Maryland’s juvenile rockfish count below average for fourth year, but state says there’s no need to panic

BALTIMORE — For the fourth straight year, juvenile rockfish numbers in Maryland waters were well below the historical average, according to a survey conducted by the state Department of Natural Resources.

Researchers, who visited 22 different spawning areas in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries this year, caught an average of 3.6 recently hatched rockfish per sample, slightly more than last year’s 3.2.

But the longtime average for the survey, called the young-of-the-year index, is 11.3.