lost since those “good ol’ days” when the once-restored striped bass were plentiful. It wasn’t that long ago.
