Joey Vatthanavong was just 12 when he first started fishing at Orchard Beach in his home borough, the Bronx. Fishing was something of a family tradition: His grandparents had fished in their home countries, Cambodia and Laos.

Vatthanavong, now 29, said he’s proudest when he catches striped bass, which he calls “strong fighters, very smart fish and survivors.” The fish migrate from the Atlantic Ocean to the warmer waters of the Hudson River each spring to spawn.

Striped bass are particularly popular among recreational fishers — the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission estimates that nationally, about 85% of catches are from the recreational sector. And hobbyists, environmentalists and local officials agree: Striped bass are a big part of New York’s social fabric, swimming in the waters off every borough. The Department of Environmental Conservation say New Yorkers took 13 million fishing trips last year alone.

But environmentalists and state officials say that won’t last forever. For three consecutive years, the DEC in 2025 found what officials say are concerningly low levels of young striped bass when surveying 13 sites in the lower Hudson River.

"The concern is not so much that we don't have fish now, but will we have an abundance of fish in the future?" said Martin Gary, the DEC's director of marine resources.

A measure known as the Juvenile Abundance Index found an average of just over eight fish per haul — down from 30 per haul in 2020, and lower than 75% of all previous survey results. State officials and advocates for the Hudson River’s ecological health differ on why reproduction rates seem to have fallen sharply, and what to do about it. But with fewer fish being born, both worry the adult population will take a sharp downturn over the next decade.

‘An amazing fish’

Staten Island native George Murphy captains fishing charter trips out of Saugerties. For about $600, he’ll take you out on the Hudson, usually starting the trip by helping you catch your own bait, then moving on to reeling in some adult striped bass.

“It’s an amazing fish,” he said. “I mean, they travel about 1,500 miles a year, migrating up and down the East Coast, you know, from pretty much from North Carolina to Massachusetts, Maine every year. And it's a great table fare — they live a long time and they're beautiful. And they're very aggressive fish to catch, too. It checks off all the boxes.”

Part of the appeal, he said, is they’re accessible to anglers in so many locations.

“You can catch them off the surf,” Murphy said. “You can catch them in the boats up to 3 miles from shore.”

Gary said that wide availability is part of what makes striped bass so culturally important to the city.

“New Yorkers have grown up for generations catching striped bass. … People grow up, they live near the water, they access the water, they fish, they catch striped bass,’ he said. “It's a powerful relationship between the folks that live in New York and this fish species.”

Anglers like Vatthanavong enjoy how clever the fish seem as well.

“We could see them, you know, physically swimming up to the pier and everything. … You know, they would like coming, checking out our baits, swimming back away,” he said. “Like, I wish I caught that on video. That’s what I mean by these guys are real smart. You know, they'll come, they smell the bait, they'll come look at it, and if it's not presented the correct way, they just turn around and spin off, you know, like they wouldn't even bite at it.”

David Stormer, habitat restoration director for the environmental watchdog group Riverkeeper, said they help with biodiversity as well. The predators are important part of balancing the food chain, going after crustaceans as well as smaller fish like the abundant menhaden.

Reproduction falling off

Gary said it’s not clear there’s one specific reason the reproduction rate of striped bass is so low in the Hudson River. One possible contributor, he said, is a decline in the river’s flow rate — how quickly water passes through a point in the river.

When striped bass spawn, for the eggs to survive they need an ideal flow rate, to prevent the eggs from sinking to the river’s bottom, where they can get covered by sediment and die due to lack of oxygen.

However, Gary said that in recent years, the Hudson River’s watershed has been drier amid changing climate conditions, which translated into lower flow rates.

Stormer said that in order for the juvenile striped bass to thrive, they need to be in a good nursery habitat — the area where they spend their youth — where they can escape from the predators and find food. But he said the fish tend to seek out tributaries of the Hudson with warmer, more stagnant water, then have a harder time thriving.

Stormer said old dams at those tributaries keep juvenile fish from reaching safer habitats, and fragment the natural flows of the Hudson overall. Riverkeeper has been working for years to remove dams throughout the region.

Stormer also said rising temperatures, beginning earlier in the year, may also give striped bass less time to spawn in a comfortable environment.

But Gary, from the DEC, said the dams aren’t affecting the flow rate meaningfully, and that striped bass do not travel far enough up-river for dams to interfere with where the bass lay their eggs.

At the DEC’s urging, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission — a partnership among states to manage fishery resources — formed a working group earlier this year to examine the reproduction problem, ahead of the next population assessment in 2027. The group will make recommendations for how to update the a conservation program known as the Interstate Fishery Management Plan, considering the potential impacts of hatchery stocking, ways other river systems may contribute to the stock, the role of invasive species and other factors.

Vatthanavong still has hope the situation for baby striped bass may improve. DEP officials say New York’s waters are the cleanest they’ve been in 150 years because of environmental protections. And Vatthanavong noticed some other marine life seeming to make a comeback in New York City’s waters.

“I’ve seen dolphins not too long ago,” he said. “I know it sounds unbelievable, but it was in Coney Island. I'm 29. That's the first time I’ve ever seen dolphins in my life.”