Keeping North Carolina's only spawning striped bass population alive
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This striped bass was caught in Maine's Scarborough River. Got a photo from here in North Carolina? Share it with us. Photo: Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images
New striped bass data is giving hope to North Carolina fisheries experts that the species could soon turn a corner in its recovery.
Why it matters: The Roanoke River population is North Carolina's last remaining wild-spawning population of stripers.
- And fishing for them is an economic driver in towns that line the northeastern North Carolina river, like Weldon and Williamston.
Flashback: Ben Ricks, N.C. Wildlife's coastal fisheries supervisor, grew up fishing for striped bass in Halifax County along the Roanoke when it was a "world-class" fishery.
- Striped bass numbers had bottomed out in the 1970s, but federal intervention helped the species recover by the early 2000s, Ricks says.
- The numbers began dropping again around 2005, according to state population estimates.
State of play: The fish are migratory, spending most of the year out in the Atlantic Ocean before traveling up their home rivers to spawn in legendary annual runs.
- Because striped bass live such long lives — into their 20s and 30s, which is old for a fish — they only need a successful spawn every three to five years, according to the state's Wildlife Resources Commission and Division of Marine Fisheries, the agencies that co-manage the species.
Yes, but: Since 2018, biologists have been reporting poor spawns in the Roanoke River, which has been closed to harvest since 2024 and will remain so this year, per both agencies. Anglers can fish for striped bass, but must release the fish back into the water immediately.
- Charlton Godwin, the striped bass species lead for the Division of Marine Fisheries, tells Axios that there's been average or poor spawns "really, for the last 20 years, more often than not."
What they're saying: The decline is a "coast-wide issue, not a North Carolina-only problem," the commission's inland fisheries chief Corey Oakley said last month on the podcast he co-hosts with Ricks, "Better Fishing with Two Bald Biologists."
- "These are dire times," Ricks added, telling Axios that "we realize this is a very popular fishery and we want to restore it to the level it was previously."
Zoom out: There is not yet clear data explaining why striped bass populations have struggled to spawn recently.
- One prominent hypothesis being studied is whether warming ocean temperatures throw off the timing of zooplankton blooms, jeopardizing baby stripers' primary food source.
Zoom in: Anglers fish for striped bass in the rivers, in sounds and offshore, with other famous populations hailing from the Chesapeake Bay area and the Hudson and Delaware rivers.
- They school up, get big and they're an awfully "fun fish to catch," Godwin says. "They fight well when you hook 'em."
North Carolina used to have multiple wild-spawning populations. Dams and locks built along the Tar, Neuse and Cape Fear rivers interrupted natural water flows, making it so striped bass eggs can't stay suspended in the water column long enough to survive, according to Godwin.
- So, like trout in the mountains, the state's other striped bass populations now rely on stocking, done solely for fishing purposes.
Stocking is also being used to help the Roanoke River population recover.
- And the genetic markers of the millions of hatchery-born fish being stocked tell scientists how the Roanoke's wild population is doing as it moves into the Albemarle Sound on its way to the ocean.
By the numbers: The North Carolina Marine and Estuary Foundation has partnered with the state to stock over 5 million striped bass over the past three years.
- In 2023, 97% of the Roanoke River striped bass sampled by state biologists upon reaching the Albemarle Sound had the genetic markers of hatchery fish.
- In a dramatic turnaround, one year later, only 3% of the sample was from a hatchery, indicating there was a relatively good wild spawn during 2024's closed fishing season.
Those numbers switching so dramatically indicates "there must have been millions of wild fish that spawned in order to catch so few hatchery fish," Godwin explains.
What's next: Godwin tells Axios that further sampling through 2027 will tell biologists whether enough of those fish survive to adulthood to keep growing the population, potentially allowing for fishing seasons to return.
- Ricks said on the podcast that there is a "little bit of a glimmer that we're probably, maybe moving in the right direction."
Editor's note: This story has been updated.