Follow a striped bass along her migration to the Chesapeake in this excerpt from Nick Karas’ new book “The Striped Bass”. Nick Karas is a trained ichthyologist and journalist. Many of you know him as the outdoor editor of Newsday, and a strong supporter of Gamefish legislation for the striper.
Saxatilis edged closer to the massive granite boulder until its shadow completely hid her body. Along her left side, she could feel the rough edges of barnacles scrape against her scales as she faced into the ebbing tide and settled closer to the rock. Slowly, she let her massive belly touch the rounded pebbles on the bottom. Chasing the blackfish she just swallowed cost her more effort than she had expected. Now, it felt good just to rest, to let the rhythmic motion of the water control her body and hull her.
She was realizing that for the past few seasons, she grew tired more easily when the schools she was with chased after food. That was why she now preferred to feed alone. There weren’t many fish remaining with whom she had shared her younger years in Chesapeake Bay, or had made the first trek into the clear, chilly waters of the Atlantic the spring when they were all three year olds. Now, she liked the solitude of hunting, feeding, and swimming alone. Only when the waters took on a chill at summer’s end did she feel a longing to be with others of her kind. They schooled for protection. But she was now large, larger than most other fish she saw; ther4e was very little she feared.
Old Silas had always been a good place to rest and feed. Saxatilis could always depend upon a blackfish or bergall to swim around the corner of the massive boulder, picking at mussels or barnacles encrusted on the huge glacial rock. The submerged ridge connecting Plum and great Gull islands was trove of food for striped bass and Old Silas was in the middle of the ridge. Her school discovered it on their very first summer of migration. It has always been a favorite hunting spot for her when she was young; now it was a good place to rest. The summer she found old Silas was now a long time ago. Fifteen years had passed since she left Chesapeake Bay, and only occasionally did she now return. It had been three years since she last spawned. Even though spring was still six months away she could feel the primordial urge again begin to well within her body, to leave the salt and climb the river to where she had been spawned. But that was still months to come. It was autumn in New York, the time to feed heavily, to store food for the months of dormancy off the Virginia Coast.
Saxatilis rested against Old Silas until the tide lost its current and the sky began to darken. It was then that she suddenly realized the blackfish was digested and she again felt the urge to feed. The current direction had shifted and she was ready to move. With only the pectoral fins on her sides, she lifted herself off the rocky bottom. The building current carried her from the boulder and through giant fronds of kelp besting with the pulsating rhythm of the water. The tide was now flooding into Long Island Sound and for a while she let it carry her sideways. Suddenly, Saxatilis resented the will of the current and with a flick of her giant tail set her own course.
She wasn’t really hungry, but she knew she must feed often to support her great bulk. She weighed more than 50 pounds. As she worked down tide, the current unexpectedly reversed itself. She was now on the eastern edge of Plum Island, and here the waters separated. Swimming along the north side of the island and against the current, Saxatilis had to use more energy, but she was more powerful than all he other fish of her kind that darted out of her way.
She sensed a taste in the water coming toward her. The tide swiftly carried it to two nostril like openings on her snout. She couldn’t see where it was but turned into the water that carried the flavor and followed it. In the kelp ahead there was a dark, fleeting movement. It was Anguilla. The eel was intent on making headway against the rising force of the tide as it swept around Plum Island and through Plum Gut and didn’t notice the approach of the striped bass.
Like a flash of light, Saxatilis overtook Anguilla. Before the eel could respond, she had grabbed it in her mouth, turned it, and gulped it head first. Saxatilis liked eels; they had a flavor that was incomparable to her. The only food she liked better was lobster, but Homarus and his kind had abandoned most of the coastal waters this summer because they had been to warm. They were in deeper water, too far away from Saxatilis’s natural haunts, so she gave up lobster for the summer.
