Striped bass are ambush predators. The adults eat squid, herring, butterfish, menhaden, eels, sand eels, blue crabs and any other small fish or invertebrates they can fit in their mouths. However, they will taste better if they have fed primarily on squid and herring, which are abundant off Long Island and Cape Cod, as compared to menhaden, which predominate off the mid-Atlantic coast. Maximum weight is probably about 100 lbs.

Striped bass are the number one gamefish on the Atlantic coast. Many are caught by surf fishers off New England. In the Bay, most are probably caught by charter and other sport fishers using live eels fished next to the pilings of the large bridges across the bay (such as the Bay Bridge - near Annapolis - and the Causeway across the mouth of the Bay) or deep trolling menhaden-like spoons and soft plastic "umbrella rigs."

The commercial and recreational fisheries are closely monitored by state and federal fisheries biologists to promote a healthy population. The recovery of the once severely depleted East Coast striped bass population is one of the few real success stories in U.S. fishery management.

Want to know how to tell a wild striped bass from a farm-raised hybrid (striped bass - white bass cross)? The wild fish will have unbroken black stripes down its side like the one pictured above.