Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides is arguably the most popular sport fish of inland waters in the United States. The majority of anglers in the fishery practice catch and release. Catch-and-release guidelines aim to reduce negative impacts of angling on individual fish, though such impacts on populations are not widely reported. We hypothesized that a decline in the population size for Largemouth Bass from a catch-and-release fishery from the Potomac River resulted from a period of greater fishing mortality followed by habitat loss that reduced the recovery of the population. After we analyzed several years of fishery-dependent and independent data (1999–2015), it was determined that fishing mortality and relative exploitation were greater than average in the latter half of the 2000s than in previous years. Fishery-independent survey results suggested a loss of large fish and decline in population size. The relative abundance of juveniles subsequently declined possibly because the area of submerged aquatic vegetation used as nursery habitat had declined after tropical storms. For management purposes, we suggest that fishing mortality not exceed 28% for a sustainable fishery (assuming similar levels of natural mortality) in the Potomac River. Negative impacts to Largemouth Bass populations could be lessened by reduced harvest and widespread enforcement of catch-and-release guidelines, especially during times when angler effort is high, fish are highly accessible to anglers in the fishery, and habitat loss limits recruitment.

Detectability, the probability of encountering a species at a sampling site, is often overlooked in fisheries research despite its potential to obscure inferences on habitat use and lead to biased estimates of abundance. We used occupancy models to explore factors affecting detectability and occupancy (Ψ), the probability that a species inhabits a site, for three fishes frequently captured in Chesapeake Bay seine surveys: young‐of‐the‐year (age‐0) striped bass Morone saxatilis, yearling Atlantic croaker Micropogonias undulatus, and spottail shiner Notropis hudsonius. Twelve repeat‐sampling events occurred during the summers of 2008 and 2009 at 20 sites in the Mattaponi and Pamunkey rivers, Virginia. Although the environmental factors that influenced detection probabilities varied with species, the detectability of all species was positively related to effective net length (i.e., the maximum distance from shore that the seine was deployed). The mean detectability of age‐0 striped bass, which occupied nearly every site (Ψ = 0.99, SE = 0.01), was 0.62 (SE = 0.06) and positively related to mean water temperature during sampling. The detectability of yearling Atlantic croakers was negatively related to water temperature at time of capture and was significantly greater in early summer than in late summer. In early summer, Atlantic croakers occupied all sampling sites; occupancy decreased in late summer (Ψ = 0.86, SE = 0.08) and was positively related to the mean salinity at the site. Unlike with Atlantic croakers, the mean detectability of spottail shiners was significantly greater in late summer than in early summer; detectability was positively related to turbidity at the time of sampling and reflected the increased availability of recently recruited individuals. Spottail shiners occupied fewer sites than did the two other species (Ψ = 0.59, SE = 0.21). Seasonal changes in detectability appeared to reflect changes in catchability associated with fish growth. Determining factors that influence detection probabilities is vital to improving our understanding of habitat use by fish and reducing the variation in fisheries sampling.

) to evaluate spatial and temporal differences in ichthyoplankton catches. Larval fish assemblages were represented by 11 species. The most abundant larvae included American eel Anguilla rostrata, summer flounder Paralichthys dentatus, and spot Leiostomus xanthurus. Common larval fishes did not differ in number between northern and southern inlets that provide access between Chincoteague Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, but did differ among years and between seasons. Wind angle and offshore water temperature were predictive of ingress for some species, but patterns were not strong. Canonical correspondence analyses of ichthyoplankton assemblage data indicated that ingress was better predicted by season and year rather than specific environmental variables (e.g. offshore water temperature, moon phase, wind angle). Seasonal patterns in larval fish ingress were consistent with those from other coastal lagoon networks along the eastern USA seaboard. Preliminary work suggests that interannual variation in larval fish abundance was generally related to juvenile fish abundance. We encourage more efforts aimed at larval fish monitoring, which may serve as a relatively inexpensive method for addressing larger spatio-temporal scale questions about fish recruitment. KEY WORDS: Environment · Coastal bay · Inlet · Recruitment · Marine · EstuaryResale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisher Mar Ecol Prog Ser 377: 203-212, 2009 Along the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia a number of fishes use estuaries as nurseries (Casey & Wesche 2001), including species that are recreationally valuable (e.g. summer flounder Paralichthys dentatus L.), commercially valuable (e.g. Atlantic menhaden Brevoortia tyrannus (Latrobe)), and ecologically valuable (e.g. Bay anchovy Anchoa mitchilli (Cuvier & Valenciennes)). Despite their potential value as nurseries for Atlantic coastal stocks, no work has been published on the use of the coastal lagoons of Maryland and Virginia (hereafter, the coastal lagoons) by larval fishes. Larval fish studies of the coastal lagoons also fill an important geographic data gap between more northerly and southerly inlets with the longest running larval fish monitoring programs on the eastern coast of the USA (Little Egg Inlet, New Jersey and Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina) (Hettler & Hare 1998.The objectives of our study were (1) to determine the abundance and species of larval fish entering the largest coastal estuary of Maryland and Virginia, Chincoteague Bay, (2) to determine if larval fish densities differ between seasons (November to January; February to April), among years (2004 to 2007), or between 2 inlets of Chincoteague Bay, (3) to determine if measured climatic and habitat variables were significantly related to composition of ichthyoplankton entering Chincoteague Bay, and (4) to provide preliminary results on how larval densities and environmental conditions affected juvenile abundance in 3 years for 3 species of fish: Atlantic croaker Micropogonias undulatus (L.), spot...

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