Over 31,000 miles of fish passage opened in the Chesapeake since 1988. [View all]

[elleng]

Shad, herring, striped bass and more benefit from fish passage projects.

Each spring, the season’s warm weather kicks off a sequence of spawning runs for migrating fish in the Chesapeake Bay.

First up are the striped bass, though they don’t have too far to go. As a “semi-anadromous” species, the 30–40-pound fish lives mostly in the mainstem of the Chesapeake Bay and migrates just a short way into the estuary's rivers to spawn (lay eggs). The fully anadromous fish—namely shad and herring—travel much farther, swimming thousands of miles from the Atlantic Ocean and up into the Bay’s freshwater rivers to reach their ancestral spawning grounds.

In some parts of the Chesapeake watershed, these spawning runs are alive and well. Anglers head out to their preferred fishing spots to take advantage of this short window, which lasts just a few short weeks for each species, while eagles and herons feast from above.'>

https://www.chesapeakebay.net/news/blog/bay-program-partners-extend-spawning-habitat-by-thousands-of-miles-for-migratory-fish?