841 North American Journal of Fisheries Management 20:841–859, 2000  Copyright by the American Fisheries Society 2000 A Model Analysis of Strategies for Enhancing Stocking Success of Landlocked Striped Bass Populations TRENT M. SUTTON* 1 Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA KENNETH A. ROSE Coastal Fisheries Institute and Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA JOHN J. NEY Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA Abstract.—Poor first-year winter survival of stocked fingerling striped bass Morone saxatilis, resulting from slow summer growth and small body size in the fall, has limited the sport fishery of Smith Mountain Lake,Virginia. We used an individual-based model to examine different strat- egies for improving the success of the striped bass stocking program. For two spatially explicit compartments (littoral and pelagic zones) assigned for Smith Mountain Lake, the model simulates daily movement, consumption, growth, and mortality of juvenile striped bass from the time of stocking in early summer until 1 May of the next year. Model predictions of fish prey consumption, predator–prey size relationships, first-year survival, and fall versus spring length-frequency dis- tributions were similar to observed data. Simulations were conducted to examine the effects of fingerling size, stocking density, and day of year at introduction on first-year growth, survival, and recruitment to age 1 and to determine the sensitivity and robustness of the proposed versus the existing stocking strategy to interannual variation in the population dynamics of alewife Alosa pseudoharengus and water temperature regimes. Results indicated that stocking striped bass at a median total length of 52 mm on 8 June (rather than 42 mm on 15 June as is presently done) and maintaining the current stocking density at 300,000 fingerlings would result in the largest percent increases in first-year growth, survival, and the number of age-1 recruits. Sensitivity-analysis results indicated that those factors influencing predator–prey size relationships (e.g., timing of alewife spawning, age-0 alewife growth rate, and water temperature) resulted in the largest per- centage changes among model prediction variables for all stocking strategies. For these simulations, the proposed stocking strategy was always more robust to variations in alewife population dynamics and water temperature regimes than the existing stocking strategy. The stocking of striped bass Morone saxatilis into southern U.S. lakes and reservoirs has con- tributed substantially to the pelagic sport fishery in these systems (Axon and Whitehurst 1985). Be- cause inland bodies of water often lack suitable spawning habitat for striped bass, populations are maintained through the annual stocking of finger- lings. Smith Mountain Lake, an 8,343-ha hydro- electric impoundment in south-central Virginia, typifies other freshwater impoundments in which striped bass populations are maintained strictly on a put-grow-take basis. Annual stockings since * Corresponding author: tsutton@gw.lssu.edu. 1 Present address: Aquatic Research Laboratory and Department of Biology, Lake Superior State University, Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan 49783, USA. Received October 18, 1999; accepted May 19, 2000 1964 have led to the development of an excep- tional trophy fishery, displaying growth and har- vest rates among the highest reported for land- locked populations (Hart 1978). However, the number of stocked fingerlings and survival to age 1 varied inversely from 1973 to 83 (Moore et al. 1991). As a result, stocking density was reduced and has ranged from 200,000–400,000 fingerlings since 1984. Despite this modification, the inverse relationship still persists and first-year survival re- mains low, averaging 25% (range 12–40%; Sutton 1997). Van Den Avyle and Higginbotham (1980) re- ported that density of stocked fingerling striped bass and first-year survival were inversely related in Watts Bar Reservoir, Tennessee. Although the authors could not determine the cause of the em- pirical relationship, they believe that size at stock-