What Happened to Weakfish?

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What Happened to Weakfish?

The weakfish population crashed during the early 2000s and has been considered depleted for nearly two decades.

The author displays a weakfish caught jigging in Beaufort Inlet, NC, last November. New research suggests the vast majority of weakfish that migrate offshore each winter don’t survive to return the following spring.

For fishermen who have spent the past several decades plying the surf and nearshore waters from Cape Cod to North Carolina, few changes have been as dramatic as the disappearance of weakfish. The population of this member of the drum family, also known as “squeteague” in Rhode Island and “gray trout” in more southern haunts, crashed during the early 2000s and has been considered depleted since 2003. Despite strict harvest limits for both recreational and commercial fishermen, the stock has yet to show any signs of recovery. As a result, it’s attained a near-mythical status for anglers north of New Jersey, many of whom have never seen one.

Weak Tagging Sites

Weakfish have a life history that should make them resilient to overfishing and able to recover quickly—they grow fast, mature at age 1, and produce a lot of eggs. So, why no response anywhere along the coast to the current management measures, which include a recreational one-fish bag limit and 100-pound commercial bycatch limit?

The answer may lie in a misunderstanding of the magnitude of a fundamental fisheries science metric: mortality, which refers to the proportion of fish that die from one year to the next. Stock-assessment scientists divide it into “fishing mortality”—fish that are killed through fishing—and “natural mortality” due to predation, disease, or other natural stressors. Unlike fishing mortality, natural mortality is difficult to observe directly, so scientists often assume a constant value based on the life-history characteristics of a species. For example, if a species grows quickly and has a short lifespan, it will likely have a relatively high natural mortality rate.

Non-acoustic weakfish tag

Because fishing mortality for weakfish has been fairly constant in recent years but the stock has still failed to recover across its entire range, scientists have suspected that natural mortality may be higher than is currently assumed. Investigating that possibility, however, means calculating natural mortality from scratch based on direct on-the-water observations.

Acoustic Tags and Coastwide Collaboration

To estimate mortality, scientists deployed acoustic tags on weakfish from New Jersey to North Carolina, focusing their efforts on tagging during the fall months. “We know that weakfish generally migrate offshore and south during the late fall, and that they tend to return to the same inshore areas in the spring to spawn, a behavior known as ‘site fidelity,’” explains Dr. Jacob Krause, now a fish biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, who investigated the causes of weakfish mortality during his Ph.D. at North Carolina State University. By tagging fish in the fall before they move offshore (where little fishing takes place), and observing how many fish returned the following spring, he and his colleagues could estimate how many fish died during the winter from non-fishing impacts. “We consistently see high numbers of young of-year weakfish, and we think much of the mortality is happening after their first growing season,” Krause says, noting that weakfish born the previous spring can grow to 10 to 11 inches by fall.

Krause and his collaborators deployed tags on weakfish in three estuaries: Delaware Bay; the New River, North Carolina; and Bogue Sound (Beaufort Inlet), North Carolina. In addition, fisheries scientists from New Jersey shared data from weakfish that were outfitted with acoustic tags in the Garden State’s Navesink River and Great Bay estuaries.

Weakfish Acoustic Tag

In total, 342 weakfish ranging from 9 to 34 inches (with an average of 14 inches) were surgically implanted with acoustic tags that “pinged” at regular intervals and had battery lives of 6 to 18 months. The research team relied on a broad network of acoustic arrays, or listening stations, up and down the coast to detect tagged weakfish.

“We’re indebted to both fellow scientists and fishermen for their collaboration on this study,” says Krause, noting that the research was funded by the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries. “Fisheries scientists whose acoustic telemetry arrays detected our tagged weakfish generously shared their data in order to provide a more complete picture. Several charter captains, meanwhile, were helpful in showing the research team how to catch weakfish in order to deploy tags.”