After taking Anguilla, Saxatilis wanted to rest. She found the lee of a large boulder and stemmed the current. But even here the tide moved quickly. To her, it seemed that all the ocean was trying to squeeze itself into The Gut, a watery gap that separates Plum Island from Orient Point on eastern Long Island. As she approached the fast water, the bottom gave way and fell to depths beyond her sight, so she slid back to the respite of the boulder. In the distance, she saw a school of squid swimming with the flooding tide,. They were too far away. She would have to leave the sanctity of the back eddy to catch them. There will be more food coming along, closer, she thought to herself all she need do was wait and watch the tide.
Unexpectedly, Saxatilis felt a strange vibration. Almost simultaneously she heard the whine of two high-pitched propellers coming though the water. As she looked up, Saxatilis saw the darkening aspect of the sky broken by a momentary glow that swept over her back. The beacon on Plum Island had been turned on. As she watched the water’s surface, the black silhouette of a boat’s hull came closer. The vibrations and noise increased in intensity as it approached. She knew she was in no danger and didn’t move. There was more than 25 feet of water between her and the surface.
As she had seen many times before after a boat passed, two silvery lines sliced the water behind the craft. She was always concerned with them because she didn’t fully understand how they were able to move. Then she saw what looked like a squid, swimming rapidly behind the boat. It moved with irregular, jerking movements and she thought it looked good to eat.
Saxatilis changed her position as the white, pulsating squid-like phenomena came closer. She felt the force of the tide as she moved beyond the protection of the boulder. It discouraged her. The “squid” were moving fast and now were too far away. Besides, there was still Anguilla to digest. Saxatilis was lazy and returned to her lie behind the boulder as darkness flooded Plum Gut. The night held no fear for her. Rather, she preferred this time. The bothersome bluefish would not beat her to food she wanted. Nor did she need light to find squid. They were bountiful in The Gut. All she required was her keen sense of taste.
Near midnight, her satiation wore off as the tide began to lose its direction. In a fir of hunger, saxatilis moved from behind the rock and drifted into the sound with the tide, and into deeper and deeper water. Without warning, she suddenly drifted into a school of squid. Through minute sensors along the lateral lines on her sides, she could feel the entire school pulsating, moving in unison. Saxatilis gorged herself until she could eat no more. In a burst of energy, she returned to the rocks under the lighthouse. The current along the shore had already shifted direction. Saxatilis took a new lie on the opposite side of the boulder and let the water ebb as she digested the squid.
The weather above Plum Guit turned cold during the night, colder than any night since spring. Even a dozen feet below the surface Saxatilis was sensitive enough to feel the difference. And, in the morning, the sun rose on the horizon in a slightly different spot then it had the day before. The urge in her to move south became uncontrollable. During the following week, she passed Gardiners Island and turned southeast to Montauk Point. There she felt the bitter sting of sharp hooks in her mouth as she took a plug in the surf at Turtle Cove. But the plug had been too small for her and the line too light. She broke it without effort.
The hook still dangled from the side of her mouth as she worked past Shinnecock Inlet. She tasted the water from the bay and it felt it sweep over her skin. It was colder than the water that surrounded her. That changed her mind about entering it to feed. The hook irritated her because she didn’t understand it. Why had the fish she thought she had taken suddenly become a part of her jaw? She pouted and refused to even though it wasn’t in the way. She was losing weight. A striped bass as large as Saxatilis must eat often and in large quantities when she is so active.
Off Moriches inlet, as she headed farther west along the south shore of Long Island, the hook in her jaw fell victim to the acids in her mouth and stomach. It quickly rusted and fell free. When it happened, it was as if someone had signaled her to eat. She had been tagging behind a school of younger striped bass, fish 20 and 30 pounds in size. They had been feeding on a school of Brevoortia and she could taste the oily flavor of these menhaden for miles behind their school. Now it was her turn. The smaller bass forced the bunker into a deep pocket between the beach and an outer bar. Saxatilis wanted her food and charged over the bar as a wave broke. Her belly scraped on the sand and she felt the momentary coldness of the air. The feeding bass parted to let her in and she slashed at the first menhaden that appeared. One, two, then three fish later, she had enough.. They were large bunker, 2 to 3 pounds. The big ones were reserved for her and her voracious appetite. She didn’t rest after feeding as she had done before. The chill experience of the cold air she felt while crossing the sand bar was a vivid reminder of how cold this part of the Atlantic could become. She must continue to head south.
