Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 27, 1990 TAG: 9003272006
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Cochran
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The anglers who watched the weigh-in, or who heard about it later, also were agape when the single-day, limit-catch tipped the scales just past the 32-pound mark.
That's better than a 3-pound average! That's Smith Mountain Lake?
The 20,000-acre lake, which has gained a national reputation as a striped bass hot spot, has made a major turn back toward its first love - black bass. It has occurred slowly and quietly, and that's why the Hunzikers' catch created such a stir.
Now some people are predicting that it will take a minimum of 40 pounds of bass to win the BASS Federation National Championship scheduled on the lake June 28-30.
The 1980s were kind to largemouth and smallmouth bass in Smith Mountain. Virtually every year produced a well-above-average spawn: 1980, '82, '83, '86, '87, '88 and '89. The class of '85 wasn't all that bad. Last year's reproduction and survival was the best on record, according to data going back to 1973.
"When you start looking at what we are finding in our samples and what people are catching out there, we probably are back at the peak, like people tell me it was in the early to mid-70s," said A.L. LaRoche. He is the supervising fish biologist who manages the lake's fishery for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Why the string of good spawns? A number of factors could be playing a role, including the weather, a more restrictive size and catch limit and the fact that the superb striped bass fishing has helped remove some of the pressure from black bass.
What may count most of all, LaRoche says, is the catch-and-release ethic that has become ingrained in serious bass fishermen.
"Most people are just putting them back," he said. "Catch-and-release leaves more larger fish in the lake. Certainly the more larger fish you have, the better the chance for a good spawn."
LaRoche would like to see striped bass fishermen go one better than the friends of black bass. He is promoting "no cull" striper fishing: Catch your two-fish limit and quit fishing. You don't chance hurting additional stripers through catch and release.
"You hear occasionally about people going out and catching 15 or 20 striped bass. Of course, they only can keep two, if they keep any at all, so they let most of those go. During the summertime, in the hot weather, how many of those survive?" he asks.
Then he answers his own question: "They just can't hold up like black bass do."
LaRoche admits that he isn't certain how much a no-cull philosophy could improve the lake's striped bass fishing, but he knows one thing: "It can't do anything but help."
The fruits of catch-and-release fishing are slow in maturing, said LaRoche. It probably was a 10- or 15-year progression before benefits to black bass where obvious.
"It won't happen overnight for striped bass, either," he said of no-cull fishing. "But hopefully it will happen, because we get tremendous amounts of pressure out there with all the publicity on Smith Mountain."
Now that the spotlight is returning to the black bass, will the renewed publicity and pressure gnaw into the swelling population of the species?
There's that chance, said LaRoche, but he believes catch-and-release will help prevent a major down cycle. This doesn't mean that the black bass population will keep on climbing. It may be nearing its peak, but it should hang in there pretty tough if fishermen take care of it.
Now, he said, a new tonic is needed for striped bass.
by CNB