Hatchery-reared fingerlings of striped bass Morone saxatilis were tagged, stocked, and recovered in the Patuxent River, Maryland, to estimate their survival and abundance relative to wild young of the year and to compare the costs and benefits of stocking phase-I (35–50 mm, total length) and phase-II (150–200 mm) fish. About 100,000 phase-I fingerlings were tagged and released each year during midsummer 1988 and 1989. Both tagged and untagged (wild) young of the year were recovered by alongshore seining in the river through 80 d poststocking. Mortality rates of wild and hatchery-reared young of the year were not significantly different-about 3%/d. Wild young of the year were more abundant in 1989 than in 1988. In 1988, phase-I fingerlings composed 56% of all young-of-the-year striped bass in the river. In 1989 wild young-of-the-year striped bass outnumbered hatchery-reared fingerlings by about 11 to 1. Whether phase-I or phase-II stocking was more cost-effective depended on the relative magnitudes of fingerling survival and on hatchery production costs. The range of phase-II survival (5–50%) observed among different hatcheries and years of production was too broad to support generalizations about cost-effectiveness, given the fivefold difference in the unit costs of phase-I and phase-II production.
