May 9, 2012 – Like most harbingers of the change of seasons, the 2012 arrival of striped bass to Cape Ann waters occurred very early, too.
The first bass of the fishing season were caught in mid-April, about two weeks ahead of the schedule they've set for themselves in recent times.
Reports of stripers have now come in from all the estuaries from the Annisquam to the Merrimack Rivers. Chris Thomas caught his schoolie near the mouth of the Essex River last Saturday.
The striper's saga historically is a cautionary tale — one of a migratory species that spawned in the great estuaries of the Chesapeake, Delaware and Hudson River systems in such great numbers in Colonial times that the fish were used for fertilizer, then were nearly wiped out by industrial pollution and overfishing.
Then, however, the states unified in a restoration program that brought them back to fecundity over the past 15 years or so.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times.