Raritan river striped bass 6/2/16

[AndyS]

Fished with Mike Danko from the New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium this morning 6/2/16. I think we just about filled the quota for the amount of fish he needs to be taken back to the lab for testing. It wasn't lights out fishing but it was pretty steady. We released quite a few fish that were too big for the study, fish over 12" long. Mike also caught a real nice smallmouth bass and a big white perch.
Kids, don't try this at home, Mike has all the permits necessary for research.
Tests are taking place on a few other rivers in NJ also like Nevesink.

Feel free to look up the New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium.

(Yes I felt queasy killing small striped bass)

[JDTuna]

Great work helping out with research, Andy! Don't feel bad about killing the stripers. Age and growth studies require the examination of otoliths (earbones) to determine age. Origin studies require microchemical analysis of the otolith to determine where the fish were spawned. Unfortunately, both require the fish to be killed prior to removing the necessary structures. Also, from a biological standpoint, it's better to kill a bunch of smaller fish than it is to kill a 30+lber.

[River Renegade]

Good work by everyone on the research for future fishing generations.

[kcritch]

Andy S...The Mad Scientist of the Raritan! Nice work my friend.

[Taco Blanco]

Andy, did you guys discuss the possibility that there is a spawning population of stripers in the Raritan?

[Skunk City]

Andy, did you guys discuss the possibility that there is a spawning population of stripers in the Raritan?

I think those pictures answer your question :).

[Mikey topaz]

Hopefully the results are very intresting think alot of people will be suprised, i feel alot of people misjudge the river. Use to whack them little stripers on 3 wt fly rod with poppers years ago

[Bruce Litton]

Excellent opportunity you have to work with the biologists. I had to interview a couple of the coastal biologists stationed in South Carolina, and got an invitation to come down and participate in field work. Feels thrilling, that possibility, just that at least for the foreseeable future, I have neither funds nor time for that.

The sky's the limit and you're already there.

[Taco Blanco]

I think those pictures answer your question :).

The bass in the picture are probably a year old. Any bass born this spring would be about the size of a quarter if that. Current science tells us those bass would have spilled out of fhe Hudson River last summer and headed up the Raritan to escape the bluefish and other predators in the saltwater.
If stripers are spawning in the Raritan and we get the holy grail of yoy bass pics, then that could be used as pressure on American Water to improve the fish passage at the dam.
Maybe we can even get some of those bass tagged to see where they head after growing up a bit.