Captive stripers spawn 900k offspring

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News Release

A small group of striped bass captured one year ago from Lake Talquin, has produced 900,000 fingerling striped bass and hybrid striped bass.

Dave Yeager, a fisheries biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), said all of the fry and fingerlings are slated for release within the next two months in several Panhandle rivers.

Yeager, who works out of the FWC's Blackwater Fisheries Research and Development Center in Holt, said they captured four female and five male striped bass one year ago in Lake Talquin.  The nine fish, which they call brood fish, were held all year in large, circular tanks with the lighting and water temperature adjusted to mimic natural conditions.

"This is something we've learned and refined over the years," Yeager said.  "By controlling the water temperature and amount of light they receive, we can condition the fish to spawn."

He said the benefits of maintaining captive brood fish include reducing manpower and time needed to collect wild striped bass, thereby increasing the length of the striper spawning season.  In addition, by conditioning captive fish to spawn before wild fish, the duration of the production season can be increased.