Low Survival and the Bottlenose Bottleneck

As expected, the tagging data indicated weakfish moving offshore during the fall months, peaking during September in New Jersey and November in North Carolina. Striking, however, was the almost complete absence of fish returning the next year. “Some of our tags had long enough battery lives to be detected over several years, but of 149 such tags deployed in the fall months, only 2 were detected the following spring,” says Krause. “With presumed site fidelity and a strong network of acoustic arrays throughout the Mid-Atlantic, we thought these fish would have been detected somewhere if they were alive. But because they weren’t, we’re fairly certain that there is a lot of mortality happening in the winter.” In fact, based on their observations, Krause and his colleagues estimated that less than 1% of weakfish survived from one year to the next.

Tagged Weakfish

So, what is happening to weakfish during the winter months? The culprit may surprise you. “We think that bottlenose dolphins, which frequent Mid-Atlantic offshore waters in the winter, may be a big factor,” says Krause. “Necropsies from stranded dolphins suggest that up to 49% of their winter diet is weakfish, and some of our modeling work indicates that they may be responsible for over half of weakfish predation, with the other half coming from species like striped bass, bluefish, and spiny dogfish,” he explains. As far back as 2006, fisheries scientists suspected that predation may be one of the reasons for the weakfish’s stubborn lack of recovery, but this is one of the first pieces of concrete evidence for that hypothesis.

Putting the Pieces Together

“While fishing may have led to the initial stock decline, we think predation is one of the main reasons why it hasn’t been able to bounce back, even though weakfish clearly have the life-history traits to do so,” Krause explains.

This study is just one element of a larger body of work that Krause has led to investigate weakfish population dynamics, which includes conventional tagging and gillnet sampling. All of this research suggests that natural mortality is to blame for the lion’s share of total mortality—as high at 97%—and that most natural mortality occurs during the winter months. The current stock assessment, meanwhile, estimates that only about half of mortality is from non-fishing activities. “If you had one study, it would be one piece of the puzzle, but having results from all three studies in hand gives a much more comprehensive sense of what’s going on,” explains Krause. He mentioned that stock assessment scientists at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission have been open to this new research, and he is hopeful that his results are incorporated into future assessments.

Weakfish Surgery

Fisheries scientists will continue working to unravel more details on the weakfish’s failure to recover and to determine whether any additional management levers may exist. However, with the reasons for mortality largely outside of managers’ control, options for the latter may be hard to come by. In the meantime, while young-of-year or 1-year-old weakfish of less than 14 inches are not uncommon south of Chesapeake Bay, catching a weakfish of any size whatsoever north of New Jersey will be considered a noteworthy feat for the foreseeable future.

22 on “What Happened to Weakfish?”

  1. David Sneed

    Did you look at the effects of shrimp trawl bycatch?

  2. LOU

    KEEP STABBING THEM , IM SURE HALF WILL DIE WITH THESE TAGS AND INCERTS .

    1. Scott

      Great South Bay has been on fire for past 3 years. Fish from 12-26”. I had multiple trips catching 20+ in a 2 hour span. I tagged over 100 fish for the littoral society, this past year. We will see how many are going to be recaptured. I have not seen fish over 10lbs in a very long time?♂️ Hopefully it stays like this. Only time will tell!!

  3. Michael Krupa Sr.

    We rarely keep them, but in the fall of 2016 we did keep two large Striped Bass caught off of Monmouth Beach NJ. They both contained several (7 in one and 5 in the other) 8 inch weakfish in their stomachs. I remember live lining large bunker for huge Weakfish in Raritan Bay in the early 80’s and sure miss those days.

  4. Fishgaak

    The last few years we have seen an incredible run of spring and summer weakfish. Great South Bay , LI, NY

    1. Alex DeMasi

      I just got back into fishing, and have been fumbling along. Last summer I went out to surf fish Jones Beach a handful of mornings, and caught a weakfish on two separate trips. 5-8 times out there, and only ever caught four fish total (don’t worry! I am already ashamed of my failures!). Caught one on an xrap and one on a kastmaster, late july and late august. They’re gorgeous fish, I hope they come back.

  5. Dave

    Just sit outside of Barnegat Inlet in the fall and watch the netters slaughter, I mean by-catch, all the spikes. Get real, Dolphins, Stripers, Dog Fish have been around forever.

