Some, however, ride out the cold months in systems where they do not reproduce, including the Housatonic and Connecticut Rivers in Connecticut and Scortons Creek on Cape Cod. Judging from fishermen’s catches, none of these hold anywhere near the sheer numbers of the upper Thames River in Connecticut, home to an unusual aggregation of wintering striped bass long known to fishermen but not to scientists.

Mike Bednarski, a Queens College graduate student and an avid angler, tried to tackle this striped bass riddle.