Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 11, 1990 TAG: 9003122758
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Even so, for an avid trout angler, it can seem ages in coming.
Especially this season. Warm weather in February put everything from Bradford pear trees to fishing fever weeks ahead of time.
There are other things, too, for fishermen to get excited about as Saturday's opening day approaches.
Stockings are up. Stream flows are up. Little wonder enthusiasm also is up.
"The fishing prospects for this spring are excellent," said David Whitehurst, chief of the fish division of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
After the decade of the '80s, when the number of fish stocked tended to decline from season to season, or hold its own at best, this year fish officials say they will be stocking 15 percent more trout into streams.
"The number of fish is going to be up, but I stress this is not something we can do every year," said Whitehurst, who became state fish chief earlier this year.
Calling it "a one-time shot," he said the extra fish are from two basic sources. Some were left over from last fall's planned stockings when the weather turned so nasty hatchery trucks had a tough time reaching streams.
Others come as a result of a new stocking formula initiated this year. Officials have revised their system that determines how many fish a stream merits according to factors like its size, quality and location. That is putting a higher number of trout into most streams.
Some of the streams getting more fish already have above-average numbers of trout finning about in them, carryovers from last season, Whitehurst said. They went uncaught when fewer fishermen turned out to cast for fall-stocked trout than was anticipated.
"These fish should be semi-wild. They should have good size on them," Whitehurst said.
For the first time in recent memory, dry weather wasn't a problem any time during the past season, a trend that has carried over into the new year.
"The streams are in excellent condition at this time," said Whitehurst. "We don't know what the weather will look like on opening day, but everything else is very positive."
Fish officials plan to make the secret in-season stockings, begun last year, even more secret this time. There will be no master stocking list that can escape and be multiplied on copy machines across the state, said Whitehurst. The in-season stockings, which begin immediately after opening day and continue through June 1, will be decided weekly, and the list of streams that have been stocked won't reach the media until the last fish of the week is dumped into the water.
The idea isn't to play games with fishermen, Whitehurst said. Secret stockings are done to keep down the kind of crowds that can be bothersome to landowners, and to make trout angling more sporty.
"Some people don't feel like they can catch fish unless they are casting right behind the hatchery truck," Whitehurst said.
The secret stockings are designed to break that trend, to send people to streams with the kind of enthusiasm that comes from knowing that no matter when they arrive there should be quality fishing available.
The fall stockings, carried out in mid-October and early December last year, are scheduled to be continue, even through fewer anglers turned out last autumn than had been predicted.
Very few steams have been added or deleted from this season's stocking list. Some exceptions:
Big Ivy Creek in Patrick County won't be stocked because of a change in land ownership.
The Middle Fork of Powell River is off the stocking schedule due to pollution problems, something fish officials expect to be cleaned up by another season. Other Wise County changes include the dropping of Mountain Fork and Burns Creek, because under the new stocking formula they are deemed too small to receive trout.
Swift Run in Greene County won't be stocked, nor will Cedar Creek in Shenandoah County.
A new 3-mile stretch of the Bullpasture River has been added to the trout program. It is located north of McDowell, about 15-miles upstream from the Highland County section that has received fish for a number of years.
Fishermen should begin to notice an increase in brown trout stockings, a trend fanned by the fact that state officials believe this species survives better in marginal trout water than the brook trout.
The number of browns stocked the past 10 years has more than doubled. Last season, for the first time, browns surpassed brook trout. The rainbow trout remains king of the program.
Memo: Outdoors-Trout