December 5, 2013 — After three years of fish sampling in Rehoboth, Indian River and Little Assawoman bays, project coordinator Ron Kernehan isn’t certain he’s seen a “normal” year.
In the 2013 sampling season it was so rainy that salinity levels at some inland bay test sites dropped from the normal range of 20 to 25 parts per thousand down to 15 to 12 parts per thousand. The previous year, it was hot and dry.
“The fish will react” to dramatic changes in salinity such as occurred this year, Kernehan said. “They will move away from that, maybe to deeper water. It just messes up where they are.”
Location is an important part of this on-going study, being conducted by the Center for the Inland Bays.
Kernehan and other volunteers are looking for fish in the shallow, near shore waters of the three waterways. Fish diversity and abundance is a key indicator of the health of the bays. And researchers believe that the bays are important nursery areas for juvenile fish.
Hundreds of thousands of boat trips in the bays each summer are done mainly for fishing, according to a 1995 boating study by the University of Delaware Sea Grant College Program. In fact, more people fish in the inland bays than off the coast in the Atlantic Ocean. They target summer and winter flounder, sea trout, blue fish, tautog, white perch and striped bass, according to the survey.
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