Monksville Reservoir Hybrid Striped Bass stocking 2024
Posted from F&W's Facebook 20 minutes ago, i dont yet see a mail or official post on F&W's website:
NJDEP Fish & Wildlife’s Bureau of Freshwater Fisheries stocked Monksville Reservoir with 675 2.5-year-old large Hybrid Striped Bass averaging 15” and 1.5 pounds on October 10!
These fish, raised at the Hackettstown State Fish Hatchery, were surplus fish that became available and have no impact on any other annual stockings. They were received as fry in June of 2022 and cultured in 350-gallon circular tanks to a size of six inches. For their first year, these fish were overwintered in 52-degree spring water indoors before staff moved them into a half-acre extensive rearing pond in the spring of 2023. They were then fed large dry pellets through the summer and fall, and then spent last winter in the pond eating mostly live forage. As soon as water temperatures rose above 60 degrees this spring, they began eating live pellets again until the time of collection for stocking. Due to their larger size at stocking and lower stocking rate, there is high potential for many to grow to trophy size!
Hybrid Striped Bass are a hybrid between striped bass and white bass. They have horizontal, often-broken stripes, and a soft and a spiny dorsal (top) fin that are not connected to each other. For species identification purposes, White Perch, while sometimes exhibiting some light stripes, have a connected soft and spiny dorsal fin where both fins will pop up when the spiny fin is lifted. Please note that Hybrid Striped Bass have a 16” minimum size and daily limit of 2, while White Perch have no minimum size and a daily limit of 25.
The success of and interest in this stocking will help the Bureau of Freshwater Fisheries to determine if Monksville Reservoir will be included into the annual Hybrid Striped Bass stocking program in the future. Comments and reports of any catches are welcome and can be sent to Justin.Rozema@dep[.nj.gov.
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10-30-2024, 12:31 PM
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