Frequently Asked Questions

It is a good guess that some copper-colored striped bass spend more time in the Mullica River than do silvery striped bass, because the river is stained by natural pigments that may enter the skin or mucus. However, no one has followed these fish yet and tested it, so the answer is "Maybe". In Nova Scotia, fishers said the same for "Greenback" and "Blueback" striped bass; differences in the diet and fatty acids of those fish shows that they are right.

PCBs (Polychlorinated biphenyls) are toxins suspected of causing cancer and developmental disorders. They are a product mainly of the electrical power industry and were dumped into water years ago. PCBs remain in water in low levels and are picked up by small fish and invertebrates. Striped bass may eat many of these fish and invertebrates and so concentrate all of their doses together in what is called bio-amplification. Some striped bass may have high levels of PCB and others have low levels. In fact, this is one reason that we think there may be resident and migrant populations, because striped bass eating different things in different places could explain different PCB levels. Advisories about the safe amounts of striped bass and other fish to eat can be found at www.state.nj.us/dep/dsr/njmainfish.htm or at www.state.nj.us/health/eoh/foodweb

Fish names are suggested by people who "adopt" fish by buying tags, by anglers who catch the fish and let us tag them, and by us. We use the nicknames of technicians who used to work at RUMFS. Names are used because they are easier to remember than numbers, but remember that these are wild fish, not pets, and can be caught or eaten!

The American Littoral Society supplies external spaghetti tags to interested anglers. The transmitting tags used in the Rutgers project are expensive and more complicated to insert, so they are not being distributed.

Fish tagged with transmitters are marked on the outside with an external spaghetti tag that says the fish carries an internal tag. Please release these fish so that we can continue to collect data from them. If you see the tag too late, or the fish is deeply hooked, or the external tag is lost and you find the internal tag while cleaning the fish, please return the transmitter to the address printed on it.

In another research project conducted by Massachusetts Marine Fisheries, tags are being used to study the temperature preferences of striped bass. Temperature recording tags will be adhered to bass from Plum Island Sound in June. These tags (and data) can be recovered only with your help. If you catch a striped bass with this tag, please remove it and call Gary Nelson at 978-282-0308 x114. Rewards are available.

An image of the tag can be viewed here.

The transmitter is carried next to, but not in the stomach. The fish is marked on the outside by a yellow external spaghetti tag. (insert picture here)

You do not need to turn in the external tags of fish that you plan to release. They can tell the next person to catch them to release them as well. The external marker tag does have an identification number and telephone number to report the tag. That can be helpful to us.

Since fish can't talk, the best way to answer this to observe their behavior in comparison to fish that are not carrying transmitters. Stressed fish do not eat, swim, grow, school, or engage in normal dominance behavior the same as unstressed fish, so negative affects can be observed. These types of tags have been used since the 1980's on many species, so this question has been addressed often by watching fish in large aquariums with tags, without tags, and with "dummy" tags that look like transmitters but don't transmit. Tagging follows strict guidelines and the fish are anesthetized during tag insertion. Tags are covered with inert nontoxic resin. After an initial adjustment period less than two days, tagged fish act and interact just like untagged fish. Growth can be slower in small fish because they may eat less, but we only tag fish well above the size guidelines.

The sound made by the transmitters can be faintly heard if you hold a tag firmly against your ear; it sounds a little like a bug scratching inside.

For more information on how your club or school can adopt one of our striped bass please refer to the Adopt-a-Fish page.

Because the listening stations are already in place, other species can easily be monitored if tagged. We plan to tag summer flounder (fluke) in fall, and weakfish and bluefish later, all with much smaller, shorter duration tags.

Hydrophones can hear the transmitting tags from more than half mile away under good conditions, but waves and other factors cut this down to about one quarter mile much of the time. However, there are plenty of hydrophone listening stations in narrow parts of the estuary to hear passing fish. In addition, individual tagged fish are sometimes followed closely by motorboat or kayak to study their movements on a smaller scale.