I've worked quite a bit with white bass (sand bass), and have heard quite a bit about stripers (although I haven't worked with them as much). Let me see if I can add a little to this discussion.
White bass have a heavy, sticky egg. Thus, they run up the streams above reservoirs, and like to spawn on gravel areas that are kept clean by the current. Being sticky and heavy, the eggs stay in the clean riffle, and the eggs don't "smother." Eggs actually need a little oxygen. I don�t think it�s as much as newly hatched fry, but they still need a little oxygen available to cross the egg membrane and support the developing fry inside. White bass occasionally spawn in lakes or reservoirs. Generally, this happens where there is a wave-washed point that has clean, gravelly substrate. I think that stream/river spawning is a lot more common than in-lake spawning.
As Shawn said earlier, striped bass have an egg that is just slightly heavier than neutral buoyancy. Also, the eggs are not sticky. The original, east coast striped bass spawned in freshwater rivers and then grew in the ocean. The eggs are spawned in river current, and they develop as they are carried downstream. If the eggs were heavy, they would settle in the mucky bottom of pools and other still-water areas and smother. Thus, the nearly neutral buoyancy eggs hatch as they are carried down the river. Someone mentioned the Lake Texoma (OK-TX border) striped bass, which naturally reproduce in the inflowing river. The stripers run upstream, and the eggs hatch as they float back downstream. I assume that Bob Lusk knows more about this population than the rest of us. I�ve only worked once on Lake Texoma. Shawn and I discussed the natural reproduction of stripers in Lake Powell via e-mail a couple of days ago. This is a steep-sided, infertile desert canyon reservoir. My former professor, Steve Flickinger, told me that the stripers actually spawn in the canyons there. The stripers gather in groups and spawn in the reservoir (not the river), and the eggs are just slightly heavier than neutral buoyancy. Thus, they develop as they very slowly sink, and they hatch before they hit the bottom. Apparently, some of those canyon walls are 60-100 feet vertically. If the eggs hit bottom, they�d probably smother. However, they hatch before they sink that far. I don�t have any personal experience with this cool scenario, but I sure trust the source of information.
Now, that brings us to the purposeful hybrid striped bass (wipers, sunshine bass, etc.). One of the �old wive�s tales� is that all hybrids are sterile. Not necessarily true!! The eggs of female hybrids are in between the two parents. Thus, if the hybrids run up a stream and try to spawn on gravel riffles, the eggs are not sticky enough. They don�t stay there, but roll down into the pool below and mostly smother. If they try to run up a big river and spawn, like stripers, the eggs are a little too heavy. They settle to the bottom in still water, and likely smother. So, there is sort of a �functional� sterility. However, the male hybrids can run with female white bass up to a riffle, or with female striped bass up a big river. The sperm from the males can fertilize the eggs of both parental female types, and thus cause some genetic concerns over native populations of the two parents.
Whew, another long-winded story!!
Dave