During all of December, saxatilis swam. She took a short cut across the New York Bight for Sandy Hook, over deep water, because she no longer feared sharks. She could out swim them in a burst of speed. Off Cape May she was bothered by a school of porpoise, but they let her alone when she spotted the mackerel school. By New Years Day, saxatilis was off the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. She tasted the water in which she had spent the first two years of her life.
For a moment she wanted to turn west, slide past Fishermen’s Island, swim in the Bays turbid waters, but she hesitated. She had felt the swelling slowly enlarge in her abdomen as the millions of eggs she carried continued to grow. But the maternal feeling was still premature; it would be four months more before she would spawn. The coolness of the water from Chesapeake reminded her that winter was overlooking her home. She would find the warmth she needed only in deep water, farther south.
In just a few days, she had passed the numerous piers jutting from the beaches in Virginia and North Carolina and spent a frenzied afternoon feeding on a school of small Brevoortia. Saxatilis had arrived at the tumultuous waters off Cape Hatteras. The waters here were cool, but warmer than those off Chesapeake Bay. Another current from the north and helps temper their sting. Sill, the waters continued to cool, and she spent the next week feeding whenever she could. Gradually, the chill was slowing her life. She needed less food.
Eventually, Saxatilis drifted a few miles off the beach and joined other large bass. There she met a few with whom she had shared her home river. There were fish from the Roanoke as well, and even a few from Hudson River. She had never seen very many North Carolina fish go north with spring migrations. Saxatilis spent February, March and part of April in the semi-dormant state with thousands of other striped bass. In April she sensed the water beginning to warm, and the bulging in her abdomen had grown larger. It had filled most of the area her empty stomach had lost.
As the water approached 45 degrees, Saxatilis and the other large fish began to move from their winter grounds. It was a short swim into Chesapeake Bay. She felt good. She was eager to spawn. When she was younger she had been an active spawner, every years since she was seven. Only within the past few years did she quit the act. She now did all things more slowly.
The bay’s shallow waters were silted because of spring flooding of the numerous rivers that feed this large inland sea and strong March winds riled the waters where they shoaled. Even so, she could separate the tastes of all the rivers that fill the bay and mixed with its slightly saline waters. She especially knew the taste of her river, and at Smith Point turned west and entered the Potomac. She saw schools upon schools of younger bass, fish no larger than 5 or 6 pounds, all males, passing her, racing for the spawning grounds. There were other large females with her, but only one that was larger. There were very few small females. They waited their turn in the bay and would come to the river after the larger fish had spawned. Past the big bridge near Morgantown, Saxatilis could sense a current in the river that before had been too weak to feel. Gradually, the taste of salt left the water. She could now savor all kinds of exotic sensations. They all reminded her of her youth.
As she continued upstream she could feel the current mount, and old, strange feelings begin to stir within her. The water was still too cool to risk spawning as she passed the narrows at Quantico, but here is where she would drop her eggs. Thousands of small male bass milled around and came close to her. They never would have dared do that in the open bay or ocean. For six days she stemmed the current of the Potomac off Quantico as water temperatures slowly rose. Then one night, up-river, near Hagerstown, it rained heavily. The Potomac was suddenly swollen with warm rainwater. It took two days for it to reach Saxatilis, but when it did she responded.
The young male bass became brazen and began bumping and pushing her as she tried to maintain her position in the current. Some would leap toward the top of the water and splash about until the water was foaming. Even Saxatilis experienced a schoolgirl’s delight and began racing about with the males. She turned on her side and sent a geyser into the air. Males were everywhere about her, pressing on both sides and smothering Saxatilis. Together, they sank to the bottom and she relaxed as millions of tiny eggs flowed into the Potomac. The males about her exuded milt and together they churned the eggs and sperm until they were well fertilized.
Slowly, the eggs swelled in the water and a preordained phenomenon began to unfold within their clear, green envelopes. They drifted slowly down stream with the current, on their way to where Saxatilis, too, had started her life. The cycle of life had come a full turn.
|