    1. John ODonnell

      Due to the lack of recreational fishing opportunities, more party boats are venturing far off shore in the winter months for sea bass , porgies and occasional cod. On most of these trips some large weakfish are caught in 200 ft+ depths. Prior to these ventures, few people even knew that there were weakfish that far north and that far offshore in the winter. They are all breeding sized fish, but the numbers are small, so I don’t think this has much of an impact. One more observation, I have been fishing for weakfish for over 50 years; and they seem to be the most cyclical fish on the planet (going back and forth from near extinction to plentiful).

  6. Tiderunner 70

    There is no doubt that the shrimp trawlers are slaughtering them. The 100# bycatch limit should be eliminated because it clearly enables direct targeting of the species.

    1. Jim

      Tide70, your comments spot on .

  7. Jeff

    Need to look into the cormorants here off the coast of NC. In the fall they decimate the spot, croaker and weakfish. There will be miles of them feeding on schools of fish and it is not bunker they are feeding on

  8. moose Johnson

    the last few years we have seen the commercial over fishing of menhaden affecting the striped bass and bluefish populations , perhaps with less bunker they along with Dolphins resort to another food source , weakfish ? just a though . stranger things have happened

  9. Shawn Murdock

    Caught a couple small weakfish in Narrow river located in Rhode Island. They were around 12 to 14 inch range. Catch was made May 20th, 2020.

  10. Adam

    Interesting study! Miss the weakfish!

    Wondering…if dolphins are eating them….would the transponders be able to ping from a dolphins stomach? Ping stations near the weakfish wintering grounds should be able to track dolphins after they eat them.

  11. John Dormann

    My brother in law and I have caught many strippers around LBI . We always check their stomachs to see what they are feeding on. Many times we have seen their bellies full of weakfish, as many as 3 at least 12” . I think the strippers and bluefish are wearing a ton.

  12. Rock

    Well tell the Dolphins there is a one fish limit.

  13. Fishing berb

    Easy solution, if you’re not a politician, stop netting the bunker for fertilizer. The dolphin, strippers, sharks, etc. will fill up on bunker, leaving the weakfish

  14. Gary C. Sloan

    I believe you have been correct in your study. I am 71 years old living at the New Jersey shore and avid fisherman. The earlier years if we saw 1 or 2 dolphins in a day we were surprised. Since the late 80’s the growth of the biomass of dolphins on the Jersey shore has been huge. The summer months a walk on the beach on any given day you will see 10 to 30 dolphins right in the surf tearing up bunkers, small fluke, and weakfish. Sightseeing Boats for dolphins have

    become almost as common as party boats. Years ago you might have found 1 sightseeing boats versus 10 fishing boats. Its pretty obvious now the population change. Lets not forget the Delaware Bay between NJ and Del was a mass incubation location for weakfish has suffered from a Nuclear Plant killing millions of fry with cooling towers.

  15. Dean

    With all the whiting and mackerel gone..

    Predators will eat whatever is left..

  16. Rich

    We fished a wreck (3-miles out) of the coast of N. Myrtle Beach, SC last April and pulled up weakfish (referred to as gray trout ) for about 2hours straight. There was a one-fish per angler limit, and I believe they had to be 28-inches. Most were short, but we did get two nice keepers.

  17. Ken

    Interesting study . Hope Dr. Krause continues to seek out and review all of the information and possibilites concerning the awesome weakfish .

  18. Stevect

    Let’s blame it on the dolphins that where here in far greater numbers in the 70’s and 80’s when the Weakfish population was at it’s peak in the Delaware Bay. Overfishing is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about instead we blame everything on climate change and the predators that have always been present and in far greater numbers. If you want to save the weakfish you could start by protecting that small percentage of fish that do return by going to a 18 inch bag limit for both Rec and commercial fisherman so they would have several years to spawn instead of maybe one. Also ban gill netting on the Delaware Bay, This would help bring back menhaden, spot , scup Crocker and juvenile bluefish which are important forage fish. Their populations have been decimated as well so it’s not surprising that you are seeing the dolphins and other marine mammals focusing on weakfish especially with the depletion of squid, mackerel, skipjack, ect offshore.

    I think these changes would lead to an increase in population and average size in just a couple years.

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